Products
Brightness Enhancements

Overview

As more and more LCDs, OLEDs and Plasma displays find their way into outdoor applications, the need becomes far greater for them to not only be able to withstand severe temperature extremes (heat and cold) and solar radiation, but the flat panel display must also be readable when exposed to extreme optical conditions such as direct and indirect sunlight, glare and reflection. On an average sunny day, the illumination of ambient daylight is approximately 30,000 nits. Therefore, brightness should be over 900 nits to get a clear image for an outdoor application.

Most off-the-shelf LCDs, OLEDs and Plasma displays are not properly equipped to handle all of these requirements. General Digital™ Optical Bonding Laboratories™ offers several brightness enhancement solutions to meet/exceed our customer’s requirements.

Benefits

• Increase brightness up to 100% with brightness enhancement films alone
• Improve display contrast and readability
• Improve display clarity and image quality
• Superior uniformity
• Improved operating temperature range and brightness

Options

General Digital™ Optical Bonding Laboratories™ offers both passive and active backlight modifications to improve sunlight readability. Our most efficient and cost-effective solution is the GenFlective™ display, a hybrid of transflective and passive enhancements. We also offer a standard transflective display, which incorporates a highly reflective backlight that reflects ambient light back out of the display. Thirdly, we provide the traditional value-add backlight solution, an active enhancement featuring your choice of CCFL, LED or NVIS backlight technology.

• Passive Enhancements
• Benefits of GenFlective™ Technology
  
• Requires no more power than OEM panel
• Dissipates no more heat than OEM panel
• Simplifies integration of value-add display
• Easier to address cooling due to low power
• Can often be combined with other passive enhancements (optical bonding) or active enhancements (sunlight/daylight readable backlights/edgelights)
• Typical enhancement of OEM luminance of 20% to 100%
• Contrast enhancement typically measured in orders of magnitude rather than percentages



A GenFlective™-enhanced LCD, OLED or Plasma display is a display that General Digital™ Optical Bonding Laboratories™ has altered, using passive enhancements, to improve the brightness (transmissive and/or reflective) and/or the contrast of the display. Although each display has its own personality, due to differences in design, manufacturing techniques and in the stock film stack, we can typically enhance the performance of an OEM panel utilizing Optical Management Films, Polarizers and Diffusers, and a multitude of films and coatings (Contrast Enhancement, Index Matched, Antireflective, etc.).



General Digital™ Optical Bonding Laboratories™ characterizes your display under dark room conditions and three different simulated daylight conditions. We then do an evaluation of the OEM films in the LCD, OLED or Plasma display and modify this configuration as we deem reasonable. We will do up to four iterations of backlight film modifications and submit the data to you, along with our analysis of what the data tells us.

• Transflective Panels

Although they are designed to reflect ambient light back out the display to augment its performance in direct sunlight, transflective panels have insufficient transmissive luminance (typically ~200 nits) to be considered usable in diffuse lighting conditions where direct sunlight is not available (e.g., cloudy or rainy days).

Additionally, transflective panels are only available in a limited range of display sizes and resolutions.

• Active Enhancements
• Value-add backlights and edge lights
• CCFL
• High bright, sunlight readable and NVIS-compatible options
• Edge rail modifications to increase number of lamps
• Both rail replacement and improved multi-lamp backlight design options
• Any size, any panel, any brightness; below are a few sample configurations equipped with LED backlights to enhance sunlight readability.

• LED

As more of today’s applications require brighter displays, the shortcomings of CCFL backlights become more apparent. In response to this challenge, LED backlighting has been developed to achieve and maintain the required brightness levels of today’s displays.

Advantages of LED Backlights:

• Sunlight readable, standard luminance, NVIS-compatible options available
• CCFL edge rail replacement with LED or complete light box redesign options
• High color gamut achievable with high power LED
• Lower EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) Emissions
• Lower Power Consumption
• Extended Life Expectancy
• Lower Heat Emissions
• Potentially Lower-Profile-Than-Typical Backlight Replacement Techniques
• GD design meets MIL-STD-901D, MIL-STD-810F, MIL-STD-461E
• Readily dimmable to very low levels without flicker
• Wide thermal range without heaters
• Any size, any panel, any brightness – Below are a few sample configurations equipped with LED backlights to enhance sunlight readability.

Size (diagonal)	6.4"	10.4"	12.1"
Brightness (Nits)	1000	1000	1000
Resolution (Pixels)	640 x 480 (VGA)	800 x 600 (SVGA)	1024 x 768 (XGA)
Contrast Ratio	400:1	500:1	500:1
LED Voltage	7.5 V	7.5 V	7.5 V
Power Module Output	11 W	20 W	20 W
Operating Temperature	-20° to 80° C	-20° to 80° C	-20° to 80° C

• Enhanced Light Guide

General Digital™ Optical Bonding Laboratories™ is well qualified to enhance your existing LCD, OLED, Plasma or other display type. We can also provide a complete flat panel package, ready to drop in right out of the box.