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22" 9.2-Million Pixel Display

Posted by timothy on from the can't-even-count-that-high dept.

chrisd writes: "Just noticed this article over on Yahoo news. It described a research project that Intel and Stanford university developed that concentrated on next-gen displays. The result? A 22 inch display that displays 9.2 million pixels (they use the odious 'megapixel' descriptor in the article), needs 16 processors and 2 GB of ram to run it and costs $200,000US. So it's a little spendy. This is a big step up from my first 12" amber screen though, that's for sure." Ah, the march of progress ... I'm happy with anything that will help drive down the cost of 17" and 18.1" LCD displays, no matter how indirectly.

6 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. So... by nakaduct · · Score: 5

    Where do I get 9.2 megapixel porn?

    What's that you say? It doesn't exist? Well, what's this contraption good for then?

    cheers,
    mike

  2. Stanford project page by Ryu2 · · Score: 5
    is here, known as the FLASH graphics system. I worked closely with those folks, not on FLASH itself, but on an ancillary project to visualize various parts and parameters of the computer system (bus utilization, cache latency, etc).

    Very cool stuff that's just starting to get commercialized -- this is what you'll be seeing in your GeForce 4s or whatever.

    --
    There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
  3. Re:Megapixel by istartedi · · Score: 5

    It's annoying to those of us who realize that the "megapixel" number rises faster than the dimensions of the display. The dimensions are linear, and increase linearly. The megapixel number is a product, and thus increases at a rate proportional to the square. It's pure marketspeak and psychological manipulation. They figured that idiots would go "ooooohhh look at all those megapixels". Meanwhile, those of us who know better have to guess the aspect ratio, and back it out to find out what we really want to know.

    The display in question, were it square, would be roughly 3033 pixels on a side because that's the square root of 9.2 million.

    Now... what's the aspect ratio... umm... the article doesn't say. So... Let's say the horizontal resolution is 4096, then the vertical could be 2246. 4096*2249=9199616. Close enough for government work.... But... We just don't know. That, my fellow Slashdotter, is why "megapixel" is annoying.


    "Hoarders... cannot help their neighbors" --RMS
    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  4. Comparison with apple 22" cinema display by Coulson · · Score: 5
    For comparison, Apple's 22" Cinema display, the best consumer flat-panel on the market (it's gorgeous!), has only 1600x1024 pixels, or 1.5 megapixels.... then again, the cinema display only requires 1 CPU, and costs about $2500.

    One of the largest problems facing manufacturers of large-dimension LCD screens is the high rate of failure during the manufacturing process. This means that each batch of fabricated monitors yields a low number of functional units, driving up the cost per unit. I wonder how the researchers were able to combat this, while at the same time increasing the pixel density by 7x?

    Can someone who's more familiar with the industry give approximate numbers on the failure rate of LCD manufacturing? Are we talking 1 bad screen in 20, 1 bad in 2000, or...?

    1. Re:Comparison with apple 22" cinema display by MOSSey0T0 · · Score: 5

      LCD manufacturing yields must be over 40% in order to make a profit. Volume is generally not a problem because most of the existing fabs are overbooked. The recent introduction of Taiwanese manufacturers into the Japanese dominanted LCD manufacturing industry was seen as being sucessful (read: profitable) when they reported yields of 50%. Japanese manufacturers typically produce devices at 70% yield efficiency. Since the glass substrates used to produce LCD devices are a little under a metre squared (600*700 mm), a single substrate should be able to produce 4 17" screens or 6 14" screens. It is generally accepted that LCD yields will never approach IC yields, which are typically around 90%. The upper theoretical limit for conventional LCD production is probably something like 80%.

      A 1 in 20 failure rate would be a 95% yield. So, in short, we're looking at a 3 in 10 failure rate in real life with a 70% yield.


      If you want to read the rest of my long-winded post, go on. If you've had enough, I suggest you go play your favorite video game.


      People don't realize how complex an LCD is. The traditional example is two glass substrates surrounding a layer containing the liquid crystals, which is itself sandwiched between two polarized layers. Then there is a backlight and an active matrix of transistors used to address each pixel. Because contaminants will kill pixels in the display, this layer must be filled under ultra-clean, high vacuum conditions. The glass substrates (AND every single layer of the LCD)must be manufactured to precise planar dimensions to prevent dimensional variations across the screen. Since larger substrates approach a square metre in size, this is not an easy task. Advanced LCD technology has taken advantage of polymer coatings on each layer to separate them, prevent contamination, act as internal reflectors, etc. This adds more layers, and adds more complexity to the process.

      The active matrix of transistors itself consists of a grid which is vapour deposited under ultra-high vacuum. This layer consists of at least three layers itself: anode, cathode, and at least one active layer, since active matrix LCD screens rely on field effect to twist the LCDs.

      Perhaps it is not evident to the reader that high vacuum and fast manufacturing processes don't exactly mix. Even if you achieve vacuum, you are basically racing against time to complete your manufacturing/analysis before residual impurities hopelessly contaminate what you are working on.

      This is why plasma and OLED displays (hopefully soon to be my research topic) are being pumped up with research dollars. The accepted theoretical limit (economically) for current LCD active matrix displays is 30", and the market is clearly looking towards very massive wall-mounted units in the future. LCD will probably dominate the POS, business and computing display markets as people become more enamoured with flat panel units, but due to sheer complexity, I think it's only a matter of time before they are eclipsed by either OLEDs or plasma.

      This is long. whew. sorry, guys. pixel density was increased as a function of more efficient transistor drives for each LCD cell. It's relatively easy to pattern pixel densities that small (look at CRT monitors), but with better field effect transistors, the ghosting and cross talk present in early displays was eliminated. This was accomplished by adoption of amorphous silicon in the transistor layer as opposed to the original CdSe thin films. That in turn was enabled through advances in physical and chemical vapour deposition which allows manufacturers to pattern the transistor matrix more precisely.

      That's the best I can do right now. I mainly regard LCD wrt to comparisons with OLEDs, which I am more familiar with, so I apologize for any screw-ups in here.

  5. Superman said... by been42 · · Score: 5

    If you can somehow trick them into saying "mexapixel" backward, they'll be sent back to their own dimension. Maybe we can grab their $200,000 display as they're fading away!

    Them: "Lexipaxem...Oh, crap!"
    Us (grabbing display): "See you at the pawn shop...SUCKER!"