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'Computer-On-Glass' Display

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the good-enough-to-lick dept.

bfries writes "Sharp Corp, Japan's largest maker of liquid crystal displays (LCDs), unveiled a screen Tuesday with microprocessor circuitry applied directly onto the glass, enabling it to function like a computer. It uses Sharp's continuous grain silicon (CGS) technology and should be used on some products in 2005."

8 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Glass/Silicon by FreeLinux · · Score: 2, Informative

    Glass is quartz and/or silica not silicon.

  2. Picture of the product... by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't read japanese, but I believe this is a picture of what the article talks about.

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    1. Re:Picture of the product... by mohrt · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here is the page translated to english.

  3. Here's a picture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yahoo news has a picture of one.

  4. Large Photo in Reuters by hangel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Large Photo in Reuters.

  5. Re:Glass/Silicon by Eccles · · Score: 3, Informative

    Glass is quartz and/or silica not silicon.

    Hmm, what gets 5s these days...

    Quartz is silicon dioxide (SiO2), as opposed to pure silicon. It's like the difference between rust and iron.

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  6. Glass is not a liquid. by traphicone · · Score: 2, Informative
    Glass is classified as an amorphous solid. This is to say that glass is, in fact, a solid which does not have a regular or crystalline molecular structure. It is, nevertheless, a solid by classification, and as such can be said not to flow when subjected to everyday forces at everyday temperatures.

    More information.

  7. Re:Glass/Silicon by dhovis · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm going to expand on this a little. I'm a ceramics person, so I'm actually qualified.

    Glass is primarily SiO2 or "silica", but what we go around calling glass has plenty of additives. Most of what we call glass is actually soda-lime glass, so called because it contains ample ammounts of soda (Na2O) and lime (CaO). Those two ingredients help lower the melting point of SiO2 and make it a lot easier to process. Pyrex is a brand name for borosilicate glass and its composition allows it to be very strong and resistant to thermal shocks (this is why you can put Pyrex in the oven without worrying about it shattering). LCD glass is probably different alltogether.

    Very pure amorphous SiO2 glass can be made, but it is much more expensive and is often sold as "fused silica" or "fused quartz".

    True "quartz" is a crystalline (ordered) phase of SiO2, and it is not the only one. Crystoballite and tridymite are two other crystalline phases of quartz.

    In any case, SiO2 is a dialectric, and not a semiconductor, so the computation being done in this story is all contained in the layers on top of the glass and not in the glass itself.

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