Electronic visual display

An electronic visual display, informally a screen, is a display device for presentation of images, text, or video
transmitted electronically, without producing a permanent record. Electronic visual displays include television
sets, computer monitors, and digital signage. By the above definition, an overhead projector (along with screen
onto which the text, images, or video is projected) could reasonably be considered an electronic visual display
since it is a display device for the presentation of an images, plain text, or video transmitted electronically
without producing a permanent record. They are also ubiquitous in mobile computing applications like tablet
computers, smartphones, and information appliances.

Contents
Types
Classification
Display mode of observation
Layout of picture elements
Emission and control of colors
Addressing modes
Display driving modes
See also
References
Further reading

Types
These are the technologies used to create the various displays in use today.

Electroluminescent (EL) display

Liquid crystal (LC) display with Light-emitting diode (LED)-backlit Liquid crystal (LC) display
Light-emitting diode (LED) display
OLED display
AMOLED display
Plasma (P) display
Quantum dot (QD) display

Additionally, Cathode-ray tubes were widely used in the past and microLED displays are under development.

Classification
Electronic visual displays present visual information according to the electrical input signal (analog or digital)
either by emitting light (then they are called active displays) or, alternatively, by modulating available light
during the process of reflection or transmission (light modulators are called passive displays).

Electronic visual displays

Active displays Passive displays
present visual information by emitting light present visual information by modulating light

Principle Liquid crystal display (LCD) + backlight

LCD
(this combination is considered an active display)
Example LCD TV screen, LCD computer monitor LCD watch (reflective)
see LCD classification

Principle Cathodoluminescence Electrophoresis

also see Electronic paper
Example Cathode ray tube (CRT) Research & manufacturing:
Field emission display (FED)
Vacuum fluorescent display (VFD)
Surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED)

Principle Electroluminescence Electrochromism

Example (thin or thick film) electro-luminescence (EL) Research & manufacturing:
(inorganic or organic) light emitting diode (LED,
OLED)

gas discharge display (Nixie tube)

Principle Photoluminescence Electrowetting

Example Plasma display panel (PDP) Research & manufacturing:

Principle Incandescence Electromechanical modulation

Example Numitron, a 7-segment numerical display tube flap display
flip-disk display
digital micromirror device (DMD)
Interferometric modulator display (IMOD)
FTIR (unipixel) (http://www.unipixel.com/tech.ht
m)

Display mode of observation

Electronic visual displays can be observed directly (direct view display) or the displayed information can be
projected to a screen (transmissive or reflective screen). This usually happens with smaller displays at a certain
magnification.
 Display modes of observation
Direct view display
transmissive mode of operation
reflective mode of operation
transflective mode of operation
(e.g. transflective LCD)
Projection display
front-projection (with reflective screen)
e.g. video projector
rear-projection (with transmissive screen)
e.g. rear projection television screen
retinal projection (with or without combiner)
e.g. head mounted display

A different kind of projection display is the class of "laser projection displays", where the image is built up
sequentially either via line by line scanning or by writing one complete column at a time. For that purpose one
beam is formed from three lasers operating at the primary colors, and this beam is scanned electro-
mechanically (galvanometer scanner, micro-mirror array)) or electro-acousto-optically.

Layout of picture elements

Depending on the shape and on the arrangement of the picture elements of a display, either fixed information
can be displayed (symbols, signs), simple numerals (7-segment layout) or arbitrary shapes can be formed (dot-
matrix displays).

Layout of picture elements

Segmented displays Dot-matrix displays
characters, numbers and symbols of fixed shape (may be sub-pixels are arranged in a regular 2-dimensional array
multiplex addressed) (multiplex addressing required); arbitrary shapes can be
The following layouts are well known: formed and displayed
Seven-segment display
Fourteen-segment display
Sixteen-segment display

Emission and control of colors

Colors can be generated by selective emission, by selective absorption, transmission or by selective reflection.
 Color emission and control
subtractive mixing
additive mixing
filters, dyes, pigments (e.g.printing) subtract (absorb) parts of white
primary colors add up to produce white light
light
temporal mixing (additive)
spatial mixing (additive)
e.g. rotating primary color filter wheel in
closely spaced sub-pixels
projectors
spatio temporal color mixing
combined spatial and temporal mixing[1]

arrangement of sub-pixels subtractive color mixing does not require special sub-pixel
for additive color mixing arrangements
see sub-pixel arrangements 1 all components (e.g. filters) have to be in the same path of light.
see sub-pixel arrangements 2
see sub-pixel arrangements 3
Examples:
stripe
delta-nabla
PenTile arrangement, e.g. RGB+White

Addressing modes
Each sub-pixel of a display device must be selected (addressed) in order to be energized in a controlled way.

Addressing modes (selection of picture elements)

direct addressing
multiplexed addressing
each individual picture
several picture elements have common electrical connections to the driving electronics,
element has electrical
e. g.. row and column electrodes when the picture elements are arranged in a two
connections to the
dimensional matrix.
driving electronics.

active matrix passive matrix addressing

addressing
active electronic
elements added in
order to improve
selection of picture
elements.
the nonlinearity of the display effect (e.g. LCD, LED)is used to realize the addressing of
individual pixels in multiplex addressing. In this mode only a quite limited number of lines
can be addressed. In the case of (STN-)LCDs this maximum is at ~240, but at the
expense of a considerable reduction of contrast.

thin-film diodes
(TFDs)
thin-film transistors
(TFTs)

amorphous
silicon (a-Si)
polycrystalline
silicon (p-Si)
monocrystalline
silicon

The matrix of active electronic elements can used in transmissive mode of operation (high transmittance required) or
a non-transparent active matrix can be used for reflective LCDs (e.g. liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS)).|

Display driving modes

 Driving modes (activation of picture elements)
voltage driving current driving
activation of pixels by voltage (e.g. LCD field effects). If the current is low enough this activation of pixels by
mode may be the basis for displays with very low power requirements (e.g. μW for LCDs electric current (e.g.
without backlight). LED).

See also
Display device
ISO 13406-2

References
1. Louis D. Silverstein, et al., Hybrid spatial-temporal color synthesis and its applications, JSID
14/1(2006), pp. 3–13

SID - Society for Information Display (http://www.sid.org) International Conference Proceedings

1970–2008
Journal of the Society for Information Display (JSID) (https://web.archive.org/web/20080625043
242/http://www.sid.org/publications/journaloverview.html)
Display-Metrology & Systems: Publications (http://www.display-messtechnik.de/typo3/index.ph
p?id=6&L=1)

Further reading
Pochi Yeh, Claire Gu: "Optics of Liquid Crystal Displays", John Wiley & Sons 1999, 4.5.
Conoscopy, pp. 139

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This page was last edited on 11 September 2020, at 11:57 (UTC).

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