MEETING NOTICE Pacific Northwest Chapter · Society for Information Display

WEDNESDAY May 14, 2008 - 6:00 PM Planar Systems Beaverton, OR

Recent Trends in LCD Backlighting for Consumer Product Applications Robert Smith-Gillespie FPD Design & Consulting LLC and Insight Media, Inc.

Abstract: LCD backlight technologies have in recent months seen significant advancement on several fronts including optical film technology, LED and other light sources, electrical, optical and mechanical design. The advancements arise primarily in response to needs by consumer product manufacturers to provide higher performance, lower cost products that meet key market demands. Both notebook computer and LCD TV backlights are beginning to implement LED backlights, though not exactly as technologists originally envisioned. This presentation will look at technology trends in LCD backlighting focusing on both the long awaited LED backlight and disruptive technologies such as FFL and CNT backlights. By looking at product adoption of o New light sources (EEFL, LED, FFL, CNT) o Direct-view vs. edge-lit backlights o Wide color gamut backlights o Dynamic contrast ratio expansion methods o Motion artifact visibility reduction o Optical film stack trends we will get an understanding of the direction manufacturers are going and perhaps glean the technical implications of these product decisions. After providing a technical overview of several key technical areas, we will have time to discuss why the trends are different than predicted a few years ago and where will we be going next. Some areas for discussion include: o Multi-primary LED backlights o RGB LEDs for notebook backlights o Very large edge-light backlights o Specialty product trends Biography: Robert is a specialist in integration of commercial display components into customer specified products. He has over 20 years experience in the display industry working on avionics programs at Honeywell and consumer displays at Three-Five Systems and more recently consulting for companies such as Driven Technologies, E3 Innovation, DuPont, and Insight Media. Robert is currently working with E3 Displays in Phoenix, Arizona, a manufacturer of enhanced and ruggedized display products. Robert holds a B.A. in Physics from Plattsburgh State University in New York, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University. Directions & Map to Planar Systems

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