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Rocket Fuel Speeds Transistors

Posted by michael on from the firey-performance dept.

Mick Ohrberg writes "The rocket fuel hydrazine has been proven to increase the speed of thin-film transistors, which are used in LCD displays. It's also much cheaper to produce these transistors in a new "wet" manufacturing technique, based on creating the thin layers by using the centrifugal force caused by spinning the substrate. The result? Well, if the manufacturing cost plummets, maybe that 42" LCD monitor for my PC will be within (financial) reach soon."

46 comments

  1. Sounds great... by Randolpho · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... until your monitor launches into orbit.

    --
    "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
    -Marilyn Manson
    1. Re:Sounds great... by spiphy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      This is off topic so feel free to mod me down. I must take issue to the poster sig. I belive that it is based no a faulty logic. Peace never comes from allowing evil to triumph. Did you not see The Lord of The Rings? Was France peaceful when Germany invaded in WWII? The idea that fighting is a polar oppisite of peace is very wrong. Will you have peace when you lay down to those we seek your destruction? If you think that no one is evil or likes war you are ignorant. There is always the possibility that some sick and twisted person is in a possition of power and has determined that a group of people need to be destroyed. I think Sam said it best in The Two Towers when he said "There is good in this world Mr. Frodo and it is worth fighting for."

    2. Re:Sounds great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That isn't what I got out of the lord of the rings. Gandalf could have put on the one ring and became arguably as powerful as Sauron. He could have built a large army and took Sauron head on. Instead they chose peace. They took the most powerful artifact in middle earth and destroyed it, because they knew that the destructive force that the ring contained was no good even in the hands of good people.

    3. Re:Sounds great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said.

    4. Re:Sounds great... by spiphy · · Score: 1

      Okay that is breaking the analogy. It still does not invalidate my point. Beside did you miss the MASSIVE battles?

    5. Re:Sounds great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a new album due to be released soon. It's called "Drumbeats of war" including the #1 hit song "Dancing with the devil while holding H-Bomb in my left hand"

      I hope you will all enjoy it. I know I will. Now chant with me will you?

      Bring on the ICBMs...bring em on...bring em on..bring em on....we shall bathe in the warm fires of nuclear war!!!!

  2. So... by hookedup · · Score: 1

    The end of CRT?

    And does this increase the refresh rate of the monitor?

    1. Re:So... by flewp · · Score: 2, Informative

      CRT won't die until the price of LCD's go down (which this could help) and maybe more importantly, when the quality of LCD's (color depth/range, "refresh rates" etc) matches CRTs.

      --
      WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
    2. Re:So... by Tailhook · · Score: 3, Insightful

      CRT won't die until...

      Define death. If LCD compromises performance (refresh, etc.) but not price, odds are the market will go 99% LCD and CRT will be rarified to specialty niches at very, very high cost. So while it will still be possible to get a CRT, you won't be able to afford it.

      LCD and plasma already attain sufficiant performance for the bulk of what the market wants. The only issue remaining is price. Those people who really need CRT (a small fraction of those that will think they do,) will just have to get funded.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    3. Re:So... by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 3, Insightful
      when the quality of LCD's (color depth/range, "refresh rates" etc) matches CRTs.

      For text-based applications (which is most of what comptuers are used for), LCD give superior quality to CRTs. No flicker and sharper pixels. I'm never going back.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    4. Re:So... by H4wk · · Score: 1

      I didn't see anything about increasing the luminenscence (sp?) of the screens. I don't think this will be the end of CRT. I, for one, prefer CRT for my gaming. Of course, for my TV/Movie watching....

  3. Good news - refresh rates by scumbucket · · Score: 1

    This is great news! I was considering purchasing an LCD monitor the always found the refresh rates were always way to slow for most gaming (unless I wanted to spend big $). Now with this new technique maybe the LCD refresh rates will be comparable to CRT's......

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    CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
    1. Re:Good news - refresh rates by cruff · · Score: 4, Informative

      Refresh rates are related to how fast the actual liquid crystal material can reorient itself in response to the applied voltage. So, unfortunately, unless they also use a new type of liquid crystal, the answer is probably not.

  4. This is hot! by jbarr · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now I can tell people that my LCD really smokes!

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  5. OLED influenced as well? by geschild · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm wondering: as I understood it, the LCD plants need only minor changes to be able to put out OLED panels instead of TFT/LCD.

    If this process is little different from LCD manufacturing and LCD is not very different from OLED, will OLED benefit as well?

    --
    Karma? What's that again?
    1. Re:OLED influenced as well? by TheClam · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hydrazine doesn't play nicely with organics, and there's no tin sulphide in an OLED, so no.

    2. Re:OLED influenced as well? by Komi · · Score: 4, Informative
      Acording to this other article it seems like TFT benefitted from OLED techniques, rather than the reverse. OLED semiconductors are popular they can be disolved into a liquid. In that form, it's very easy and cheap to build the circuit. It's much more expensive to work with TFT semiconductors. Well now they've figured out how to disolve TFT semiconductors into a liquid. TFT semiconductors have much better electrical properties. So you get the performance of TFT at the cost of OLED.

      I'm no expert on this, so go read online for more info.

      Komi

      --
      The ultimate goal of science is to unify all forces of nature to a single law that can be silk-screened onto a T-shirt.
    3. Re:OLED influenced as well? by geschild · · Score: 1

      If this is true, than that would be a pitty since it would almost certainly mean that OLED's place in the lime-light would be postponed for as long as possible. (To recoup the investments made in TFT).

      This is unfortunate because OLED holds so much more promise than TFT, especially in energy conservation and clarity of the picture.

      Oh well, this is how things go.

      Thanks for the info!

      --
      Karma? What's that again?
  6. I suppose... by DiscoSnorlax · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...that these will give a new meaning to the term "Blazingly Fast!"?

  7. LCD tech is rocket science now? by Jtheletter · · Score: 5, Funny

    So for those who rtf, what I want to know is at what point did David Mitzi say to himself, "Geez, if only I could dissolve this tin disulphide in something really caustic. Like gasoline, only waaaay stronger... Hmmm, Mary could you bring me some of that hydrazine we have laying around? I think it's behind my lunch in the minifridge..." ??

    --
    -- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
  8. Fire! by GoRK · · Score: 1

    This kind of reminds me of that time they wanted to make the hindenberg shiny so they put some thermite in the silver color... and we all know how that ended up!

    1. Re:Fire! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No no no!!! The fires were caused by the hydrogen gas. .:supporting the say-no-to-hydrogen movement since the 1940s:.

    2. Re:Fire! by goneutt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The impermeable skin of the Hindenburg was made of canvas treated with a solution that included more than a touch of nitric acid. Cellulose + Nitric acid= Nitro Cellulose aka guncotton aka Celludloid film which early movies used, resulting in the occasional projection booth fire.

      If only gigli had been filmed on this stuff.

      --
      Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
  9. Hydrazine: Bad Stuff by whorfin · · Score: 4, Informative

    From the EPA and CDC. Perhaps Outsourcing LCD production is a good thing, after all?

    --
    Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
    1. Re:Hydrazine: Bad Stuff by elmegil · · Score: 1

      Kinda makes you wonder what will happen when your monitor cracks in a house fire. Is it going to make everyone who has one of these look like an arsonist? Will clever arsonists use this to try to avoid detection?

      --
      7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
    2. Re:Hydrazine: Bad Stuff by Tailhook · · Score: 1

      Outsourcing LCD production is a good thing, after all?

      It always has been. Nearly all LCD devices are produced by a small number of Taiwanese manufacturers and repackaged by everyone else.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  10. More uses by Lars+T. · · Score: 3, Informative

    This article (in German) says that you can make cheap, flexible electronics with this stuff.

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  11. No surprise here by astroboscope · · Score: 2, Funny
    The rocket fuel hydrazine has been proven to increase the speed of thin-film transistors

    So? Rocket fuel can increase the speed of lots of things..you just have to put them in the payload ;-)

    --
    If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
  12. Sniffing LCD panel by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 2, Funny

    Then kids start sniffing LCD panels instead of sniffing solvents. In the other news, FDA now classifies LCD panels as controlled substance...

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
    1. Re:Sniffing LCD panel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Okay. Just to be clear: Sniffing hydrazine will kill you VERY QUICKLY. That stuff is NASTY.

  13. Hydrazine? Tin Disulfide? by StateOfTheUnion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    . . . And if the LCD cracks, should I call a HAZMAT team to clean it up?

    1. Re:Hydrazine? Tin Disulfide? by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 4, Informative

      The hydrazine is only used while fabricating the LCD, it doesn't stay in it.
      It's used as a solvent to put a layer of TnS2 on the substrate.

    2. Re:Hydrazine? Tin Disulfide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tin is Sn not Tn, so that should be SnS2

  14. Just for the record... by Zordak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everyone can get their underpants in a know and call me pedantic, but this is one of my Physics pet peeves. The process cannot use "centrifugal force" to create thin layers of anything, because there is no such thing as "centrifugal force". A body in circuilar motion will have radial and tengential acceleration components. Since F=m a, you can only ascribe forces to your acceleration components. More likely, it is the tangential force that spreads the stuff into thin layers.

    --

    Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    1. Re:Just for the record... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's a semantic use that is understood by most english speakers with a scientific background. Furthermore, nonscientifically minded english speakers can understand the meaning observationally. Therefore, it doesn't matter that they're wrong.

      Also, for the record, time does not actually fly as it is not a physical thing.

    2. Re:Just for the record... by norkakn · · Score: 1

      It's a force in the relative, but not the inertial frame.

      That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, so shut up and go draw some freebodies.

      (from the viewpoint of the object rotating around an axis, the centripital force is not found, so if one were studying the forces within the body without reference to the external rotation, the centrifugal force is necesary)

    3. Re:Just for the record... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank God someone mentioned it. I guess Nerds don't necessarily know their science.

    4. Re:Just for the record... by quinkin · · Score: 1
      You sir, are a pedant.

      There is nothing I love more than a physicist trying to be pedantic. Especially when the next sentence starts: "A body..."

      After all to pedantically model fluid flow on a rotating plane we should start by reducing it to a one body equation...

      Q. (Yes ok you are technically correct, but technically the catholic church was correct in saying the universe revolves around the earth. They just used a different frame of reference. :)

      --
      Insert Signature Here
    5. Re:Just for the record... by lommer · · Score: 1

      Well, theoretically there may be no such thing as a centrifugal force, but in practice it makes a lot of sense to have a name for the relative force caused by centripetal acceleration. And calling it a tangential force makes almost no sense because there is nothing tangential about the centripetal acceleration - in fact if you are using a polar coordinate system (which it makes sense to do in this case) that tangential force is solely responsible for an angular acceleration and is actually completely perpendicular to the centripetal force. BTW, a centripetal force, or centripetal acceleration is what it is called.

      I'm an engineer (mechanical), and while I and all the people I work with realize that there is technically no such thing as a centrifugal force, it's not uncommon to reference it in a discussion because it's simply more practical.

    6. Re:Just for the record... by Wildman+Larry · · Score: 1

      (Yes ok you are technically correct, but technically the catholic church was correct in saying the universe revolves around the earth. They just used a different frame of reference. :)

      I am so glad that someone else has realized this, I was begining to think that I was the only one thatunderstood the implication of Einstein to Theology. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now I know I'm not the lone weirdo in the universe!

      The Wildman

    7. Re:Just for the record... by Zordak · · Score: 1

      You're missing one very important point here, which is the actual reason that I have such a problem with the misnomer "centrifugal force." Now let's assume a spherical cow. His name is Bob. Bob is in a centrifuge, perhaps the kind that is found at an amusement park, where you are smashed against the wall and the floor drops out. The centrifuge is spinning at full speed, and Bob is pinned to the wall, when suddenly, through some freak accident of quantum physics, the wall disappears instantaneously. What happens to Bob? If you believe in "centrifugal force," this mythical force that is pushing you out against the wall, you would think that Bob will go flying outward radially. Of course, you know better than that. The tangential force will fling Bob out, meaning that his motion will be perpendicular to the radial component. That is why I pick nits over "centrifugal force." It leads to the commonly held misconception that a body is being pushed outward.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
  15. Proving once again ... by fygment · · Score: 0

    ... that hi tech is rocket science.

    --
    "Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
  16. Speaking of T-shirts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean like this?

  17. I disagree. by quinkin · · Score: 2, Informative
    I disagree.

    Refresh rate, pixel decay rates, attainable colour space, non-native resolution pixel interpolation, RGB vs BGR for sub-pixel antialiasing, mean time to failure and fade, (semi) standard interfaces, etc...

    As far as I am concerned, with no ego/space/power consumption restrictions, a CRT is far and away superior for most applications.

    Re: the text performance on LCD, I assume you are using subpixel interpolation to get a usable display? Or are you just referring to DOS style low res character screens?

    If subpixel, shame it is a work around to try and achieve much of the same readability of a CRT. It's even more of a shame that the technique will not work on portrait orientation LCD screens (think PDA) unless they have been manufactured specifically for this purpose (I expect they will soon). Then there is the RGB/BGR problem requiring user intervention and/or confusion.

    You should NEVER have visible flicker on a decent CRT (unless you are comparing your new 2003 LCD to your old 14" running @60Hz). As for "sharper pixels" you are technically correct - unfortunately sharper rectangular pixels does not a smooth diagonal line make...

    I use LCD's and CRT's extensively at work and always prefer the CRT.

    Q.

    --
    Insert Signature Here
    1. Re:I disagree. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1
      I disagree.

      I suppose what makes a superior display is in the eyes (literally) of the beholder.

      You should NEVER have visible flicker on a decent CRT (unless you are comparing your new 2003 LCD to your old 14" running @60Hz)

      I find anything below 70 Hz completely unusable, and have to get close to 80 before the problem goes away completely. Of course I've always adjusted my own machines accordingly, but I still occasionally encounter machines where the damn monitor looks like a strobelight to me. (Especially under fluorescent lights.)

      As for "sharper pixels" you are technically correct - unfortunately sharper rectangular pixels does not a smooth diagonal line make...

      Maybe that's the big difference in our perceptions - a little jagginess doesn't bother me at all. In fact blur drives me nuts and I dislike text antialiasing. (I agree with this "Joel on Software" column.) Instead, I pick fonts that look good on a pixelated display.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  18. Oh, come on. by Fly · · Score: 1

    If you think hydrazine is bad stuff, you should consider what goes into typical semiconductor manufacturing. Hydrazine is a simple compound of nitrogen and hydrogen. It's highly reactive, and it's only used in this process to spread one of the layers onto the substrate for making TFTs.
    It is not present in the finished LCD product, so it's not going to kill you if you buy an LCD monitor, and it breaks. There are much nastier chemicals used all the time in manufacturing. You should be more concerned about things like heavy metals and arsenic from your home electronics.

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