3M Enhances Display Solutions
June 2, 2015, San Jose, CA—James Thielen from 3M described the latest products and technologies at the SID exhibition. The new releases include quantum dot enhancement film and lighter weight direct lit FHD TV, single backlight TV film, no film backlight TV, and thin profile TV solutions. They also introduced a new methodology and measurement criteria encompassed into a single display quality score.
Recent surveys show that consumers want brighter, more saturated colors and, for portable devices, longer battery life. Viewers would like to get greater realism, bolder colors, richer darks, and more varied colors in their displays.
The release of Rec 2020 and the equivalent ITU standards for UHD TVs call for wider color gamut that approaches that of a color CRT and approaches 90 percent of human vision. Field testing shows that test subjects cannot distinguish differences and variations for color gamut over 93 percent of Rec 2020. The color gamut for the professional users, in comparison, has to be closer to 98 percent of the standard to provide the proper viewing experiences for downstream viewers.
As a result, 3M in partnership with Nanosys developed a quantum dot enhancement film that gets better than 93 percent of Rec 2020. The use of the film calls for replacement of the white LEDs with blue ones, and uses quantum dots to emit narrow spectrum green and red colors. The peak wavelengths are tuned for optimal coverage of the color gamut. The new films enable 2020 compliant displays now, but the first hardware will probably be out in ’18.
The improvements in the various films provide brighter and more vivid colors and also permit a lower drive level for the backlights, improving energy efficiency. The higher efficiency facilitates longer battery life and also helps more displays meet the Energy Star 7.0 standards. One of the new laminated films has integrated layers for a thinner stack. The integrated stack simplifies the backlighting and provides higher optical performance. A different version replaces the rear polarizer with a reflective surface and collimator. An enhanced fiber diffuser can reduce the weight and improve light output.
The display quality score system considers a number of visual factors for ranking visual quality. The score is a relative number and a higher number indicates that over 75 percent of viewers preferred the higher value. The measurements include such parameters as brightness, color, saturation, contrast, and others. The single number is geared towards providing consumers a single factor to compare displays versus the difficulty of evaluating many bright displays in a fairly dark showroom.
