Chapter 358 Another golden mountain

Author: quiet thoughts

Chapter 358 Another golden mountain

In the SIC building, two professors, Kaedumasa Benekawa and Hideki Benikawa, as well as Hideo Hosono, were buried in their cases.

“From a visual perspective, the display effect has indeed been greatly improved.

At least if you change the angle, there won’t be any ghosting that interferes with the visual effect.”

What Hongchuan Feng has in front of him at this time is the latest achievement of the LCD R&D department at SIC, STN-LCD.

At first glance, compared with the previous TN-LCD, the most obvious difference is that the background color of the panel is more yellowish-green.

In addition, if the panel does not have the digital ghost image carved in advance by TN-LCD, it will look smooth even under the light.

Due to the long screen response time and low error ratio, TN-LCD cannot engrave the predetermined pattern on the substrate at the beginning of production.

That way, the pattern will respond quickly when power is supplied.

The only drawback is that if you tilt the screen to an angle, you can clearly see the ghost image that has been carved in advance.

Regardless of whether it is powered on or not, the existence of ghosting greatly affects the visual effect.

But now STN-LCD has improved all those shortcomings, and the screen panel instantly looks much cleaner.

"Although STN is still a passive twisting matrix, the rotation angle of the liquid crystal molecules has exceeded 180 degrees due to the action of the electric field, reaching a twist angle of 240~270.

In addition, when the electric field repeatedly changes the voltage, the recovery process of each pixel is interrupted, thus producing afterglow.

This will bring an obvious advantage: its low power consumption, and power saving will be its biggest advantage."

Hongkawa Hideki pointed to the pattern appearing on the screen and explained the working principle and advantages of STN-LCD to Hongkawa Kaede in detail.

The way it is implemented is inspired by Hong Chuanfeng's work. It mainly consists of two conductive glass bases, a liquid crystal in the middle, and a polarizer on the surface.

In addition to those backlight panels and a few lamp beads that provide light sources in the east, of course the driver IC that controls the changes in the electric field and the light emission of the lamp beads is also essential.

“Compared with TN-LCD, it has qualitative improvements in terms of viewing angle, picture characteristics, response speed, and color.

There is also a big difference in the processing technology. The most obvious advantage is that the pattern does not need to be drawn in advance, but it is realized through the driver IC."

As he spoke, Benikawa Hideki gently flipped a switch on the circuit board in front of his desk, and the numbers originally displayed on the yellow-green screen in front of him.

Suddenly it turned into a cartoon character, and even Chinese characters appeared at the bottom!

To be honest, that change surprised Hongchuan Feng. He carefully raised the panel and turned it left and right to take a closer look.

There is no ghosting at all, and the pattern is very clear after changing the angle.

That point alone gave Hongchuan Feng a lot of ideas, which meant that future LCD production would no longer rely on drawing patterns in advance.

All the images you want to present can be solved through a small driver IC, which makes the production process much simpler.

"Professor Hongchuan just said whether STN-LCD controls the output of the screen through the driver IC?"

"That's right." Hongchuan Hideki nodded, "It's also thanks to Hongchuan-san. With your previous active interference and inspiration, they came up with that method.

Since we want to change the electric field and light sensing, why not realize it through IC? Its control is more precise and efficient.

Just input the control program into the IC in advance so that you can quickly call the preset program when using it."

The previous TN screen had pre-drawn patterns through physical legs, but the current STN screen has pre-stored programs through digital legs.

Although both are preset, the difference is huge.

Is it equivalent to one staying in the steam age and the other having entered the information age? It’s clear at a glance which one has better results.

Moreover, the TN pattern cannot be changed once it is carved, but otherwise the STN program can be repeatedly replaced through the external leg segments.

In this way, the comparison will not only be in vision, but also the application field will be greatly broadened.

Good thing, Hongchuan Feng seems to have seen a golden mountain beckoning to him.

"Wrong, the LCD driver IC is designed by them themselves. Although it is very rough now, there will be no barriers to manufacturing because of its simplicity."

Just when Hongchuan Kaede secretly lamented the advancement of STN, Hongkawa Hideki told him another unexpected news.

"The driver IC they produced themselves?" Hongchuan Feng's eyes lit up.

"Yes, it is Yamazaki-san's work, and the trial production was provided by Fujitsu."

Driver IC, if it is red, it will not drive the chip.

Since Hongkawa Hideki wanted to ask for such a thing, of course he should go to the chip development department here.

SIC can even handle processor chips, let alone a small driver IC.

Yamazaki Hui, who has been there for two years, is already quite accomplished in chip design.

The design of the driver IC for STN-LCD was left to him. As for Shima Masato and the others, they were developing the Eastern generation chip and had no time to worry about the small driver chip.

Because the design difficulty was relatively low, Yamazaki Hui completed it quickly.

Now the chip has been placed in front of Hongchuan Feng, and has been installed in the product and started to be used.

"Professor Hongchuan, I think STN-LCD, or driver IC, will have market prospects in the future?" Hongchuan Feng's eyes rolled.

"Market prospects?" Hongkawa Hideki was stunned, but he quickly responded, "I dare not say anything else, but there should be no problem whether it can replace the TN screen."

"That's enough!" Hong Chuanfeng gave a high-five. I think SIC has one more business, isn't it?

According to what I just learned, the difficulty of driving IC is relatively low, and 6-micron technology with a manufacturing process of around 1974 can meet the process requirements.

This also makes the cost of the driver IC very low and suitable for large-scale mass production.

In the future, STN will have broad application prospects, so the driver chip will become an indispensable accessory.

Thinking about it, there are very few STN screen applications on the market at this time, which means that the SIC driver chip is unique.

If it is unique, then it is a monopoly, even if it is temporary.

And as long as SIC takes the lead, there will be no need to worry about its market share in the future.

Look, Hongchuan Maple has another golden mountain.

He has decided to ask the chip research and development department to establish a separate screen driver chip design department later.

Before they could react, SIC had already made arrangements in advance.

This has always been the case in high-end industries. Taking the lead means taking the priority to apply for patents. The so-called technical barriers will lead step by step.

The latecomers will most likely be able to follow the former and have some soup, or pay a large amount of patent fees every year to earn thin profits.

"That's wrong, Professor Hongchuan, he remembers you saying that STN can achieve partial color. Can they do that?"

Can Hongchuan Kaede remember the pie that Hongchuan Hideki painted for him? The color display has always been what he has been thinking about.

"Well, color display can currently achieve single color. True color like CTR is difficult to achieve in STN."

While talking, Benikawa Hideki has already opened another display screen on the table. The background color of its panel is blue.

The displayed patterns include moonlight red English characters and simple graphics. There are green Chinese characters and a red logo in a small area.

The blue background, the red numbers on the moon, the green Chinese characters, and the red logo really add a few more colors.

But if those colors are displayed individually in a certain area in blocks, it is far from the natural integration of colors like CTR monitors.

"STN's color filter adds a color filter in front of the polarizer, and divides the monochrome display matrix into three sub-pixels to display the three primary colors of red, green, and blue.

The three primary colors of color are scattered by the liquid crystal and polarizer, and a specific color is displayed in a specific area of ​​the screen."

To put it bluntly, the color of the current STN is pseudo-color, and the color of each pixel is directly determined by the value of each basic color component.

If the pixels are used as a palette, Hongchuan Maple will see patches of colors instead of the round and natural colors of later generations.

Okay, although it doesn't have fake color, it's a huge improvement compared to TN screens.

At least through the control of the driver chip, local color can be achieved.

Technology needs to be done step by step, and it is impossible to directly evolve from a black and red screen to a full-color screen.

“How much does their STN screen cost?”

Hong Chuanfeng has almost seen the effect of the display, and now he is most concerned about the production cost.

"If the simplest gray-scale STN screen is available, the driver IC can be mass-produced.

The cost of a handheld game screen is about 600 to 800 yuan, and if it is a yellow-green or blue screen, the cost will be even higher."

The so-called grayscale STN screen does not display both light and dark colors, which is what they usually call black and red screens.

Yellow-green screens and blue screens are pseudo-color screens that add color film to display some colors. Their costs are higher.

Even the lowest-cost grayscale screen is nearly 7 times more expensive than the previous TN.

Sure enough, the advancement of technology is often accompanied by an increase in costs.

With a cost of 600~800 yuan per month, you want to make a considerable profit. This can only be achieved if the selling price reaches at least 2,000 yuan per month.

Compared with the current TN, which sells for 200 to 300 yuan, the difference between the two is about a point or two.

Even so, STN Screen does not seek vigorous development.
To be continued...