great scott tft lcd brands

Today, film has been almost completely replaced by digital-video projectors that are based on one of three imaging technologies: LCD, LCoS, and DLP. All of these technologies offer many advantages over film and CRT projectors—smaller size, lower weight, less heat generation, and more efficient energy usage—and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses for different applications.

The first digital-projection technology was LCD (liquid crystal display). It was conceived by Gene Dolgoff in 1968, but LCD technology was not sufficiently developed to be practical in a projector at the time; that would have to wait until the mid-1980s.

Fig. 1: In many LCD projectors, white light from a lamp is split into its red, green, and blue components using dichroic mirrors. The three colored beams are directed to pass through three LCD panels that form the images associated with each color. Then, the light from the three panels is combined into a full-color image that is projected onto the screen. (Source: Epson)

In some LCD projectors, the light source is a blue laser. With most laser projectors, some of the blue light from the laser hits a spinning wheel coated with phosphor that emits yellow light, which is then split into its red and green components using dichroic mirrors (Fig. 2). The rest of the blue laser light is directed to the blue imager.

Fig. 2: Some LCD projectors use an array of blue lasers as the light source. Some of the blue light is directed to a spinning wheel coated with a phosphor that emits yellow light, which is split into its red and green components. The red, green, and remaining blue-laser light beams are then directed to the LCD imagers. (Source: Epson)

Either way, each beam of red, green, and blue light is directed toward its own LCD imager, which typically measures 0.55-inch to about 1-inch diagonally (Fig. 3) and consists of an array of tiny, transparent cells. These cells are individually and dynamically controlled by electrical signals to allow more or less light to pass through them at any given moment. Each cell can be made transparent, opaque, or translucent in varying degrees based on the signal. As the cells change the amount of light they pass, they form a digital image for each frame in the video signal.

The imager for each color forms a portion of the final image associated with that color, and the image is generally held for each entire frame in the video signal; this process is called sample and hold. Modern LCD imagers can be switched at faster rates—up to 480 times per second—which allows projector designers to implement features such as 3D, frame interpolation, and pixel-shifted UHD (more on that in a moment) instead of holding one image for the entire frame.

The individual cells in an LCD imager measure about 6 to 12 microns across and are surrounded by opaque lines that carry the electrical signals to control each cell"s transparency. These lines occupy a certain percentage of the total area of the imager that can"t be used as part of the image. The percentage of the total area that can be used as part of the image—in other words, the area occupied by the cells themselves—is called the fill factor, which is roughly 80% to 90% for LCD imagers. As a result, it"s possible to see the boundaries around the pixels as you get close to the screen, which is known as the screen-door effect. Some longtime enthusiasts may recall the prominence of screen-door effect in earlier, lower-resolution LCD projectors, though today"s 1080p imagers have greatly reduced its visibility on a typical-size home-theater screen.

Another important characteristic of all digital projection imagers is their inherent or native contrast ratio—that is, the ratio of the most to least light they can pass without enhancements such as a dynamic iris or modulated light source. Epson won"t reveal the native contrast ratio of its LCD imagers, but the company"s UB (Ultra Black) enhancement technology—which incorporates a dynamic iris and light polarization to reduce light scatter in the engine—is known to achieve impressive contrast ratios and black levels when viewed in appropriately dark conditions.

Most modern LCD imagers have resolutions up to 1920x1200 (WUXGA); home-theater models typically use 1920x1080 (1080p) imagers. Higher resolutions are possible but uncommon—I know of only one commercially available projector today that uses LCD imagers with native 3840x2160 (UHD) resolution: the recently introduced Epson Pro L12000QNL, which is designed for large venues such as stadiums and convention halls.

Some home-theater LCD projectors with 1080p imagers simulate UHD resolution with a pixel-shifting technique. The pixel-shifting in Epson"s models is part of a technology suite Epson calls 4K PRO-UHD. In this process, an optical refracting plate oscillates back and forth, shifting the final image diagonally by half a pixel once per frame (Fig. 4). Because the LCD cells can be switched to different levels of transparency much faster than any current frame rate, each set of shifted pixels is independently controllable, doubling the effective number of pixels on the screen. In addition, the pixels overlap, so the pixel grid is more dense, further reducing the screen-door effect.

LCD imagers for projectors are made by Epson and Sony. Epson is the only major manufacturer of consumer-oriented LCD projectors, though it also makes models for business and educational applications as well as large venues. Sony makes a variety of LCD projectors for the business and education markets, and Panasonic offers models for large-venue and commercial installations. Other companies that make LCD projectors for various applications include Christie, Maxell, NEC, Ricoh, and Sharp.

LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) is a variation of LCD technology. General Electric first demonstrated a low-resolution LCoS projector in the 1970s, but it wasn"t until 1998 that JVC introduced its first SXGA+ (1400x1050) projector using its implementation of LCoS technology, which the company calls D-ILA (Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier). In 2005, Sony introduced its first 1080p home-theater model, the VPL-VW100 (aka "Ruby"), using its own implementation of LCoS—called SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display)—which was followed by JVC"s DLA-RS1 in 2007.

Like LCD projectors, LCoS projectors separate light into its red, green, and blue components that are directed to three separate LCD-based imagers. But instead of light simply passing through the LCD cells, it is reflected off a shiny surface directly behind the cell array and passes back through the cells again (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5: An LCoS imager includes a layer of LCD material that lets more or less light through each pixel according to the signal it receives. The light passes through the LCD layer and reflects off a mirror before passing back through the LCD layer a second time. (Source: JVC)

The light source in LCoS projectors is often a white lamp, but some use a blue laser and yellow phosphor wheel as the light source, a technology that JVC calls Blu-Escent and Sony calls Z-Phosphor. Either way, as with LCD projectors, the red, green, and blue light beams are directed to their respective imagers. The reflected light from the three imagers is then combined and projected onto a screen through the main lens (Fig. 6).

LCoS imagers today measure 0.7 to 1.3 inches diagonally (Fig. 7). As with LCD, each imager forms its image and generally holds it for each frame. Modern LCoS imagers can switch at rates up to 120 Hz, which allows things like 3D, frame interpolation, and pixel-shifted UHD. At 120 Hz, however, they can"t do pixel-shifted UHD and 3D at the same time.

Fig. 8: JVC claims to have developed a way to control the LCD molecules in the gaps between cells, greatly reducing the screen-door effect. (Source: JVC)

In any case, red, green, and blue light is directed to DLP imagers, which currently measure from 0.2 inches for small, portable devices to 1.38 inches for digital-cinema projectors; home-theater models today typically use imagers that measure 0.47-inch or 0.66-inch diagonally. However, they work quite differently from LCD or LCoS imagers. Instead of tiny LCD cells, a DLP imager is covered with an array of microscopic mirrors that correspond to the individual pixels (Fig. 10). This type of imager is called a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD).

Each micromirror on modern DMDs measures 5.4 to 10.8 microns square, depending on the size and resolution of the imager, and the fill factor is over 90%. The native contrast of DMDs is generally less than LCoS imagers, though Texas Instruments made claims to contrast improvement through the years in successive generations of its "DarkChip" technology. More recently, however, TI and its supporting DLP projector manufacturing partners have not touted DarkChip much at all in promotion of DLP. As with other technologies, a dynamic iris and/or dynamic illumination modulation can greatly increase the effective contrast of the image on the screen.

As in all LCD and LCoS projectors, some DLP projectors use three DMDs, one each for red, green, and blue. However, these so-called 3-chip models are very expensive. Fortunately for consumers, there"s a less-expensive alternative that uses only one DMD.

By comparison, color brightness (aka color light output or CLO) is calculated by adding the maximum brightness of red, green, and blue. Ideally, white and color brightness should be identical, and for all 3-chip projectors—LCD, LCoS, and 3-chip DLP—they are, since white is simply a combination of red, green, and blue. A standard method for measuring color brightness was introduced by SID (Society for Information Display) in 2012.

In addition, white and color brightness are generally identical for 1-chip DLP projectors with RGBRGB color wheels (though the use of BrilliantColor processing might cause a slight discrepancy). When the color wheel includes other filter colors—especially a clear segment—the white brightness will be greater than the color brightness, which is calculated only from the red, green, and blue colors, leaving the extra colors and white out of the equation. The difference between white and color brightness can be as much as a factor of two or three in 1-chip DLP projectors.

Why is this important? If a projector"s color brightness is much less than its white brightness, images with saturated colors can appear noticeably dimmer and duller than they would from a projector with equal white and color brightness. You might think this means it is always preferable to have a 3-chip projector that delivers equal white and color brightness, and since all LCD and LCoS projectors are 3-chip designs, you should automatically select one of those. However, depending on the projector, its brightness rating, and the content, ProjectorCentral"s tests suggest there can be trade-offs in perceived contrast or color accuracy that may come into play with 3-chip LCD projectors. ProjectorCentral"s investigation "ANSI Lumens vs Color Light Output: The Debate between LCD and DLP" takes a close look at this subject. There are also many other factors to consider when selecting a projector, such as the quality of signal processing and optics, and the overall cost just to name a few.

LCD can exhibit excellent blacks and contrast with enhancement techniques such as a dynamic iris and/or dynamic lamp or laser modulation. In particular, Epson"s UB (Ultra Black) technology is effective at improving the level of deep black and boosting contrast by using polarized filters to reduce the amount of stray light inside the light engine that would otherwise make its way to the screen.

By comparison, many of the 1-chip DLP projectors I"ve reviewed over the years have had black levels and contrast that lagged well behind the best LCoS and LCD projectors. Of course, this doesn"t mean that DLP projectors always have worse or poor contrast. A projector"s overall brightness rating also has an effect on contrast (brighter projectors typically have higher black levels), and as with LCD and LCoS, enhancements like a dynamic iris and/or dynamic light modulation can help a lot. Still, ProjectorCentral"s comparison reviews, which directly face-off similar, calibrated home-theater projectors in the same environment, often report better contrast in dark images with LCD and LCoS models compared to single-chip DLP projectors.

Along with inherently better contrast, another advantage of LCoS among the three technologies is the availability and relative affordability of native-4K resolution. JVC and Sony both offer LCoS projectors with native 4K (4096x2160) resolution for as little as $5,000 to $6,000. DLP with native-4K resolution is available only in digital-cinema and other super-high-end projectors, which run well into six figures, and LCD projectors are not available with native 4K or UHD resolution at all as of this writing (except for the one large-venue model from Epson mentioned earlier).

Some Epson LCD and JVC LCoS models offer two-phase pixel shifting with native 1080p (1920x1080) imagers, which puts 4.15 million pixels on the screen. This is not true UHD, which would require 8.3 million pixels to be delivered to the screen for each frame. However, many respected reviewers have reported that the image from these projectors is subjectively sharper than true 1080p, and that the difference between double-pixel-shifted 1080p and true UHD is minimal. Of course, here again, other factors, including the quality of the image processing and the lens optics, also come into play in these comparisons.

Many LCD, LCoS, and 3-chip DLP projectors offer a pixel-alignment function that lets users shift the red, green, and/or blue pixels by tiny amounts to correct an imperfect factory alignment. In some cases, you can even shift different zones within the image by different amounts.

Whether you"re shopping for a budget model for a dedicated home theater or an expensive state-of-the-art projector for a large-venue installation, cost is almost always a factor. The most expensive projectors today tend to be ultra-high-brightness LCD or 3-chip DLP, while LCD and 1-chip DLP tend to be the least-expensive options among digital projectors, with prices today starting as low as $250. However, the resolution of these models is typically less than 1080p, or they feature low-light LED engines, making them unsuitable for serious home theater.

Today, decent 1080p home-theater projectors typically start around $450 and go up from there. If you search by resolution and price in ProjectorCentral"s Find a Projector Database (which lists more than 11,000 current and past projectors), home-theater projectors in the $450 to $1,000 range are almost entirely dominated by 1-chip DLP models from several major brands, including BenQ, Optoma, ViewSonic, Acer, Vivitek, and others. Epson—the only major brand selling LCD projectors for home theater, is represented by a trio of Home Cinema series models in this price range starting at $649.

The lowest-cost UHD models are found in the $1,000 to $2,000 range and include both 1-chip DLP projectors with full UHD resolution (achieved with pixel-shifting) and 3-chip LCD projectors (the latter only from Epson) that have native 1080p imagers but are UHD-compliant and apply pixel-shifting to enhance apparent resolution. Here again, the vast majority are single-chip DLP models. Of course, there are much more expensive—and higher performance—1-chip DLP projectors in the marketplace that utilize the same pixel-shifting XPR technology found in the budget DLP models, though brighter projectors often feature the larger 0.66-inch DMD with native 2716x1528 resolution, which uses only two-phase TRP pixel-shifting instead of the four-phase XPR quadrupling required for the 0.47-inch, native-1080p DMD.

LCoS is generally more expensive than consumer-oriented LCD and 1-chip DLP, and as noted earlier, the home-theater market for this technology is dominated by just two manufacturers, JVC and Sony. The lowest-cost LCoS projector in the ProjectorCentral database is a Sony model with 1080p resolution that costs $1,999. JVC"s current LCoS models start with the $3,999 DLA-X790/RS540 model mentioned earlier (until it is phased out), which uses a 1080p imager with e-Shift dual pixel-shifting. Beyond these are native-4K models from both manufacturers, starting at $4,999 for Sony and $5,999 for JVC. Wolf Cinema also offers its own LCoS projectors based on JVC chassis, including native 4K models, starting at $15,000.

Projectors have come a long way since their hand-cranked beginnings. Today"s digital-video projectors render spectacular moving images with greater resolution, higher brightness, more contrast, and a wider range of colors than ever before. Even better, most of those gains are available at lower cost to more consumers, businesses, schools, museums, and houses of worship, bringing more impact to a wider audience. Of course, the highest possible quality remains very expensive, but it"s amazing how well even the least-expensive modern projectors perform.

@Rob Sabin My pricing example was indeed a bit off. I think the €3000 to €6000 price range is becoming more important for consumers who are upgrading from the €1500 to €3000 price range. Although Epson did showcase their first 1.64 inch (HTPS) TFT 4096 x 2169 panel back in 2009, this market segment hasn’t really changed for true native 4K projector’s since the release of the Sony VPL285ES back in 2017. And it’s successor is also still priced at €4999. With the upcoming release of Epson’s new EB-L12000Q it is highly unlikely that the UB series are getting this kind of 4K panel or a scaled down version of it. I am waiting to see the next generation of Epson’s UB series with a higher resolution or sharpness, to fill the gap between the LCD forefront and the LCOS forefront currently dominated by JVC and Sony (for the consumer market).

Nextion is a seamless Human Machine Interface (HMI) solution that provides a control and visualization interface between a human and a process, machine, application or appliance. Nextion is mainly applied to Internet of thing (IoT) or consumer electronics field. It is the best solution to replace the traditional LCD and LED Nixie tube.

Nextion includes a hardware part (a series of TFT boards) and a software part (the Nextion editor). The Nextion TFT board uses only one serial port to communicate. It lets users avoid the hassle of wiring. We noticed that most engineers spend much time in application development but get unsatisfactory results. As a solution to this situation, Nextion editor has mass components such as button, text, progress bar, slider, instrument panel etc. to enrich the interface design. Furthermore, the drag-and-drop function ensures that users spend less time in programming, which will reduce 99% of their development workloads. With the help of this WYSIWYG editor, designing a GUI is a piece of cake.

4.3" Nextion NX4827T043 TFT Intelligent Display is a powerful 4.3"" HMI, which is member of Nextion family. Features include: a 4.3" TFT 480x272 resistive touch screen display, 16M Flash, 2KByte RAM, 65k colors.

Asia has long dominated the display module TFT LCD manufacturers’ scene. After all, most major display module manufacturers can be found in countries like China, South Korea, Japan, and India.

In this post, we’ll list down 7 best display module TFT LCD manufacturers in the USA. We’ll see why these companies deserve recognition as top players in the American display module industry.

STONE Technologies is a leading display module TFT LCD manufacturer in the world. The company is based in Beijing, China, and has been in operations since 2010. STONE quickly grew to become one of the most trusted display module manufacturers in 14 years.

Now, let’s move on to the list of the best display module manufacturers in the USA. These companies are your best picks if you need to find a display module TFT LCD manufacturer based in the United States:

Planar Systems is a digital display company headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon. It specializes in providing digital display solutions such as LCD video walls and large format LCD displays.

Microtips Technology is a global electronics manufacturer based in Orlando, Florida. The company was established in 1990 and has grown into a strong fixture in the LCD industry.

What makes Microtips a great display module TFT LCD manufacturer in the USA lies in its close ties with all its customers. It does so by establishing a good rapport with its clients starting from the initial product discussions. Microtips manages to keep this exceptional rapport throughout the entire client relationship by:

Displaytech is an American display module TFT LCD manufacturer headquartered in Carlsbad, California. It was founded in 1989 and is part of several companies under the Seacomp group. The company specializes in manufacturing small to medium-sized LCD modules for various devices across all possible industries.

The company also manufactures embedded TFT devices, interface boards, and LCD development boards. Also, Displaytech offers design services for embedded products, display-based PCB assemblies, and turnkey products.

Displaytech makes it easy for clients to create their own customized LCD modules. There is a feature called Design Your Custom LCD Panel found on their site. Clients simply need to input their specifications such as their desired dimensions, LCD configuration, attributes, connector type, operating and storage temperature, and other pertinent information. Clients can then submit this form to Displaytech to get feedback, suggestions, and quotes.

A vast product range, good customization options, and responsive customer service – all these factors make Displaytech among the leading LCD manufacturers in the USA.

Products that Phoenix Display offers include standard, semi-custom, and fully-customized LCD modules. Specifically, these products comprise Phoenix Display’s offerings:

Clients flock to Phoenix Display because of their decades-long experience in the display manufacturing field. The company also combines its technical expertise with its competitive manufacturing capabilities to produce the best possible LCD products for its clients.

True Vision Displays is an American display module TFT LCD manufacturing company located at Cerritos, California. It specializes in LCD display solutions for special applications in modern industries. Most of their clients come from highly-demanding fields such as aerospace, defense, medical, and financial industries.

The company produces several types of TFT LCD products. Most of them are industrial-grade and comes in various resolution types such as VGA, QVGA, XGA, and SXGA. Clients may also select product enclosures for these modules.

All products feature high-bright LCD systems that come from the company’s proprietary low-power LED backlight technology. The modules and screens also come in ruggedized forms perfect for highly-demanding outdoor industrial use.

LXD Incorporated is among the earliest LCD manufacturers in the world. The company was founded in 1968 by James Fergason under the name International Liquid Xtal Company (ILIXCO). Its first headquarters was in Kent, Ohio. At present, LXD is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

We’ve listed the top 7 display module TFT LCD manufacturers in the USA. All these companies may not be as well-known as other Asian manufacturers are, but they are equally competent and can deliver high-quality display products according to the client’s specifications. Contact any of them if you need a US-based manufacturer to service your display solutions needs.

We also briefly touched on STONE Technologies, another excellent LCD module manufacturer based in China. Consider partnering with STONE if you want top-of-the-line smart LCD products and you’re not necessarily looking for a US-based manufacturer. STONE will surely provide the right display solution for your needs anywhere you are on the globe.

WASHINGTON – Japanese electronics manufacturer Hitachi Displays Ltd., agreed to plead guilty and pay a $31 million fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display panels (TFT-LCD) sold to Dell Inc., the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.

A one-count felony charge filed today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco charges Hitachi Displays Ltd., a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., with participating in a conspiracy to fix the prices of TFT-LCD sold to Dell for use in desktop monitors and notebook computers from April 1, 2001, through March 31, 2004. According to the plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, Hitachi Displays has agreed to cooperate with the Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation.

"Hitachi joins three other multinational companies who have admitted to their involvement in fixing prices for LCD panels sold to U.S. companies and that have already paid criminal fines totaling more than $585 million," said Scott D. Hammond, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department’s Antitrust Division. "This case should send a strong message to multinational companies operating in the United States that when it comes to enforcing the U.S. antitrust laws we mean business."

Including today’s filing, four companies and seven individuals have been charged in the Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation into the TFT-LCD industry. To date, more than $585 million in criminal fines have been imposed as a result of this investigation, and four individuals have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to serve jail time.

TFT-LCD panels are used in computer monitors and notebooks, televisions, mobile phones and other electronic devices. In 2006, the worldwide market for TFT-LCD panels was approximately $70 billion. Hitachi Displays Ltd., based in Tokyo, Japan, reported $1.75 billion in total revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2008.

Hitachi Displays is charged with carrying out the conspiracy by: Participating in bilateral meetings, conversations and communications in Japan, Korea and the United States to discuss the prices of TFT-LCD to be sold to Dell;

Agreeing, during those bilateral meetings, conversations and communications, to charge prices of TFT-LCD to be sold to Dell at certain predetermined levels;

This is the fourth plea agreement by a company charged with participating in conspiracies to fix the prices for TFT-LCD. On Dec. 15, 2008, LG Display Co. (LG) pleaded guilty to participating in a worldwide conspiracy to fix the price for TFT-LCD and was sentenced to pay a $400 million criminal fine – the second-largest fine in Antitrust Division history. On Dec. 16, 2008, Sharp Corp. pleaded guilty to participating in three separate conspiracies to fix the prices of TFT-LCD sold to Dell, Apple Computer Inc. and Motorola Inc. and was sentenced to pay a $120 million criminal fine. On Jan. 14, 2009, Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. (Chunghwa) pleaded guilty to participating in the same worldwide conspiracy as LG, and was sentenced to pay a $65 million criminal fine.

Anyone with information concerning illegal conduct in the TFT-LCD industry is urged to call the San Francisco Field Office of the Antitrust Division at 415-436-6660.

If you don’t quite remember, the Foxconn project in Wisconsin was announced in 2017 as a massive deal to build the first “Generation 10.5” LCD factory in North America. It was also one of the first big moments in the Trump presidency, complete with President Trump holding a golden shovel at a lavish groundbreaking ceremony where he said the factory would be “the eighth wonder of the world.”

The deal was supposedly quite simple: Foxconn (the company best known for manufacturing the iPhone), President Trump, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker all announced that Foxconn would build a 20-million-square-foot display factory in Wisconsin that would bring 13,000 manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Wisconsin promised more than $4 billion in tax credits to Foxconn, cleared land by pushing people out of their homes, and diverted water from Lake Michigan to support the factory. A lot of people got excited about this promised American manufacturing renaissance and left good jobs to join it.

But it turned out that while Foxconn was putting on a great show, no LCD factory was actually getting built, even though Foxconn kept saying it was happening.

I wrote the book in the past year and a half, partly because I think there are a lot of untold stories that need to be told. I wanted to share some of the interesting backstories and narratives of the tireless people and patriots who put in a great deal of work to bring this investment into the United States, and to Wisconsin.

NP: Josh and I covered this project extensively at The Verge the whole time, and we have both read the book. If you just read this book cover to cover, you would end fully believing that there is a Generation 10.5 LCD factory in southeastern Wisconsin. There is not a factory. What happened?

Well, if you read the book — which you did, and I thank you for that — it stopped right around the end of 2017. I think everybody, including myself, fully believed that the Gen 10.5 project would happen. A great deal of work went in there, as was the plan and the intent. By the way, I want to thank the two of you and The Verge for covering the story so extensively. Not everybody had actually put in the time and effort to do that. I also want to clarify that, up until this point, I have not talked to the media or The Verge.

Yes, we have very strict policy, especially given my role at the company and my responsibility for the project. I do appreciate you taking the interest and doing very extensive reporting on that. I commend you for that. A lot of the facts and data you share are more complete and extensive than any other outlet or report organization. That is a really great contribution and great discourse.

NP: I believe that. Every politician wants to see a giant factory with 13,000 jobs in their backyard. Josh wrote the story where he visited all of Foxconn’s innovation centers that were empty before the election — before Walker was voted out and Evers was voted in — and there was no factory. I would tell you that maybe the people of Wisconsin said, “The guy who made us these promises, Scott Walker, did not deliver, so we voted in a new person.”The election of Tony Eversis not why Foxconn did not build a factory, because they were already not building a factory.

NP: That attack was rooted in the exact thing you said, which is that the market for LCDs was being overwhelmed by Chinese suppliers. No one could see the business case for an LCD factory in Wisconsin at higher labor rates and without the supply of workers to staff such a factory. The criticism was that this does not make economic sense.

When you go back to what we said before, I still believe today — and five years from now — there is a tremendous need for a TFT LCD fab in the United States. When we built in Wisconsin and signed the contract, people became a lot less supportive, not because they did not want the investment, but because it became political. Articles came out attacking us so that they may score a point or two, and that was not very helpful.

NP: We don’t even have any questions about tax credit. I am just trying to get to the heart of why you signed up to build a Gen 10.5 factory in Wisconsin, which is a famous cocktail-napkin contract with Scott Walker. All of this other stuff seems like a distraction from that project. Now you are saying you do not think there is a talent base in Wisconsin alone, and you have to bring engineers into short-term housing from all these cities around Wisconsin to help grow a talent base. This entire book is about wining and dining with politicians, getting the deal together, and whether Scott Walker arrives in China and goes straight on the factory tour or stops at the hotel first. Nowhere in this book is there an economic defense of this investment that says, “This is a good idea that we think will return a profit to us.”

The idea that it is the Evers administration, that business climate changed, or that Wisconsin was the wrong choice — which is what you are suggesting right now — that is all on Foxconn. If you chose wrong and should have chosen Ohio because of politics, it is still on Foxconn. If you decided 10.5 was not going to work out and Gen 6 was better, and you could not convince the Evers administration that you were actually going to build an LCD factory. What we have heard from that administration is that you never engaged or told them anything. So where is the accountability here for there not being a factory?

NP: There was an enormous amount of client publicity, though. We were told that Briggo was going tobuild coffee robots there. We were told that Google was going to build servers there. We were told there was going to be a Gen 6 LCD factory there. We were told thatyou were going to build ventilators. None of that stuff happened.

I talked to a lot of people who really believed those promises and they left good jobs to be part of a revival of US manufacturing. You mentioned patriots when you started; I talked to a lot of people who felt very patriotic about this idea. Then they got there and saw it was not happening. There was no attempt to invest in an LCD factory, and no willingness to invest in really much of any manufacturing there. They felt that it was all optics, that there was no plan. cxd was all just announcements of big things that were going to happen that never did and they felt betrayed. How do you answer these people?

I no longer speak for or work for the company, I want to make sure you understand that. I am not defending the company per se, but I am sharing a fact; just look at what great things are happening in India and Vietnam. I think it will happen in Wisconsin.

One of the people I have the great pleasure of working with is Major General Timothy Zadalis. When I brought him in and he actually supported the project, one thing he said to me was, “You have some challenges here including human resources, with visioning and making things happen. The outcome with that would invariably be that Foxconn will become a training ground for other companies within the region. You are going to lose a lot of talent and many of them with good intentions.” Some of them left on good terms, but others might not have. Josh, maybe you had talked to someone that might have been a little bit unhappy when they departed the company, maybe even involuntarily.

Invariably, I think they got something out of it; they got training, and the stepping stones and experiences to move on to other positions in other companies. I can point to at least 30 to 50 people that have actually moved on to great organizations to take on great responsibility and are doing quite well. I take pride in doing that. Do I wish they had stayed on at Foxconn doing the Flying Eagle project? Of course I do. I wish I had stayed myself, and been in the project building that Gen 10.5 or Gen 6 fab, but that did not happen. Why did I leave? I believed I could do a lot more outside Foxconn than inside, and do it a lot faster, that includes the innovation center and speaking to the two of you.

This 15.6-inch TFT LCD screen from Green House may look like any other LCD monitor (except that maybe it"s a little smaller than we"re used to), but it has a magic trick: It runs on USB, which makes it one of the largest USB display"s we"ve seen.

Liquid crystals (LCs) remained an academic curiosity until 1962, when Williams (1963), at the Radio Corporation of America’s (RCA) Sarnoff Research Center, discovered changes in the optical transmission of thin films of para-azoxyanisole held between two glass slides on the application of 12 V. Williams subsequently left the laboratory, but his lead was followed by George Heilmeier, who persuaded the RCA management to start an LC project. There was, at that time, no room-temperature LC, but the RCA chemists devised a mixture of three Schiff’s bases that had a nematic range from 22 to 105°C (Goldmacher & Castellano 1967). The effect that RCA wished to exploit in displays was called the dynamic scattering mode (DSM), in which the mixture turns from transparency to white opalescence over a range of a few volts (Heilmeier et al. 1968). LCs are anisotropic in almost all their physical characteristics. The values of refractive index, dielectric constant, conductivity, elasticity and viscosity are very different when measured along the long molecular axis or the short axes. Because of the dielectric anisotropy, the molecule will turn in an electric field, and nematics divide into two classes, positive crystals, which align along the field, and negative crystals, which try to lie across it. DSM can be generated in negative nematics, because charges build up along the molecules, giving rise to a field at right angles to the applied field. At higher fields, turbulence occurs. RCA publicized their discoveries in 1968, and, amid some excitement, many companies set about exploiting liquid crystal displays (LCD) in digital watches and calculators. Curiously, RCA was an exception.

It would not be an overstatement to say that US industry lost its way on displays in the 1970s. We have seen that the early running on LCs was made by RCA. That laboratory had not been in the forefront of discovery on transistors and chips, relying mainly on licensing from Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL), but it had a proud record of innovation in vacuum tubes, culminating in the invention of the shadow-mask CRT. RCA led in the early research on TFTs and LCDs, but the belief that flat-panel displays were against their long-term interests led them to withdraw from the field in 1972. The other potential industrial leader, BTL, had stayed curiously aloof from the frenzied search for novel display technology, partly because of their increased involvement in semiconductor lasers for communications, but also because senior figures in their laboratory were unconvinced that new displays were required. They said (Gordon & Anderson 1973):Prospects for new display technologies are clouded by the fact that there exists a device, the familiar CRT, that has long provided a versatile, elegant, functional, economical, and largely satisfactory solution.

The lack of management interest in LCDs certainly led to a number of the RCA scientists leaving, and one of their best theorists, Wolfgang Helfrich, joined Hoffmann-La Roche (H-LR), the Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical company, in 1970. There he suggested to Martin Schadt, the LC group leader, that he should work on a new display effect that exploited positive nematics. Helfrich’s idea was to make a thin LC cell that rotated the plane of incident polarized light by 90°. It was known that nematic molecules would lie down on a glass substrate that had been rubbed with a polishing cloth in one direction. If that direction was orthogonal on the two surfaces, a 90° twist would be induced, and when the cell was put between parallel polarizers, no light could pass. However, if a field was applied across that cell, the molecules would align themselves along the field, the twist would disappear, and light could pass. Schadt made the cell, it worked, and the twisted nematic (TN) display was born (figure 6).

James Fergason was a scientist who had worked on cholesteric LCs at Westinghouse in the early 1960s, but left in 1966 to join Kent State University. Two years later he formed his own company, ILIXCO, to manufacture LC displays. In 1968 and 1970 he published two papers that effectively contained descriptions of the TN display (Arora et al. 1968; Fergason et al. 1970). He made no attempt then to patent the concept, and was surprised, and probably irritated, when a colleague reported back after a visit to H-LR that Schadt and Helfrich had invented a new form of LCD. In fact, it was as a result of this inadvertent disclosure that H-LR had rapidly taken the patenting and publishing actions. Fergason himself set about composing patents and, after an abortive attempt in February, submitted in April a patent, which was granted in 1973 (Fergason 1971). No mention was made in this patent of his earlier publications. Though the validity of Fergason’s patent could have been queried because of those disclosures, there could be no doubt that he had made and shown a device in April 1970, because he had recorded the invention in witnessed notebooks. He therefore had good grounds for contesting the H-LR patent, and after protracted legal proceedings this was withdrawn. However, H-LR regained legal ownership of TN rights by buying the Fergason patent from ILIXCO, which were in financial difficulties. A compromise agreement shared royalties amicably between all the interested parties except RCA.

Though the way was now legally clear for companies to exploit TN displays, the commercial position was unclear. A number of companies had taken licences from RCA to exploit dynamic scattering, and they were reluctant to adopt an untested technology. However, problems soon arose because of the LC material. DSM effects need negative nematics, and though RCA had now demonstrated a suitable Schiff’s base that was nematic at room temperature, it did not have an adequate working range. Sharp developed a eutectic mixture of three Schiff’s bases that worked over the range 0–40°C, but were then frustrated when their devices failed after only a few weeks of operation. It became apparent that there was no stable LC available, and LCDs were acquiring a poor reputation for reliability.

Up to then, the UK had played little part in LC development, though one or two university chemistry departments were involved in research, and one company, Marconi, had patented an LCD before the war (Levin & Levin 1934). Now events took a curious turn, because a politician became involved. Much UK semiconductor research had been carried out in government defence laboratories, and early development of LEDs and diode lasers had taken place at the Services Electronics Research Laboratory (SERL), Baldock, and at the Royal Radar Establishment (RRE), Malvern. One of the aims of the Labour Government elected in March 1966 had been to forge a ‘white-hot technological revolution’, and the next year they established a Ministry of Technology. This assimilated some of the defence laboratories, including RRE, and in March 1967 the Minister of State for Technology, John Stonehouse (figure 7), came to Malvern.

They left with some reluctance, for their recently qualified PhD graduate, Ken Harrison, was ready to attempt the preparation of pentyl-cyano-biphenyl (5CB) and pentyloxy-cyano-biphenyl (5OCB). They returned to a scene of great excitement, for both materials had been made and found to be LCs. 5CB showed a nematic phase from 22 to 35°C, and 5OCB worked from 48 to 69°C. Even more exciting were the results of stability tests at Malvern. The resistivity and the transition temperatures of both materials were unaffected by long exposure to a damp atmosphere, whereas Schiff’s bases became unusable after a few hours. However, this was just the start, because now they must find a mixture that met the temperature requirements, −10 to 60°C. Six alkyls and six alkoxys were then synthesized, and a number of mixtures of these were tried, but the best combination had a range only from −3 to 52°C. They needed to design complicated eutectic systems, but it would have taken far too long to plot eutectic diagrams for all promising combinations.

E7 could be said to be the saviour of the LC industry, for it was invented at a time when LCDs were suspected of being inherently unreliable, and it remained the preferred material for many years. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) chose a restricted licensing strategy, and originally only BDH and H-LR could sell biphenyls. Rapidly they dominated the market. By 1977 BDH were the largest manufacturers of LCs in the world (figure 9), and biphenyls had become their largest-selling product. Less than five years earlier, the company had never made an LC.

The visual appearance of a TN cell depends strongly on the angle of view, and both the viewing angle and the contrast ratio came under criticism as the possibility of major markets became apparent. Major advances were made, both in the cell configuration and in the LC materials. A big step forward was the idea of increasing the twist from 90° to 270°. This supertwist nematic display (STN) was proposed and patented in 1982 by Waters & Raynes (1982) at RRE, and independently patented a year later by the Brown Boveri group, led by Terry Scheffer (Amstutz et al. 1983), afterwards ably assisted by Jurgen Nehring. STN gave the steep threshold necessary for passive matrix displays, and the response time and angle of view were similar to the simple TN device (Scheffer 1983; Waters et al. 1983). It became the preferred display for instruments and lap-top computers, and lost ground only when the production of TFTs over large areas was perfected. The STN display was patented and widely licensed by the MoD, and yielded royalties of over £100 million, the largest return for any MoD patent.

The electrodes are on the same cell surface, and, in the absence of a voltage, the LC molecules lie parallel to the surfaces, which have the same rubbing direction, so there is no effect on polarized light. Application of a field between the electrodes induces a rotation on that cell surface, and a twist between the two surfaces. However, fringe fields and the effect of tilt make the operation more complicated, and can lead to increased response time. Moreover, each pixel needs two switching TFTs, and in early versions this reduced the transmittance. IPS was studied by a number of laboratories in the 1990s, notably Hosiden, NEC and, particularly, Hitachi (Ohe & Kondo 1995; Ohta et al. 1996). There are now a number of variants in commercial production.

Though biphenyls and phenyl-cyclohexanes served the LCD industry well during the first 15 years of development, there were obvious deficiencies in the display appearance and multiplexing capability. One serious problem was the resistivity, insufficiently high for large displays. LCs are insulating, but that is a relative term, and to ensure that the pixel voltage does not drain away in active matrix applications, the resistivity must be very high, above 1012 Ω cm, and that rules out some otherwise promising families. Another problem was the slow switching speed, with a failure to follow fast-changing images. The simple remedy of reducing viscosity led to both a smaller operating temperature range and a reduction in the dielectric anisotropy, giving a higher switching voltage. After much research at Hull University and Merck, the inclusion of fluorine groups was shown to give much improved performance (Gray et al. 1989; Reiffenrath et al.1989a,b; Coates et al. 1993). It should be noted that commercial LCs now are mixtures of from 10 to 30 individual molecules, but a typical core material is shown in figure 12. This material has a high Δε of over 17, satisfactory for both IPS and TN modes (Kirsch 2004).