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Cold CRT Guns for Thinner CRTs
Fly writes: "According to EETimes, an Austin startup company is close to producing CRTs with cold-emission electron guns. They claim this will reduce the parts needed for electron guns as well as allow for greater control and deflection of the electron beams leading to thinner CRTs. Their technology uses older chip-manufacturing techniquest to deposit diamond tips for the guns on silicon wafers. They hope to enter the CRT market next year."
Are these going to be more energy efficient than regular CRTs? I don't really care about space, but I hate how much electricity a regular monitor wastes
CRT monitors no matter how small are still big, clunky, and waist energy. They also contain lead, which is banned from landfills. LCD and TFT monitors will take over the market simply because they are better for the sellers as for the buyers, Smaller size cheaper to store, cheaper to ship. IMHO this company has a few merits but is beating a dead horse.
Just Limin' Mon
They are getting cheaper everyday almost... and if it's just "thinner" than normal CRTs it could well be just a cenntimeter thinner...
I don't think this will "save" CRTs in the long run
I have reed an article an year ago about these screens, if they get them to work they should be really cool.
They have almost all advantages of TFTs but have also almost all advantages of CRTs. They are very flat like a TFT, but have no problems with the viewing angle, smearing or bad color display. They need more power than a TFT so they shouldn't be suitable as a replacement of a laptop tft. They also shouldn't have any pixel faults because for every pixel there are many nano electron guns, so if one of these breaks down it doesn't matter. They should be cheaper to produce than a TFT because the process is more fault tolerant.
One of the biggest problems in the development of these things is that there isn't that much room between the electron emiter and the phosphorus, because of that they couldn't speedup the electron to the same speeds they get in a normal CRT and need to find new low-energy phosphoruses.
Jan
I usually don't get into things that don't go into my PC case. To me these things are all extras. I could care less if I use a TV as a monitor.
But, can we expect cheaper monitors out of this deal? For many of us a good LCD isn't an answer. And if you want a 17 or 19 inch LCD - you better sell your PC!
Maybe when my Proview [ouch!] dies I'll be able to get a 'cool' looking Cold CRT?
Let's hear from the experts.
--
Get your Unix fortune now!
While it may be lower cost (for the gun) and higher quality, I bet the first ones we see will be more expensive. I've got a Sony Trinitron 21" in front of my face right now. I also have a Dell Laptop whos LCD can do 1600x1200. The SOny monitor pales in comparison. The monitor (and the one I previously used at work) have not done great things for my eyes, due to their slight bluring at super high resolutions. My eyesight has improved since I started using primarily my LCD/Laptop. It would be nice to see what kind of quality gain is possible with this. I would be willing to upgrade my hot 21" to a cold 21" if the sharpness is much better.
This sounds like a cool technology.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Shouldn't OLED based monitors be out sometime within the very near future? I am not yet convinced that conventional TFT panels are up to the quality of a good Viewsonic or Sony CRT, but OLED sounds like it will be the cat's a$$ for much less. Cold CRT is a great idea, but perhaps a little bit too late.
tinfoilmedia
You guys mean that i will be actually able to carry that 21in monitor all by myself - hoorray no more asking the school bully :)
Extreme Devices received what Kalar called "a godsend" when LG Electronics decided to close the former Zenith CRT manufacturing facility in Melrose Park, Ill., in October 1998, the same time that Extreme Devices was staffing up.
We can expect displays that will be encased in a big wood console.
With the poor quality of Active Maxtrix (XGA) and LCDs (when I say poor, I mean poor for certain applications) this is nice for us CRT loving folk.
I have a nice Gateway 9500 series laptop with a 15.7" LCD on it. It's great, I will quite often stare at it for hours reading e-books and no fatigue whatsover.
While these LCDs are great for office applications, and text publishing, CRTs will continue to shine for computer gaming, and gfx publishing.
Lighter, smaller, and better looking CRTs are going to be great, now I can realistically tote a 19" monitor to the next LAN party.
A cold electron gun has some other benefits as well. Historically, the biggest problem with making monitor screens truly flat (no warping at the corners) was that the front material needs to be incredibly strong. Screens were rounded slightly to keep them from breaking due to the forces of the vacuum behind them. As screens grew larger and the depth of the monitor increased (in order to let the electron gun get the necessary width) screens had to be stronger. The premium for flat screens is still a couple hundred dollars more than their conventional counterparts.
By having a cold electron gun that allows wider dispersion angles, you can reduce the depth of the monitor, and thereby reduce the strength required from the front screen material.
That got me thinking. Currently, all CRT's have one set of electron guns at the center of the screen. Would it be possible to partition the screen into, say, four areas, each of which is painted by it's own set of guns.
This would have many advantages. Displays could be thinner, larger screens with higher resolution could be made, and (possibly) less energy would be required since the electrons from the guns would not have to fly nearly as far.
It seems the only tricky part would be getting the borders of adjacent areas to line up properly.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Folks,
While the new LCD flat-panel displays are dropping in price, you still have to deal with three issues: 1) screen blurring on very fast motion (though this has gotten way better in the last year or so), 2) LCD's are optimized for one display resolution and 3) they're still fairly expensive (especially now with 19" CRT monitors now under US$200 in price).
Given the CRT monitors maintain their sharpness from 640x680 all the way up to 1600x1200 and beyond (depending on the dot pitch of the monitor) and can run at 85 Hz vertical refresh rate for true flicker-free viewing, I think they're still preferred for serious imaging processing work. The new very-low profile CRT's using this new technology will allow 17" to 21" monitors have less physical depth than even the old 14" monitors from way back, which means more room saved on your desk.
I think this company may license the technology to Samsung or LG Electronics, both of which now make excellent monitors at reasonable prices. Samsung could have a huge winner right here with high-resolution CRT monitors that have half the depth of their predecessors.
What will warm my room then?
Nothing like four CRTs to light and warm your room on a long and cold winter night...
I wonder if this will reduce EF emmisions, and in turn reduce the possibility of van Eck phreaking?
;-)
Just a thought for the incredibally security paranoid
--
Patrick Cable II
CRT emits light, doesn't have to worry about latency and visual memory causing ghosting (a problem, I've heard, with TFT and OLED). CRTs also handle colors better. Some of the comparisons and an overview of LCD technology are at ZDNet and ErgoDynamix
Oil of Wormwood: because absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.
The problem is that, at least with computer screens crt really is a dead tech, Apple have even gone to the point of ditching crt for lcd's in their range. While the things will be around for years, development on them has all but stopped in favour of lcd, For one simple reasion: Everyone who need a crt has already got one and people are not going to buy a new crt when they could get an lcd (this is john q public we're talking about)
This company has done the equivant of inventing a slightly better video player when the world runs on DVD.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
Personally, I'm waiting for this one.
I think you may have two articles conflated.
This one seems to be talking about using a diamond "forest" of cold emitters to replace the heated-cathode in a conventional electron gun, then deflecting the beam in the standard fashion, leading to an ordinary rectangular-cone CRT (but with no heater and instant-on).
You seem to be referring to another approach that was to use cold-emitters (which would also benefit from this breakthrough.):
The display consisted of a (glass) honeycomb of short individual "tubes".
Each "tube" had a single emitter "spike" (substitute "small forest") at the base.
A control electrode near the emitter (maybe substitute one per emitter in the "forest") switched it on/off and modulated the beam intensity. The voltage is near the cathode's and the voltage swing is just a couple volts, so you can use conventional transistor electronics.
(You can actually use two or more electrodes to do a matrix address and beam modulation, with the voltage gradient at the emitter tip or a space charge near it performing the computation so you don't need a separate switch per-pixel.)
The beam was accellerated along the narrow channel - the front portion of which contained an accelleration electrode with a constant high voltage - similar to a normal CRT. Difference: The beam could be bounced repeatedly between the channel walls, picking up additional electrodes by secondary emission.
The beam strikes a single phosphor dot at the end of the channel.
So you end up with something that can be fabricated (except for the cathode spike and maybe the modulation electrodes) by glass molding, vapor deposition of electrode metal, and micropipette phosphor-solution placement, and driven by essentially the same chips that run an LCD plus a single, unmodulated, high-voltage supply. The tubes are very short and the honeycomb of glass separating the individual tubes also supports the front screen, so you don't need thick heavy glass to fight 15 PSI of atmospheric pressure across more than a foot of unsupported span. Pixel placement is controlled by fabrication, so there's no sensitivity to local magnetic fields, no geometry adjustment. Of course in addition to no need to heat the cathodes there's no need to power and rapidly modulate an enormous magnetic deflection field.
And this new article tells you why we don't yet have either the cold-emission conventional CRT or the honeycomb flat-panel CRT: Positive ions from any impurities in the vacuum or kicked off the target or the sides of the channel are accellerated back toward the gun, slamming into the tip(s) and rapidly eroding it. RCA had a patent on field emission vacuum tubes but didn't feel like pursuing the technology with materials research. So the whole filed languished.
One of the biggest problems in the development of these things is that there isn't that much room between the electron emiter and the phosphorus, because of that they couldn't speedup the electron to the same speeds they get in a normal CRT and need to find new low-energy phosphoruses.
Huh? Space shouldn't be an issue. The final velocity of the electron only depends on the accelleration voltage, not the length of the path. The path only needs to be long enough to prevent arc-over along the surface of the glass (or in any residual gas in the "vacuum"), and that's a fraction of an inch.
With a conventional tube the voltage gradient also has to be low enough that the electrodes don't bend out of place. But that limit would be MUCH higher with the electrodes plated onto a glass surface or supported by the walls of a pixel-wide glass honeycomb cell, rather than by mica spacers and thin copper wire.
I expect the conventional-CRT style to come out first. It's only being held back by the RCA patent that just expired. The flat-panel might take longer, due to other patents, the need to build a "wafer" the size of the screen rather than the size of an electron-gun cathode, and possibly worse problems with tip erosion due to the limited number of tips per pixel.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Part of this was the close down of many manufacturing sectors in the USA. Most TV makers are now non-US, or are US in name only, for example
I know of several folks who will rant at the drop of a hat on this subject alone.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Patent application in 1974, thus no reseach until the patent has expired.
Aren't patents supposed to promote research?
hot CRTs waste energy ... they don't require any actual heating for operation, and I doubt (though I don't know) that they'll even get warm in operation.
The CRT's heater wastes some energy. But most of the energy consumed in a monitor is the energy dumped when the magnetic deflection field "flys back" at the end of each horizontal scan line. Some of this is recycled - into the accelleration high-voltage supply or even powering the CRT's heater - but most is just dumped as waste heat.
This is just a replacement electron gun, so it won't do anything about the deflection power waste. But see my other posting and its parent here.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The only flatpanel displays that look as good as a CRT to me are extreamly expensive. All the ones that are of lower cost have that wacky ghosting effect, not as bad as the old dual scan LCD displays, but it's there when playing higher framerate games..
That was recently solved - by remembering the previous frame and computing a voltage that would rapidly force the liquid crystal to the correct transparency rather than feeding it the voltage that would eventuall lead to it stabilizing at the desired transparency and letting it relax to that transparency in its own sweet time. There was an article about it maybe a month ago in slashdot.
Exepct TV-rate LCDs without ghosts as soon as this gets incorporated into the driver electronics - assuming the patent holders don't sit on it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
CRTs are still better for playing games, because they can handle such a wide variety of resolutions and scan rates, and because they have no ghosting or response time issues at all. LCDs usually look great for productivity-type applications at a single resolution, but that's it. Too bad my boss isn't likely to buy an LCD for anyone until it's the cheaper option.
That got me thinking. Currently, all CRT's have one set of electron guns at the center of the screen. Would it be possible to partition the screen into, say, four areas, each of which is painted by it's own set of guns.
That's been done. But it's a problem getting the pictures to join.
Better is gun-per-pixel. That's also been done but this should make it practical.
See another set of postings in this thred here.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Analogue is a old blurry beast which we must destroy. How any company can believe that it can revive a dying sector which is wholly based on analogue transmission is beyond me. LCD is flatter and uses less power. That doesn't really bother me (hell, this space rock's enviornment is on it's way out too :) ) and the desk space I'd save I'd fill up with old magazines/important college work never to be see again/toast growing new organisms. *But* the crystal clear digital transmission afforded by new LCD monitors interests me a great deal. The image quality is a lot better than a VGA in and CRT monitors can't offer that.
Death to waves! Long live the 1/0 revolution!
Well, it's a cool idea. I hope they have better luck than candescent!
And in other news... Scientists in Idaho have discovered a method of cold fusion.
How long do you think it will take for LCDs to get into the mainstream, by which I mean as likely (or more) to be found in an average consumer's home as a CRT? How long will it take for their prices to become reasonable? I have this 17-inch Compaq Qvision 172, and dammit, I just want to saw off the back of it sometimes.
The coolest voice ever.
The article brings up a good point. Using thermoionic emission (as is done now) is a little outdated and almost barbaric :)
I've not seen this mentioned here yet, but from my reading of the article they are intending to use this on televisions, too.
Yes, I can see the benefits of a shorter tube on a computer monitor (I'm using a 21" monitor right now that is nearly 20 inches deep and weighs nearly 65 pounds). The shorter tube would require less (heavy) glass and less plastic framing. So, smaller and lighter would be good. Also, instant on without requiring a warming circuit is a great plus, too.
BUT, these same benefits ALSO APPLY to conventional TVs, too! My current 27 inch TV sticks well out from my wall unit and weighs so much and is so bulky, I'm not ever going to try and move it again without help. It would be nice to be able to get a larger TV that would fit into the same space, weigh less, and would also not consume power just to keep the electron gun warm for "instant-on".
Other applications: shorter CRT tubes would be an advantage in any technical instruments that have a built-in display. Think: oscilliscope, medical instruments (pulse, BP, oxygen, etc. monitors), in-dash car displays, airplane cockpit displays, etc.
Now, to drool a bit for a more personal application... combine Cold CRT Gun with HDTV!
In another few years, LCDs will be more or less equal to CRTs in terms of quality and low cost, AND they'll be able to be made *huge* without requiring a desk made of rebar-reinforced concrete to sit on.
These guys are working on improving the horse-drawn cart, while people are whizzing past their lab in Porsches.
~Philly
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_145900
this article documents the fact that one of the major players are abandoning the manufacture of CRT as quote "There are no prospects for growth of the monitor CRT market."
while televisions may escape the death for the moment i fear its time has come also
- Better saturation
- Closer colour tolerance
- Adjustable colour temperature
- Clearer picture
- Better contrast
- Better brightness
I have a CRT sitting next to an LCD. I'd much rather use the LCD for any major graphics work. The only time the CRT really beats it out is when the brightness is turned up almost all the way, at which case the saturation goes down, not to mention it's harder to use... Also, my LCD does have adjustable colour temperature...
- Better resolution flexibility
True, but how many times do you change resolutions other than for gaming?
- Faster response time
- No ghosting
These are probably the only things I really see as the CRT holding over an LCD, which are also the reasons I'm still using a big, bulky 21" CRT as my main vewing box (for games, primarily).
- Consistent quality - No "dead pixels"
I've had a CRT with a bad pixel once...
- Very high refresh rates making them perfect for 3d shutter glasses
How true
- Free antialiasing
Eh? no free antialiasing on a CRT, unless you mean the capability to run at lower resolutions, in which case it's just easier to see the individual pixels. LCDs are better for this as long as the resolutions are evenly divisible by the native one... DOS looks better on an LCD.
- Cheaper to fix
- No backlight to wear out (no, don't point out the irony)
- Simple manufacturing
Don't know anything about these...
"Weight and size are often only a concern when the buyer has made a poor choice in purchasing a desk. "
Maybe, but I'd rather carry around an LCD for LAN parties (despite it being really bad(TM) for fast-pased games). Also, having another square foot of deskspace can be useful for those of us who actually use paper every once-and-a-while.
Im celebrating already - that post has a 5score mod now. Yipeeee for a /. newbie this is an achievement.
>True, but how many times do you change resolutions other than for gaming?
:-/
Playing DVDs, viewing TV from (some) TV cards, DOS, when you're tired and just want things "big"...
>I've had a CRT with a bad pixel once...
They probably screwed up on the shadow mask on your monitor. I'd return it... This is pretty unusual. But finding dead pixels on LCDs is completely normal, unfortunately.
>Eh? no free antialiasing on a CRT
You need a monitor with a sharpness control... There's one inside labelled focus, but then again there's 20 kV inside. Don't open up your monitor unless you know what you are doing!
>I have a CRT sitting next to an LCD. I'd much rather use the LCD for any major graphics work. The only time the CRT really beats it out is when the brightness is turned up almost all the way, at which case the saturation goes down, not to mention it's harder to use... Also, my LCD does have adjustable colour temperature...
I don't know what CRT and LCD you're using, but $ for $ I've found that if you buy an LCD and CRT of the same size and price, you get a CRT that beats out the LCD.
But hey, maybe I haven't seen a good LCD for a while... the only one I've got is on this laptop I'm typing on, and the brightness, colour, and contrast fade unless I'm viewing it at the "right" angle.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
You've been reading for a long time, with a UID of 500,000? Hah.
Slashdot may not be annoying or sucking, but you sure do!
And yeah, spelling does count: 1) Because you are an illerate fuck if you spell every 4th work wrong. 2) All of your elite progammers that can program secure perl(?!) won't matter for beans if they misspell all their code.
fi dpishit=true
gotoo assnutt
if dubm
(Yeah, I know that isn't perl, but you get the point...)
Uh, why would I want to fuck you mom?
And you have to deal with these 3 issues:
1) You are a simpleton.
2) You are obvious.
3) You are the most stupid fuck I've seen on this site of stupid fucks. Congratulations, you are now the "Most Stupid Fuck". Shit, your lack of understanding makes my head hurt (85 Hz is "flicker free"?- no, it flickers 85 times a second). Oh, and you "think" this tech may be licensed to other companies?! Wow, I "think" I may shit in the next 24 hours! Call me Kreskin! Wait, better, some company (Samsung) could be A HUGE WINNER because they produce a quality product?!?!?!? Holy shit, let me give you all my money and let you invest it in companies that produce "quality products"! Like Microsoft!
Just never post again so I don't have to hear this lame assed drivel again. I think my dog's farts make more sense than your oral-crappings. Are you sure you are NOT John Katz or the Wipo Troll?
SET MODE=OLD FART
Reading this article made me jump way back in time. At that time, I worked in a Big Company located in the same campus as PixTech, a startup that had a deal with Japanese display specialist Futaba to produce microtip displays in a European lab in Montpellier, France. Pixtech produced a monochrome prototype, then the price of LCD collapsed and the funding dried up. That was in 1993 or 94 if I remember correctly.
PixTech wanted to create a technology and then licence it to mass producers. They entered an agreement with Texas Instrument, but after LCDs started to be dirt cheap, the agreement collapsed.
The principle in these screens seems to be the same as the technology explained in the article. Behind each phosphorus dot (1/3 pixel roughly), a few dozens to a few hundreds cold cathode cones emit electrons and replace electron guns. The European technology was using silicon tips instead of diamond, but the principle stays the same: In an electrical field, a tip tends to concentrate charges, hence a cone easily releases electrons when negatively charged.
The beauty of the scheme is that even if the yield of the microtip fabrication is not perfect, you don't care because there are many of them behind each phophorus dot. Compare and contrast with LCD screens, where a single defective transistor will leave a permanent dead pixel.
I am a strong supporter of this technology, because it allies the advantages of CRTs with the flatness of LCDs. But I have seen several startups fail while trying to market microtip screens, so I am wondering if it's not jinxed or something...
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
DVD still doesn't compare to VHS for ease of use. Pop in a DVD and you have to navigate a ton of irritating menus to find the movie instead of hitting fast forward to skip the previews. DVDs are also fragile so that scratches can make them unplayable while they are also (for most consumers) un-copyable. When did CD's start to replace tape decks? When consumers could make their own CD's. When will LCD's replace CRT's? When they are just as big, just as clear, and just as cheap. The vast majority of consumers will not jump on the LCD bandwagon until the new technology surpases the old in every way. These guys may not be making millions off the cold CRT technology 50 years from now, but I'd bet that they will make plenty before then.
I don't know about the rest of you but I like my beer cold and my monitors hot and heavy ;)
rm -r windows
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Candescent Technologies has been working on this technology since 1991 and it looks like its about ready to go prime time with it. It has the same brightness, contrast, refresh time, and viewing angle that normal CRTs have but uses less power than LCDs in the same size package. Can't wait to hang one of these on the wall.
Science is the Real TRUTH!