SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has developed a 1.72-inch super-reflective (SR) LCD screen for handsets that can be read easily outdoors even under bright sunshine.
In order to prevent any increase in power consumption, Samsung chose to combine the SR technology with transflective rather than transmissive panel technology.
The reflectance rate for the new transflective SR LCD technology is three times that of the usual QVGA-resolution (128 x 160 pixels) mobile displays available at the moment, according to the company.
"Our new super-reflectance technology allows us to offer consumers a high-quality LCD that is very easy to read in bright sunlight," said executive vice president Yun Jin-hyuk of Samsung’s Mobile Display Business Team. "The SR technology has improved the reflecting metal, the color filter and other parts of the assembled LCD module, in addition to the lens and reflectance rate, without increasing production costs or lowering yields." The company has applied silver with high reflectance instead of aluminum to achieve the breakthrough. At the same time, it has developed a new reflective lens that greatly improves the rate at which light is concentrated into pixels. In addition, light entering the 1.72-inch panel can be fully harnessed due to improved transmittance capabilities of the polarizer and color filter.The transflective mode makes more effective use of natural outside lighting than the transmissive mode. The latter mode would have increased power consumption by requiring a brightness of at least 300 nits to sufficiently improve outdoor visibility.
The SR LCD features a brightness of 100 nits, a contrast ratio of 220:1/30:1 (transmission/reflection) and 50-percent color saturation.
Samsung said it will phase in its SR technology to all its high-resolution transflective displays.