Glossary: Hardware; Laptop & Laptop LCD Screen Industry Definitions
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ScreenTek is proud to provide you this glossary of common terms in the laptop LCD screen industry, and in the laptop notebook industry. Feel free to become more familiar with the terms we use throughout our site. If you notice any glaring omissions, we'd be glad to hear about those. Drop us a line at sales@screentekinc.com.
Active area
The actual area of an LCD screen that displays the image. The frame, or bezel, surrounding the LCD screen is not included in the measurement of active area.
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Active matrix
An electronics display system in flat panel displays, in which each pixel is separately controlled by a matrix of thin-film transistors (see TFT). The device stores each pixel's state electronically while other pixels are refreshed, creating a brighter, sharper image than can be made with a passive matrix system.
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Anchoring Strength
Film thickness dependences of the unified surface anchoring strengths from the splay deformation for nematic cells were discussed. Thin nematic parallel (d = 2–50 ?m) and wedge (d = 0.3–5 ?m) cells with the same solid surface were prepared to evaluate the surface anchoring strength.
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Backlight
The main light emitting power source of a typical LCD panel. The backlight is typically a long narrow cold cathode fluorescent light located behind (the "back" in backlight) the glass and various polarizing filters of an LCD panel.
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Blocking Layer
Organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) with the hole-blocking layer NaF between the ?-naphthylphenyliphenyl diamine and ITO were fabricated using a vacuum evaporation method. Compared to the different thickness of the hole-blocking layer, the OLEDs with the 1.0 nm thickness layer showed the maximum efficiency.
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Brightness enhanced film (BEF)
A film placed on the rear side of an LCD panel which improves the brightness of an LCD panel by transmitting the light from the backlight unit more effectively.
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CFL cable length
The length of the cable which supplies power the CFL
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CFL Voltage
The amount of volts that a particular CFL contains.
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Clock signal
A signal used to coordinate the actions of two ore more circuits
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Cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) tube
 A small tube that provides a bright white light for an LCD display (see backlight). Inside the tube there is a low-pressure mercury vapor, which when ionized emits ultraviolet light. The inside of a fluorescent light is coated with phosphor, which can receive energy in a particular form and emit that energy in a visible form.
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Column Data Driver
The PCF8578 is a low power CMOS1 LCD row and column driver, designed to drive dot matrix graphic displays at multiplex rates of 1:8, 1:16, 1:24 or 1:32. The device has 40 outputs, of which 24 are programmable and configurable for the following ratios of rows/columns: 32¤8, 24¤16, 16¤24 or 8¤32.
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Common Plane Switching
An in-plane switching made active matrix liquid crystal display unit comprising:a first substrate including a plurality of scan lines, a plurality of common lines provided in parallel with the scan lines, a plurality of data lines provided such as to cross the scan lines, arid active elements near the cross portions of the data lines and the scan lines;a second substrate provided in parallel with the first substrate;a liquid crystal layer held between the first and second substrates; anda plurality of transparent comb-teeth electrodes provided on the first substrate for applying electric fields to the liquid crystal layer,wherein liquid crystal gaps above the transparent comb-teeth electrodes are larger than liquid crystal gaps between the transparent comb-teeth electrodes.
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Compact fluorescent lamp (CFL)
A type of fluorescent lamp which plugs into a small light fixture, in contrast to incandescent light bulbs, have a longer life.
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Cycle time
The amount of time it takes to complete a specific cycle.
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Delta color filter arrangement
has three sub-pixels, two of which are disposed in the second row, and the other one sub-pixel is disposed in the first row and correspondent to the center of said second row to form the delta arrangement
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Diffuser
Translucent material used for light diffusion placed between backlight lighting sources and the back side of an LCD.
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Double Super Twist Nematic (DSTN)
A type of LCD screen that uses less power and are less expensive to manufacture than thin-film transistor (TFT) screens. DSTN screens usually produce lower image quality and have slower response time than TFT displays.
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Dual Select Diode (DSD) AMLCD
Each pixel consists of a differential circuit with two equal nonlinear resistors or TFDs (Thin Film Diodes)
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Frequency
The measurement of the amount of times a repeated event takes place, per unit time.
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High-Performance Addressing (HPA)
An LCD display technology which provides a better response rate and contrast when compared to a traditional LCD display.
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Horizontal back porch
The period of time between the end of the Horizontal Sync pulse and the start of the next horizontal active time.
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Horizontal front porch
The time between the end of the horizontal active time and the start of the horizontal sync pulse.
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Horizontal sync
During the horizontal blank time, the monitor receives the horizontal sync pulse which is used for synchronizing the monitor to operate exactly synchronous to the PC graphics card. After receiving the horizontal sync pulse, the monitor returns the beam to the left side of the screen.
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Hot cathode fluorescent lamp
mainly used as a backlight in a liquid crystal display apparatus, comprising: a glass bulb; a pair of filament coils disposed in respective ends of the glass bulb, each filament coil having a coiled portion coated with an electron emissive material; and a heat-resistant sleeve disposed to cover one of the coiled portions
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In-plane Switching
A proprietary LCD cell structure. IPS displays have an excellent off axis viewing characteristics, but have poor aperture ratios, contrast ratio and speed. Hitachi / NEC
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 Inverter
At its simplest, a circuit that converts DC current into AC current. Typically called an "inverter board", this roughly pencil-sized device provides power to the backlight of the LCD device. Every LCD has a small cable of two wires leading to the inverter, and if either this cable, the inverter, or the backlight fail, you'll see a faint, dark image on the LCD screen. With some laptop manufacturers, such as Dell, the inverter is attached to the LCD. In this case, you must remove both from the laptop before you'll be able to detach the inverter from the LCD.
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Light-emitting diodes (LED)
A semiconductor device which displays a narrow spectrum of light when electrically biased in the forward direction. The life span if an LED is much longer than ordinary incandescent bulbs and don’t tend to get very hot.
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Liquid crystal
An organic liquid whose physical properties resemble those of a crystal in the formation of loosely ordered molecular arrays similar to a regular crystalline lattice and the anisotropic refraction of light
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Mirror projection aligner
is provided wherein the image position can be shifted by employing a bending mirror which makes a slight change in the magnification
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Normally white TN mode
LCD device includes a first optical compensation film between a light-incident-side polarization film and an LC cell, and a second optical compensation film between a light-emitting-side polarization film and the LC cell. The optical axis of the first (second) optical compensation film projected onto the substrate surface is substantially parallel to the longer axis of an equivalent refractive index ellipsoid of a residual retardation of the LC layer in the vicinity of a light-incident-side (light-emitting-side) substrate upon display of black color.
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Passive matrix OLED
liquid crystal display mounted thereto, the area for mounting a logic circuit is reduced, the product is reduced in size, and further the reliability is improved.
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Patterned Vertical Alignment (PVA)
A type of TFT LCD screen which provides high contrast and brightness.
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Pencil hardness
A test that uses a variety of pencils with varying hardness to determine the hardness of a film.
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Pin photodiode
is a PN Junction or Pin structure. It is a type of photodetector capable of converting light into either current or voltage, depending upon the mode of operation.
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Pixel pitch
The distance between a red, blue or green component and the next closest component, measured in mm.
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Poly-Si TFT
as a channel material may be employed in panels of active matrix liquid crystal display devices (AMLCD) or active matrix organic light emitting display devices (AMOLED) due to their higher mobility
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Power consumption
The amount of power that an electronic device consumes.
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Privacy film
A film that is within an LCD screen that controls the position from where the display can be viewed.
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Radioluminescent screen
comprising a substrate and a fluorescent layer provided thereon and consisting essentially of a binder and a radioluminescent phosphor dispersed therein. The binder comprises linear polyester resin or linear polyester resin crosslinked with a crosslinking agent. The screen exhibits improved physical properties.
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Response time
The amount of time it takes to respond to a given command or input.
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Retardation film
Improves contrast on STN (super twisted nematic) and TN (twisted nematic)cells and to provide for black and white and color on STN display cells.
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Stereo Monitor
are loudspeakers specifically designed for audio production applications such as recording, film, television and radio studios where accurate audio reproduction is crucial.
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Surface Acoustic wave touch screen
The Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) technology is one of the most advanced touch screen types. The technology is based on two transducers (transmitting and receiving) placed for the both of X and Y axis on the touch panel. The other important element of SAW is placed on the glass, called reflector. The controller sends electrical signal to the transmitting transducer, and transducer converts the signal into ultrasonic waves and emits to reflectors that are lined up along the edge of the panel. After reflectors refract waves to the receiving transducers, the receiving transducer converts the waves into an electrical signal and sends back to the controller. When a finger touches the screen, the waves are absorbed, causing a touch event to be detected at that point.
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TFT array
Multi-layered wiring for a larger flat panel display is formed by depositing molybdenum on a substrate in presence of a precursor gas containing at least one oxygen, nitrogen and carbon to form a molybdenum layer. An aluminum layer is deposited on the molybdenum layer. Another metal layer may be formed on the aluminum layer. The molybdenum layer has a face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice structure with a preferred orientation of (111).
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Thin film electroluminescence
is a panel that includes a transparent substrate and a moisture proof sheet to cover the electroluminescent element. The moisture proof sheet includes a metal layer laminated between the two resin films and prevents moisture from affecting the operation and provides stability.
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Thin Film Transistor (TFT)
A special kind of field effect transistor made by depositing thin films for the metallic contacts, semiconductor active layer, and dielectric layer. In TFT technology, one or more transistors are used to control each individual subpixel. Most commonly found in LCD screens.
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Timing Controller
makes it possible to generate control signals based on the image data at different panel resolutions.
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Touch screen
a touch-sensitive display screen: touching different portions of the screen with a finger will cause the computer to take actions determined by a program.
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Transflective
Transflective LCDs work as either transmissive or reflective LCDs, depending on the ambient light. They work reflectively when external light levels are high, and transmissively in darker environments via a low-power backlight.
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Transmissive
A type of LCD screen in which the pixels are illuminated from behind the monitor’s screen (opposite of the user).
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Vcon Modulation
The PLL500-17 is a low cost, high performance and low phase noise VCXO for the 17 to 36MHz range, providing less than -130dBc at 10kHz offset at 35.328MHz. The very low jitter (2.5 ps RMS period jitter) makes this chip ideal for applications requiring voltage controlled frequency sources. Input crystal can range from 17 to 36MHz (fundamental resonant mode).
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Vertical back porch
The amount of time between the end of a vertical sync and the start of the next vertical active time.
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Vertical front porch
The amount of time between the end of the vertical active time and the start of the vertical sync pulse.
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Vertical sync
During the vertical blank time, the monitor receives the vertical sync pulse which is used for synchronizing the monitor to operate exactly synchronous to the PC graphics card. After receiving the vertical sync pulse, the monitor returns the beam to the upper left corner of the screen.
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Viewing angle
All of the angles in which a display may be viewed.
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Glossary index
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