Technology Introduction

Sunlight of any description typically spells disaster for any display solution incorporating LCD technology.  But with the number of outdoor applications for this technology growing exponentially, the availability of sunlight readable displays has long been overdue.

With WinMate's unveiling of its patented sunlight readable technologies, things have now changed. Solution engineers can not only specify displays with sunlight readable capabilities, but now have a range of options to boot.

Please review WinMate's Technology Selection Guide before embarking on your next visibility-critical application.

What is the technology?

At the core of WinMate's technology achievements are its patented transflective TFT display modules. These transflective enhanced LCDs actually reflect ambient light thereby preventing it from passing through to the LCD cell (the fundamental cause of display dimming).  The additional benefit of the technology is that reflected light beams are in fact utilised to enhance the display's own illumination. The stronger the ambient light, the brighter the LCD will appear. As a result, the modified LCD is viewable under even the most severe lighting conditions including direct sunlight (when installed within manufacturer's specifications). Additional advantages of transflective LCD technology are summarised in the table below.

How does this technology work?

Transflective LCD modules hold both transmissive and reflective properties and the method of image display depends upon the specific characteristics of the ambient environment. The display uses a backlight with a transmissive property in dark environments, and uses external light with a reflective property in bright environments. WinMate's improved transflective method allows for better color performance, which in turn, provides excellent color characteristics comparable to the transmissive mode. The net reflectance rate of WinMate's transflective LCD solution is from 0.9% to 1.3% depending on the specific panel selected. For example, a net reflectance rate of 1.3% under a 10,000 lumen ambient sunlight intensity willbear a brightness gain of around 130 nits in addition to the original backlight brightness.

See how it works in this Animated Diagram.

Benefits

The benefits of WinMate's patened sunlight readable technology include the following:

• Readable under all lighting conditions including direct sunlight
• Enhanced contrast ratio for both indoor and outdoor conditions
• Optimised color saturation, brightness, and viewing angle
• Full mechanical and electrical compliance with traditional displays
• Power saving and backlight life preserving technology in outdoor applications
• No additional heat generation even when viewed at higher brightnesses

Applications

The continually expanding market demands for outdoor LCD technology now includes the following applications:

• Digital Signage
• Mobile Navigation
• Video Systems
• Table/Public PCs
• Interactive Kiosks
• Point of Sale
• LCD TV

WinMate's transflective LCD technology is the highest performing solution suitably affordable for the above listed LCD applications.

Available sunlight readable products using this technology

Cooling

For large format transflective displays (23" and above), additional cooling to the display's enclosure is applied as follows: