pls tft lcd capacitive supplier

Take your product to the next level with a capacitive touch screen LCD by Displaytech. Our PCAP (projected capacitive) touch screen technology is a premium alternative to a resistive touchscreen. We offer capacitive touchscreens for our 2.8-inch, 3.5-inch, 4.3-inch, 5-inch and 7-inch TFT LCD displays.

Capacitive touch technology allows for an enhanced product user interface since it supports gestures and proximity sensing. Unlike resistive touch screens which rely on pressure, capacitive touch responds to an electric current and can handle multi-finger touch points. This means that capacitive touchscreens can be used with your bare finger and it supports gestures such as pinch-to-zoom or swipe.

Thanks for the display technology development, we have a lot of display choices for our smartphones, media players, TVs, laptops, tablets, digital cameras, and other such gadgets. The most display technologies we hear are LCD, TFT, OLED, LED, QLED, QNED, MicroLED, Mini LED etc. The following, we will focus on two of the most popular display technologies in the market: TFT Displays and Super AMOLED Displays.

TFT means Thin-Film Transistor. TFT is the variant of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). There are several types of TFT displays: TN (Twisted Nematic) based TFT display, IPS (In-Plane Switching) displays. As the former can’t compete with Super AMOLED in display quality, we will mainly focus on using IPS TFT displays.

OLED means Organic Light-Emitting Diode. There are also several types of OLED, PMOLED (Passive Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) and AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode). It is the same reason that PMOLED can’t compete with IPS TFT displays. We pick the best in OLED displays: Super AMOLED to compete with the LCD best: IPS TFT Display.

If you want to buy a new monitor, you might wonder what kind of display technologies I should choose. In today’s market, there are two main types of computer monitors: TFT LCD monitors & IPS monitors.

The word TFT means Thin Film Transistor. It is the technology that is used in LCD displays.  We have additional resources if you would like to learn more about what is a TFT Display. This type of LCDs is also categorically referred to as an active-matrix LCD.

These LCDs can hold back some pixels while using other pixels so the LCD screen will be using a very minimum amount of energy to function (to modify the liquid crystal molecules between two electrodes). TFT LCDs have capacitors and transistors. These two elements play a key part in ensuring that the TFT display monitor functions by using a very small amount of energy while still generating vibrant, consistent images.

Industry nomenclature: TFT LCD panels or TFT screens can also be referred to as TN (Twisted Nematic) Type TFT displays or TN panels, or TN screen technology.

IPS (in-plane-switching) technology is like an improvement on the traditional TFT LCD display module in the sense that it has the same basic structure, but has more enhanced features and more widespread usability.

These LCD screens offer vibrant color, high contrast, and clear images at wide viewing angles. At a premium price. This technology is often used in high definition screens such as in gaming or entertainment.

Both TFT display and IPS display are active-matrix displays, neither can’t emit light on their own like OLED displays and have to be used with a back-light of white bright light to generate the picture. Newer panels utilize LED backlight (light-emitting diodes) to generate their light hence utilizing less power and requiring less depth by design. Neither TFT display nor IPS display can produce color, there is a layer of RGB (red, green, blue) color filter in each LCD pixels to produce the color consumers see. If you use a magnifier to inspect your monitor, you will see RGB color in each pixel. With an on/off switch and different level of brightness RGB, we can get many colors.

Winner. IPS TFT screens have around 0.3 milliseconds response time while TN TFT screens responds around 10 milliseconds which makes the latter unsuitable for gaming

Winner. the images that IPS displays create are much more pristine and original than that of the TFT screen. IPS displays do this by making the pixels function in a parallel way. Because of such placing, the pixels can reflect light in a better way, and because of that, you get a better image within the display.

Winner. While the TFT LCD has around 15% more power consumption vs IPS LCD, IPS has a lower transmittance which forces IPS displays to consume more power via backlights. TFT LCD helps battery life.

Normally, high-end products, such as Apple Mac computer monitors and Samsung mobile phones, generally use IPS panels. Some high-end TV and mobile phones even use AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diodes) displays. This cutting edge technology provides even better color reproduction, clear image quality, better color gamut, less power consumption when compared to LCD technology.

What you need to choose is AMOLED for your TV and mobile phones instead of PMOLED. If you have budget leftover, you can also add touch screen functionality as most of the touch nowadays uses PCAP (Projective Capacitive) touch panel.

This kind of touch technology was first introduced by Steve Jobs in the first-generation iPhone. Of course, a TFT LCD display can always meet the basic needs at the most efficient price. An IPS display can make your monitor standing out.

When it comes to choosing the right panel type of your LCD monitor, the options are seemingly endless. We’ve discussed the differences between AMOLED and LCD displays as well as the different types of touchscreen monitors that are commonly used for various devices and their benefits. Now it’s time to learn about the different features and specifications of PLS and IPS panels so you can decide which one is the most suitable choice for your specific personal or professional applications.

PLS stands for plane to line switching. Also referred to as Super PLS Panel, this technology boasts superior technological advancements such as a multitude of brightness setting options, crystal-clear image quality, and adjustable viewing angles without breaking the bank.

IPS stands for in-plane switching. It’s one of the most commonly used monitors for LCD displays and it consists of two glass panels that hold a layer of liquid crystals in between them. The liquid crystals become animated and perform predetermined actions such as moving in a specific direction or displaying certain colours when they’re charged with an electric current. These actions result in the high-quality images that appear on your television, laptop, or smartphone screen.

Both LCD monitor panel types have their advantages and disadvantages for various types of applications. Finding out how they work will help you determine which one is the best choice for your needs.

As mentioned, IPS LCD monitors contain hundreds of liquid crystals that are situated between two glass sheets in a parallel formation. As electric currents run through the liquid crystals when the screen is turned on, they become animated and move in different directions and backlighting passes through them. This is what produces the crystal-clear and instantaneous images you see on the screen. The excellent viewing angles are the result of the horizontal movements of the liquid crystals inside the panel.

PLS panels for LCD monitors have been on the market for over a decade and have proven to be a worthy adversary for their IPS predecessors. Although the technology is the same for the most part, IPS does offer some minor improvements. The main difference is that IPS panels offer more optimized liquid molecular alignment, which makes for a slightly better viewing experience. Hence, PLS screens offer 15% more brightness than IPS panel types.

From an aesthetic and logistical standpoint, PLS panel types are also thinner than IPS due to the fact that the glass sheets that hold the liquid crystals in place are positioned much lower in the screen configuration.

When it comes to comparing and contrasting the differences between IPS and PLS LCD monitor panel types, the competition is pretty stiff. Both monitors are fairly similar with the exception that PLS is meant to be an improvement on the previous technology. Here are the key factors that should be considered when deciding which one is the best monitor panel for LCD industrial displays.

PLS monitors offer superior viewing angles when compared to IPS displays. Unlike IPS displays, PLS monitors don’t have any noticeable colour distortions and they have significantly lower production costs.

Unfortunately, PLS and IPS monitors both have a fairly slow response time (the amount of time it takes for liquid crystals to shift from one colour or shade to another). For this reason, neither one is the ideal choice for gaming purposes, but they’re both suitable for graphic design projects that focus more on colour distribution and accuracy than response time.

PLS panel types have been proven to have superior colour distribution and accuracy compared to IPS panel types. PLS displays have a far more expansive colour gamut that’s ideal for users who require the most natural-looking images and colour options.

Backlight bleed occurs when the lights from the back of the screen leak through the edges, which results in uneven lighting or glow. This is a fairly common shortcoming of IPS screens when the brightness is adjusted to a particularly high level and can make for a poor viewing experience. PLS panel types don’t have this problem and offer even lighting regardless of the brightness settings.

The answer is inconclusive. Both IPS and PLS monitor types certainly have their advantages. Although PLS is slightly better in terms of backlighting and faster response times, the margins for improvement are fairly tight. It really just depends on what your preferences are as well as the applications that the monitors are being used for.

Nauticomp Inc.is one of the leading manufacturers and distributors of sophisticated state-of-the-art LCD displays and monitors in North America. Contact us to learn about our various products or to place an order.

The PLS panel is a panel developed and manufactured by Samsung’s as proprietary display design technology. Its performance is very close to that of IPS. The production cost is reduced by about 15% compared with IPS, so it is quite competitive in the market. Its advantages and disadvantages are similar to IPS, the only advantage is that it is lower cost than IPS.

The full name of the PLS panel is called Plane to Line Switching. The driving method is that all the electrodes are located on the same plane, and the liquid crystal molecules are driven by vertical and horizontal electric fields. We can see the difference between the PLS panel in the drive mode and the VA class (including MVA and Samsung’s own PVA) and the IPS panel.

Although the PLS panel has been published in 11 years, it has not been widely publicized, so most people do not know the PLS panel. However, Samsung introduced the PLS panel display, which is mainly for mid-range and mid-end users. It can be seen that this time Samsung still wants to carry out large-scale publicity on the PLS panel. It is generally better than the IPS displays because of wide viewing angles, high brightness and colour accuracy.

According to the TFT technology classification, it can be classified into high-temperature polysilicon (HTPS), low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS), amorphous silicon (a-Si), and IGZO. The other part can be classified into TN, IPS, VA, PLS, etc. according to the liquid crystal arrangement or imaging technology. It looks a bit messy, but it’s actually easier to judge.

The IPS panel is also known as the hard screen. It has a high viewing angle, fast response, good colour reproduction and moderate price. The shortcoming is that there is light leakage. The PLS is Samsung’s panel based on IPS standards, which is at the same level as IPS with a slightly better approach.

Using the PLS panel that Samsung uses to combat IPS, the feature is a wide viewing angle. The figure below shows that the panel performs well in terms of viewing angle in the left and right directions, with viewing angles of up to 178 degrees. The colour gamut also reached 72% NTSC, remember that I have said that the quality of 72% NTSC in the notebook screen is good. The display colour reaches 16.7M (8-bit) which provides a better colour display than a normal 6-bit screen.

A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a variant of a liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film-transistor technologyactive matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven (i.e. with segments directly connected to electronics outside the LCD) LCDs with a few segments.

In February 1957, John Wallmark of RCA filed a patent for a thin film MOSFET. Paul K. Weimer, also of RCA implemented Wallmark"s ideas and developed the thin-film transistor (TFT) in 1962, a type of MOSFET distinct from the standard bulk MOSFET. It was made with thin films of cadmium selenide and cadmium sulfide. The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968. In 1971, Lechner, F. J. Marlowe, E. O. Nester and J. Tults demonstrated a 2-by-18 matrix display driven by a hybrid circuit using the dynamic scattering mode of LCDs.T. Peter Brody, J. A. Asars and G. D. Dixon at Westinghouse Research Laboratories developed a CdSe (cadmium selenide) TFT, which they used to demonstrate the first CdSe thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) using CdSe TFTs in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.

The circuit layout process of a TFT-LCD is very similar to that of semiconductor products. However, rather than fabricating the transistors from silicon, that is formed into a crystalline silicon wafer, they are made from a thin film of amorphous silicon that is deposited on a glass panel. The silicon layer for TFT-LCDs is typically deposited using the PECVD process.

Polycrystalline silicon is sometimes used in displays requiring higher TFT performance. Examples include small high-resolution displays such as those found in projectors or viewfinders. Amorphous silicon-based TFTs are by far the most common, due to their lower production cost, whereas polycrystalline silicon TFTs are more costly and much more difficult to produce.

The twisted nematic display is one of the oldest and frequently cheapest kind of LCD display technologies available. TN displays benefit from fast pixel response times and less smearing than other LCD display technology, but suffer from poor color reproduction and limited viewing angles, especially in the vertical direction. Colors will shift, potentially to the point of completely inverting, when viewed at an angle that is not perpendicular to the display. Modern, high end consumer products have developed methods to overcome the technology"s shortcomings, such as RTC (Response Time Compensation / Overdrive) technologies. Modern TN displays can look significantly better than older TN displays from decades earlier, but overall TN has inferior viewing angles and poor color in comparison to other technology.

The transmittance of a pixel of an LCD panel typically does not change linearly with the applied voltage,sRGB standard for computer monitors requires a specific nonlinear dependence of the amount of emitted light as a function of the RGB value.

Less expensive PVA panels often use dithering and FRC, whereas super-PVA (S-PVA) panels all use at least 8 bits per color component and do not use color simulation methods.BRAVIA LCD TVs offer 10-bit and xvYCC color support, for example, the Bravia X4500 series. S-PVA also offers fast response times using modern RTC technologies.

A technology developed by Samsung is Super PLS, which bears similarities to IPS panels, has wider viewing angles, better image quality, increased brightness, and lower production costs. PLS technology debuted in the PC display market with the release of the Samsung S27A850 and S24A850 monitors in September 2011.

TFT dual-transistor pixel or cell technology is a reflective-display technology for use in very-low-power-consumption applications such as electronic shelf labels (ESL), digital watches, or metering. DTP involves adding a secondary transistor gate in the single TFT cell to maintain the display of a pixel during a period of 1s without loss of image or without degrading the TFT transistors over time. By slowing the refresh rate of the standard frequency from 60 Hz to 1 Hz, DTP claims to increase the power efficiency by multiple orders of magnitude.

Due to the very high cost of building TFT factories, there are few major OEM panel vendors for large display panels. The glass panel suppliers are as follows:

External consumer display devices like a TFT LCD feature one or more analog VGA, DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort interface, with many featuring a selection of these interfaces. Inside external display devices there is a controller board that will convert the video signal using color mapping and image scaling usually employing the discrete cosine transform (DCT) in order to convert any video source like CVBS, VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc. into digital RGB at the native resolution of the display panel. In a laptop the graphics chip will directly produce a signal suitable for connection to the built-in TFT display. A control mechanism for the backlight is usually included on the same controller board.

The low level interface of STN, DSTN, or TFT display panels use either single ended TTL 5 V signal for older displays or TTL 3.3 V for slightly newer displays that transmits the pixel clock, horizontal sync, vertical sync, digital red, digital green, digital blue in parallel. Some models (for example the AT070TN92) also feature input/display enable, horizontal scan direction and vertical scan direction signals.

New and large (>15") TFT displays often use LVDS signaling that transmits the same contents as the parallel interface (Hsync, Vsync, RGB) but will put control and RGB bits into a number of serial transmission lines synchronized to a clock whose rate is equal to the pixel rate. LVDS transmits seven bits per clock per data line, with six bits being data and one bit used to signal if the other six bits need to be inverted in order to maintain DC balance. Low-cost TFT displays often have three data lines and therefore only directly support 18 bits per pixel. Upscale displays have four or five data lines to support 24 bits per pixel (truecolor) or 30 bits per pixel respectively. Panel manufacturers are slowly replacing LVDS with Internal DisplayPort and Embedded DisplayPort, which allow sixfold reduction of the number of differential pairs.

Kawamoto, H. (2012). "The Inventors of TFT Active-Matrix LCD Receive the 2011 IEEE Nishizawa Medal". Journal of Display Technology. 8 (1): 3–4. Bibcode:2012JDisT...8....3K. doi:10.1109/JDT.2011.2177740. ISSN 1551-319X.

K. H. Lee; H. Y. Kim; K. H. Park; S. J. Jang; I. C. Park & J. Y. Lee (June 2006). "A Novel Outdoor Readability of Portable TFT-LCD with AFFS Technology". SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers. AIP. 37 (1): 1079–82. doi:10.1889/1.2433159. S2CID 129569963.

PLS (Plane to Line Switching) panel in an IPS-type panel made by Samsung; All IPS-type panels, such as Innolux’s AAS, AUO’s AHVA and LG’s AH-IPS and Nano IPS offer excellent color accuracy and wide viewing angles.

PLS stands for Plane to Line Switching and is produced by Samsung, who claims that a PLS panel offers 10% more brightness, better viewing angles, lower production costs (about 15%), better image quality and the possibility of having flexible panels.

In reality, most people don’t differentiate between IPS, AHVA and PLS since they are pretty much alike, which is why they are categorized under a single entity and simply called ‘IPS.’

Overall, whether a monitor has an IPS, PLS, or AHVA panel shouldn’t be the deciding factor when searching for a new display. You should check each monitor’s color gamut, brightness, response time and other specs to determine which monitor’s panel is better.

FANNAL new 8” TFT-LCD display offers a display area of 162.048(H) x 121.536(V)mm, high brightness of 600 cd/m² and a wide viewing angle of 80/80/80/80deg. The operating temperature range is another key feature, the display can operate between a standard -10 to +50°C.

IPS 10.1inch LCD panel, resolution 1024x600, standard brightness 800 cd/m2 with LVDS Interface. This 10.1inch IPS/ all/wide/full viewing angle TFT LCD display has a high brightness 800 cd/m2 and wide operating temp. for outdoor/automotive applications. FANNAL can also supply this 10.1-inch IPS LCD with an existing or customized touch panel according to the customer"s requirements.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) lcd is still a type of TFT LCD, IPS TFT is also called SFT LCD (supper fine tft ),different to regular tft in TN (Twisted Nematic) mode, theIPS LCD liquid crystal elements inside the tft lcd cell, they are arrayed in plane inside the lcd cell when power off, so the light can not transmit it via theIPS lcdwhen power off, When power on, the liquid crystal elements inside the IPS tft would switch in a small angle, then the light would go through the IPS lcd display, then the display on since light go through the IPS display, the switching angle is related to the input power, the switch angle is related to the input power value of IPS LCD, the more switch angle, the more light would transmit the IPS LCD, we call it negative display mode.

The regular tft lcd, it is a-si TN (Twisted Nematic) tft lcd, its liquid crystal elements are arrayed in vertical type, the light could transmit the regularTFT LCDwhen power off. When power on, the liquid crystal twist in some angle, then it block the light transmit the tft lcd, then make the display elements display on by this way, the liquid crystal twist angle is also related to the input power, the more twist angle, the more light would be blocked by the tft lcd, it is tft lcd working mode.

A TFT lcd display is vivid and colorful than a common monochrome lcd display. TFT refreshes more quickly response than a monochrome LCD display and shows motion more smoothly. TFT displays use more electricity in driving than monochrome LCD screens, so they not only cost more in the first place, but they are also more expensive to drive tft lcd screen.The two most common types of TFT LCDs are IPS and TN displays.

TN Film panels are the mostly widely used in the desktop display market and have been for many years since LCD monitors became mainstream. Smaller sized screens (15″, 17″ and 19″) are almost exclusively limited to this technology in fact and it has also extended into larger screen sizes over the last 7 years or so, now being a popular choice in the 20 – 28″ bracket as well. The TN Film panels are made by many different manufacturers, with the big names all having a share in the market (Samsung, LG.Display, AU Optronics) and being backed up by the other companies including most notably Innolux and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT). You may see different generations of TN Film being discussed, but over the years the performance characteristics have remained similar overall.

The other main reason for using TN Film is that it is fundamentally a responsive technology in terms of pixel latency, something which has always been a key consideration for LCD buyers. It has long been the choice for gaming screens and response times have long been, and still are today, the lowest out of all the technologies overall. Response times typically reach a limit of around 5ms at the ISO quoted black > white > black transition, and as low as 1ms across grey to grey transitions where Response Time Compensation (overdrive) is used. TN Film has also been incorporated into true 120Hz+ refresh rate desktop displays, pairing low response times with high refresh rates for even better moving picture and gaming experiences, improved frame rates and adding 3D stereoscopic content support. Modern 120Hz+ refresh rate screens normally also support NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 and their LightBoost system which brings about another advantage for gaming. You can use the LightBoost strobed backlight system in 2D gaming to greatly reduce the perceived motion blur which is a significant benefit. Some screens even include a native blur reduction mode instead of having to rely on LightBoost ‘hacks’, providing better support for strobing backlights and improving gaming experiences when it comes to perceived motion blur. As a result, TN Film is still the choice for gamer screens because of the low response times and 120Hz+ refresh rate support.

AU Optronics have more recently (around 2005) been working on their latest generation of MVA panel technology, termed ‘Advanced Multi Domain Vertical Alignment’ (AMVA). This is still produced today although a lot of their focus has moved to the similarly named, and not to be confused AHVA (Advanced Hyper Viewing Angle, IPS-type) technology. Compared with older MVA generations, AMVA is designed to offer improved performance including reduced colour washout, and the aim to conquer the significant problem of colour distortion with traditional wide viewing angle technology. This technology creates more domains than conventional multi-domain vertical alignment (MVA) LCD’s and reduces the variation of transmittance in oblique angles. It helps improve colour washout and provides better image quality in oblique angles than conventional VA LCD’s. Also, it has been widely recognized worldwide that AMVA technology is one of the few ways to provide optimized image quality through multiple domains.

AMVA still has some limitations however in practice, still suffering from the off-centre contrast shift you see from VA matrices. Viewing angles are therefore not as wide as IPS technology and the technology is often dismissed for colour critical work as a result. As well as this off-centre contrast shift, the wide viewing angles often show more colour and contrast shift than competing IPS-type panels, although some recent AMVA panel generations have shown improvements here (see BenQ GW2760HS for instance with new “Color Shift-free” technology). Responsiveness is better than older MVA offerings certainly, but remains behind TN Film and IPS/PLS in practice. The Anti-Glare (AG) coating used on most panels is light, and sometimes even appears “semi glossy” and so does not produce a grainy image.

The original P-MVA generation had a four-domain orientation. The key concept in AUO’s AMVA2 in 2005 was for eight-domain VA, using a capacitive coupling method with an ART transistor that can provide improved colour-washout performance. AMVA2 is an improved version of AMVA in terms of contrast ratio. PSA was applied to AMVA3 to improve the transmittance for an eight-domain VA, and AMVA5 provides further improvements in contrast ratio and transmittance via storage-capacitor modification and colour filter material optimization.

There was the same problem with traditional PVA matrices as with MVA offerings – their response time grew considerably when there’s a smaller difference between the initial and final states of the pixel. Again, PVA panels were not nearly as responsive as TN Film panels. With the introduction of MagicSpeed (Samsung’s overdrive / RTC) with later generations (see below), response times have been greatly improved and are comparable to MVA panels in this regard on similarly spec-ed panels. They still remain behind TN Film panels in gaming use, but the overdrive really has helped improve in this area. There are no PVA panels supporting native 120Hz+ refresh rates and Samsung have no plans to produce any at this time. In fact Samsung’s investment in PVA seems to have been cut back significantly in favour of their IPS-like PLS technology.

In Plane Switching (IPS – also known as ‘Super TFT’) technology was developed by Hitachi in 1996 to try and solve the two main limitations of TN Film matrices at the time, those being small viewing angles and low-quality color reproduction. The name In-Plane Switching comes from the crystals in the cells of the IPS panel lying always in the same plane and being always parallel to the panel’s plane (if we don’t take into account the minor interference from the electrodes). When voltage is applied to a cell, the crystals of that cell all make a 90-degrees turn. By the way, an IPS panel lets the backlight pass through in its active state and shutters it in its passive state (when no voltage is applied), so if a thin-film transistor crashes, the corresponding pixel will always remain black, unlike with TN matrices.

Since their initial production in 1998 S-IPS panels have gained the widest recognition, mostly due to the efforts of LG.Philips LCD (now known as LG.Display), who were outputting rather inexpensive and high-quality 19″ – 30″ matrices. The response time was among the serious drawbacks of the IPS technology – first panels were as slow as 60ms on the “official” black-to-white-to-back transitions (and even slower on grey-to-grey ones!) Fortunately, the engineers dragged the full response time down to 25 ms and then 16ms later, and this total is equally divided between pixel rise and pixel fall times. Moreover, the response time doesn’t greatly grow up on black-to-gray transitions compared to the specification, so some older S-IPS matrices at the time could challenge TN Film panels in this parameter.

Close inspection of modern IPS panels can show this new H-IPS pixel structure, although not all manufacturers refer to their models as featuring an H-IPS panel. Indeed, LG.Display don’t really make reference to this H-IPS version, although from a technical point of view, most modern IPS panels are H-IPS in format. As an example of someone who has referred to this new generation, NEC have used the H-IPS name in their panel specs for models such as the LCD2690WXUi2 and LCD3090WUXi screens.

The following technical report has feedback from the LG.Philips LCD laboratory workers: “Wedesigned a new pixel layout to improve the aperture ratioof IPS mode TFT-LCD (H-IPS). This H-IPS pixel layout design has reducedthe width of side common electrode used to minimize thecross talk and light leakage which is induced by interferencebetween data bus line and side common electrode of conventionalIPS mode. The side common electrodes of a pixel canbe reduced by horizontal layout of inter-digital electrode pattern whereconventional IPS pixel designs have vertical layout of inter-digital electrodes.We realized 15 inch XGA TFT LCD of H-IPS structurewhich has aperture ratio as much as 1.2 times ofcorresponding conventional IPS pixel design.” ©2004 Society for Information Display.

Some spec sheets from LG.Display give some clues as to the differences. The lines separating the sub-pixels are smaller than with H-IPS and therefore the UH-IPS technology has an 18% higher aperture ratio. The drive for increased LCD panel transmissivity is not for the purpose specifically of increasing on screen brightness, but rather to maintain brightness and reduce backlight lamps, inverters, and optical films in order to lower panel costs. LG have used this terminology with some of their LED backlight monitors.

PLS was introduced by Samsung at the end of 2010 and designed to compete with LG.Display’s long-established and very popular IPS technology. It is an IPS-type technology and for all intents and purposes can be considered IPS, just being manufactured by another company. Samsung claimed they had reduced production costs compared with IPS by about 15% and so were making a play at the market of IPS panels when it was launched. At the time it was also being dubbed “S-PLS” (Super-PLS) but that name seemed to be dropped quite quickly in favour of just “PLS”. It wasn’t until mid 2011 that the first PLS displays started to appear, fittingly they were manufactured by Samsung themselves. The Samsung S27A850D was the first of its kind and its overall performance certainly reminded users of IPS panels.

Response times are very comparable to IPS matrices, with 5ms G2G being the current lowest spec on paper. There is currently no support for refresh rates above 60Hz from Samsung PLS panels, although there are some Korean manufactured screens which can be over-clocked to 100Hz refresh rates. This is not natively or officially supported though. Contrast ratios are typically around 700 – 900:1 in practice, although can reach up to 1000:1 in some cases as per their spec. Viewing angles are very comparable to IPS as well with wide fields of view and freedom from the off-centre contrast shifts you see from VA panels. From a wide angle dark content has a pale / white glow to it like modern IPS panels, again leading to a fair amount of so-called “PLS-glow” which can be distracting to some users. AG coating is also light, much like the light coating used on modern AH-IPS panels from LG.Display.

All in all, PLS is very comparable in practice to IPS. It should be noted that some display manufacturers market their screens as using an IPS panel, whereas underneath the hood the panel is actually a Samsung PLS matrix. Testament to how close these technologies are really considered although somewhat mis-leading. Samsung have largely moved away from their focus on PVA panels and are concentrating on PLS (and TN Film still) now instead. At the time of writing PLS panels are typically available in sizes between 23 and 27″ with resolutions up to 2560 x 1440. They do also have a 31.5″ panel with Ultra HD 3840 x 2160 available which is currently their largest. They do not currently manufacturer any ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio of curved format panels.

In 2012 some PLS based screens started to be marketed using the “AD-PLS” name. It is unclear what is supposed to have changed, if anything, with these recent panel variants. We suspect this is just a marketing name designed to keep up with LG.Display’s change to the “Advanced High-Performance IPS (AH-IPS)” name from the same time. Performance characteristics remain as described in the PLS section above.

Again like Samsung’s PLS technology, AU Optronics have invested in their own IPS-type technology since 2012, dubbed AHVA. This technology is designed by AU Optronics as another alternative to IPS. Confusingly the AHVA name makes it sound like it’s a VA-type panel, which AU Optronics have been manufacturing for many years. It should not be confused with AMVA which is their current “true” VA technology produced. The BenQ BL2710PT was the first display featuring this new technology and gave us some insight into the performance characteristics of AHVA, confirming how closely it resembled an LG.Display IPS panel.

Response time specs reach as low as 4ms G2G on paper but in reality the matrix does not perform any better than the faster IPS or PLS panel versions. Contrast ratios can reach up to the advertised 1000:1 and viewing angles are also very comparable to IPS. There is no off-centre contrast shift like you see on normal VA panels, but a pale glow is visible on dark content from an angle like with IPS/PLS. The AG coating is very light, often semi-glossy.

5.3-inch (13.41 centimeters) PLS TFT LCD, HD+ capacitive multi-touch touchscreen with 1480 x 720 pixels resolution, 310 ppi pixel density and 16 M color support