Greyscales pave way to zero power colour displays

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jul 3, 2003

ZBD Displays reckons it is firmly on the route to colour displays which use zero power between updates, having demonstrated four error-free analogue grey levels.

ZBD Displays reckons it is firmly on the route to colour displays which use zero power between updates, having demonstrated four error-free analogue grey levels.

ZBD's latest demonstrator is constructed to provide greyscale to an excellent degree of clarity by varying the shape of its proprietary grating within each individual pixel.

Unlike other bistable displays, such as bistable twisted nematic, electrophoretic inks and cholesteric displays, the production of greyscale on a ZBD display begins at the design stage when the grating is put down, resulting in reproducible greys at no additional cost.

In addition, ZBD displays are suitable for use with commercial off-the-shelf display drivers.

As a result, ZBD is paving the way to colour displays that rival TFT displays' front-of-screen performance at considerably lower cost and power.

ZBD displays also have the advantage of being able to leverage all the technological advances made in other LCD technologies, including brightness enhancement, electronics and colour filters.

Henri-Luc Martin, CEO of ZBD Displays, comments: "This is an extremely exciting time for ZBD.

The development of the greyscale demonstrator shows the capabilities of our technology to offer both greyscale and eventually colour".

Martin continues: "An essential part of producing colour displays is the achievement of sufficient greyscale.

Because ZBD is a bistable technology in which there are two stable orientations for the liquid crystal molecules many people mistakenly believe that the technology is only capable of producing black and white displays.

We have proven that this is not the case".

Martin adds, "The path to greyscale and colour is essential to match the requirements of e-books, electronic readers, shelf-edge labels, PDAs, mobile phones and smart watches".