Thermal management of edge‐lit wide color gamut backlight for LCD using red laser diodes and cyan LEDs

The color gamut is one of the critical parameters that dictate the image quality of displays. The liquid crystal displays using white color light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) as the backlight, though having been widely employed recently, are not very satisfactory in terms of their color gamut because of the broad spectrum inherent to white LEDs. This prompted the authors to develop improved liquid crystal displays using an edge‐lit wide color gamut backlight that used red laser diodes and cyan LEDs. Generating laser beams with high color purity, the laser diodes are light sources with a significant effect on expanding the color gamut. However, laser diodes, red ones in particular, have unfavorable thermal characteristics. To cope with this shortcoming, the authors clearly defined the restrictive criteria for laying out two kinds of light source on the edge‐lit backlight and made a prototype 55‐type laser backlight for performance evaluation.     

Color performance of an MVA‐LCD using an LED backlight

Abstract— The color performance, including color gamut, color shift, and gamma curve, of a multi‐domain vertical‐alignment (MVA) liquid‐crystal display (LCD) using an LED backlight are calculated quantitatively. Simulation results indicate that an LED backlight exhibits better angular color uniformity and smaller color shifts than a CCFL backlight. Color gamut can be further widened and color shift reduced when using a color‐sequential RGB‐LED backlight without color filters, while the angular‐dependent gamma curves are less influenced using different backlights. The obtained quantitative results are useful for optimizing the color performance and color management of high‐end LCD monitors and LCD TVs.     

A field‐sequential‐color display with a local‐primary‐desaturation backlight scheme

Abstract— Field‐sequential‐color technology eliminates the need for color filters in liquid‐crystal displays (LCDs) and results in significant power savings and higher resolution. But the LCD suffers from color breakup, which degrades image quality and limits practical applications. By controlling the backlight temporally and spatially, a so‐called local‐primary‐desaturation (LPD) backlight scheme was developed and implemented in a 180‐Hz optically compensated bend (OCB) mode LCD equipped with a backlight consisting of a matrix of light‐emitting diodes (LEDs). It restores image quality by suppressing color breakup and saves power because it has no color filter and uses local dimming. A perceptual experiment was implemented for verification, and the results showed that a field‐sequential‐color display with a local‐primary‐desaturation backlight reduced the color breakup from very annoying to not annoying and even invisible.     

LED‐backlight feedback control system with integrated amorphous‐silicon color sensor on an LCD panel

Abstract— Thin‐film‐transistor liquid‐crystal displays (TFT‐LCDs) have the largest market share of all digital flat‐panel displays. An LCD backlighting system employing a three‐color red‐green‐blue light‐emitting diode (RGB‐LED) array is very attractive, considering its wide color gamut, tunable white point, high dimming ratio, long lifetime, and environmental compatibility. But the high‐intensity LED has problems with thermal stability and degradation of brightness over time. Color and white luminance levels are not stable over a wide range of temperature due to inherent long‐term aging characteristics. In order to minimize color point and brightness differences over time, optical feedback control is the key technology for any LED‐backlight system. In this paper, the feasibility of an optical color‐sensing feedback system for an LED backlight by integrating the amorphous‐silicon (a‐Si) color sensor onto the LCD panel will be presented. To minimize the photoconductivity degradation of a‐Si, a new laser exposure treatment has been applied. The integrated color‐sensor optical‐feedback‐controlled LED‐backlight system minimized the color variation to less than 0.008 Δu'v' (CIE1976) compared to 0.025 for an open‐loop system over the temperature range of 42–76°C.     

A method for selecting display primaries to match a target color gamut

Abstract— A method for selecting primaries of a wide‐gamut display is proposed, in which display color gamut is designed to match a target color gamut in CIELAB color space. A standard deviation of the relative maximum chroma of display and target color gamuts is defined. The selection method optimizes display primaries for the minimum standard deviation so that display and target color gamuts are similar in shape. It is shown that the color gamut of a laser display designed by this method is similar in shape to the theoretical maximum, or optimal, color gamut of objects. It is also shown that the color gamut of an LED display can be designed to include 99.7% of the gamut of Pointer's real‐world surface colors. LED primaries are selected to minimize the standard deviation of the relative maximum chroma of effective display color gamut and a target color gamut which is defined to include Pointer's real‐world surface colors. For both the laser and LED displays, it is necessary to constrain the red‐primary wavelength to avoid excessive optical power for the red primary.     

A novel spectrum‐sequential display design with a wide color gamut and reduced color breakup

Abstract— The advantage of RGB color‐sequential displays is that they have no color filters, but the disadvantage is that they need to run at high refresh rates (> >180 Hz) to prevent flicker and color breakup. An alternative color‐sequential display, which can operate at relatively low refresh rates (～ 100 Hz) without disturbing color breakup or flicker, has been developed. The display has two color filters per pixel (cyan and magenta) on the LCD panel and the backlight can generate two types of spectra (blue‐green and green‐red), which results in a wide gamut four‐primary display, effectively. One part of the paper describes the color reproduction, including color‐filter design, gamut mapping, and multi‐primary conversion. The other part deals with the reduced perception of color breakup on the novel spectrum‐sequential display compared to conventional color‐sequential displays.     

Color‐conversion method for a multi‐primary display to reduce power consumption and conversion time

Abstract— A color‐conversion method for a light‐emitting multi‐primary‐color display is proposed. While amulti‐primary‐color display uses four or more primary colors to reproduce a wide color gamut, multiple sets of primary‐color signals are needed to reproduce one color. Therefore, linear programming, which results in low power consumption, was adopted to uniquely determine the set of primary‐color signals. Although a highly accurate color conversion was achieved by using linear programming with low power consumption, it requires a very long time to convert colors of high‐resolution images. Therefore, by categorizing the color conversion of linear programming as a classification problem, colors are converted by using the decision‐tree method, which is a classification method. As a result, color conversion with high accuracy, low power consumption, and short conversion time was achieved.     

Physical‐based photon mapping for an LED backlight lighting simulator

Abstract— Liquid‐crystal displays (LCDs) have become increasingly popular due to their lower price and larger sizes. In particular, backlights having an RGB LED source have recently attracted attention, because they have a wider color gamut, higher luminance, and lower power consumption. However, even when the backlight area is uniformly covered with light modules based on arrays of individual LEDs, this does not ensure a uniform chromaticity and luminance over the backlight panel, thereby stressing the need for lighting simulation of the backlight. Accordingly, this paper proposes an effective lighting simulator to predict the chromaticity and luminance distribution of an LED backlight panel for an LCD. First, the spectrum‐based photons are all initially generated using a random function with a constraint satisfying the spectral power distribution of the actual LED light sources, while their emitting directions are determined based on a pre‐calculated probability using a random variable angle. The optical characteristics of the inner sheets in the LCD backlight structure are then modeled using the wavelength and incident angle to predict the next direction of each photon based on the reflection and transmittance at an intersection. All the photons that reach the unit area of the outward panel are gathered to shape their spectral power distribution, then converted to CIEXYZ values and multiplied with a color‐matching function. Finally, a realistic image visualization of these CIEXYZ values is achieved through standardized device characterization using the sRGB mode. Experiments confirm that the proposed spectrum‐based photon mapping can effectively predict the chromaticity and luminance distribution of an LED backlight panel, providing a good lighting simulation of an LED backlight before manufacturing the LCD.     

Power‐saving primary design for displays enclosing a target color gamut

Abstract— Display primaries are optimized for the trade‐off between the total primary power and color gamut under the requirement that a target color gamut is enclosed by the color gamut of the display. LED displays and HDTV color gamut are taken as examples. Compared to the display using a set of typical commercial RGB LEDs, it was found that a total optical (electrical) power of 23.6% (15.6%) can be saved for the display using optimal RGB LEDs. Although the size of the display color gamut is sacrificed, the color gamut of the display using optimal RGB LEDs still encloses the HDTV color gamut. The combined effect of the LED luminous efficiency and white‐point condition on the determination of the optimal LED wavelengths and bandwidths is also studied.     

Spatio‐temporal scanning backlight mode for field‐sequential‐color optically‐compensated‐bend liquid‐crystal display

Abstract— A spatially and temporally scanning backlight consisting of ten isolated micro‐structured light guides has been developed to be combined with a fast‐response optically‐compensated‐bend‐mode field‐sequential‐color LCD in which the liquid‐crystal cell does not contain color filters. The sequential fields of three primary colors are generated by illumination of the red‐, green‐, and blue‐light‐emitting diodes, each illuminating for one‐half of the field, resulting in a luminance of 200 cd/m² for the LCD. The effect of light leakage between the blocks in the scanning backlight in field‐sequential‐color applications was measured and will be described.     

Hybrid spatial‐temporal color synthesis and its applications

Abstract— A novel approach of synthesizing display color by hybrid color processing in both the spatial and temporal domains is introduced. The rational basis for this approach is found in vision science, and more particularly in the spatial and temporal characteristics of the human visual system. Various examples of the new approach, aiming at different display‐performance objectives, are described. Hybrid spatial‐temporal color synthesis can be used to generate a three‐primary RGB display, the analysis of which reveals a higher spatial resolution and a lower fixed‐pattern noise. The concept has also been used to build, based on a conventional LCD panel in combination with an adapted backlight system, a six‐primary LCD TV with a 22% wider color gamut. Finally, the approach is demonstrated in a four‐primary mobile LCD and results in lower cost combined with a higher display luminance and a wider color gamut.     

Power savings and enhancement of gray‐scale capability of LCD TVs with an adaptive dimming technique

Abstract— The luminance of a backlight unit for an LCD TV is adaptively and locally dimmed along with the input video signal in order to reduce the power consumption and also to improve the picture quality. By adopting the zero‐dimensional (0D), 1D, and 2D adaptive dimming techniques, a sample movie having 8.0% post‐gamma average picture levels (APL) could be displayed using 83%, 71%, and 50% of the original backlight power, respectively. For an adoption of the 2D dimming, an LED backlight is preferable. The adaptive‐dimming technique also allows the differential aging characteristics between the LED components and temperature dependence of color and luminance to be overcome. From simulations of a reduction in power consumption, it was found that 40 × 40 pixels is a unit of the local dimming, 30 frames for the sampling period, 24 dimming steps, and an equal‐signal‐step method for determining the dimming factor have been found to be appropriate. The gray‐scale capability of low‐luminance images can also be improved by dimming the backlight luminance and expanding the input signal. By using an LCD TV having an 8‐bit capability, an 11‐bit‐equivalent gray‐scale expression was experimentally proven.     

High‐performance high‐efficiency LED‐backlight driving system for LCD panels

Abstract— A high‐performance high‐efficiency LED‐backlight driving system for liquid‐crystal‐display panels is presented. The proposed LED‐backlight driving system is composed of a high‐efficiency DC‐DC converter capable of operating over a universal AC input voltage (75–265 V) and a high‐performance LED‐backlight sector‐dimming controller. The high efficiency of the system is achieved by using an asymmetrical half‐bridge DC‐DC converter that utilizes a new voltage‐driven synchronous rectifier and an LED‐backlight sector‐dimming controller. This controller regulates current using lossless power semiconductor switches (MOSFETs). The power semiconductor switches of the proposed DC‐DC converter, including the synchronous rectifier switch, operate with zero voltage, achieving high efficiency and low switch voltage stress using the asymmetrical‐PWM and synchronous rectifier techniques. To achieve high performance, the proposed driving system performs the sector dimming and the current regulation using low‐cost microcontrollers and MOSFET switching, resulting in high contrast and brightness. A100‐W laboratory prototype was built and tested. The experimental results verify the feasibility of the proposed system.     

Color‐breakup suppression and low‐power consumption by using the Stencil‐FSC method in field‐sequential LCDs

Abstract— Field‐sequential color (FSC) is a potential technique for low‐power liquid‐crystal displays (LCDs). However, it still experiences a serious visual artifact, color break‐up (CBU), which degrades image quality. Consequently, the “Stencil Field‐Sequential‐Color (Stencil‐FSC)” method, which applies local color‐backlight‐dimming technology at a 240‐Hz field rate to FSC‐LCDs, is proposed. Using the Stencil‐FSC method not only suppressed CBU efficiently but also enhanced the image contrast ratio by using low average power consumption. After backlight signal optimization, the Stencil‐FSC method was demonstrated on a 32‐in. FSC‐LCD and effectively suppressed the CBU, which resulted in more than a 27,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and less than 40‐W average power consumption.     

White LEDs using the sharp β‐sialon: Eu phosphor and Mn‐doped red phosphor for wide‐color gamut display applications

The sharp β‐sialon (Si_6‐zAl_zO_zN_8‐z : 0 < z < 0.1):Eu green phosphor, combining with a blue LED and CaAlSiN₃:Eu red phosphor, is suitable for the wide‐color gamut white LEDs backlighting system, because of its sharp and asymmetric emission spectrum shape. However, the color gamut and the brightness of the aforementioned display is restricted because of the wide emission band of the CaAlSiN₃:Eu red phosphor. In this work, we used K₂SiF₆:Mn as an alternate red phosphor, which has a sharp emission spectrum. The display with the white LED using sharp β‐sialon:Eu and K₂SiF₆:Mn shows a wide‐color gamut, which covers the hole NTSC triangle. The use of K₂SiF₆:Mn enables to realize not only a wider color gamut but also a higher brightness of displays, compared with the use of CaAlSiN₃:Eu. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the white LED using sharp β‐sialon:Eu and K₂SiF₆:Mn is stable against temperature and also durable under the accelerated drive conditions.     

Full‐color transflective cholesteric LCD with image‐enhanced reflector

Abstract— A full‐color bistable transflective cholesteric liquid‐crystal display (Ch‐LCD) was demonstrated by using an imbedded image‐enhanced reflector (IER) on top of each transmissive subpixel. The RGB colors were achieved by patterning conventional color filters on a black‐and‐white Ch‐LCD. In addition, the IER on top of each transmissive subpixel provides similar paths for the transmissive backlight and the reflected ambient light. A simple transflective Ch‐LCD was demonstrated.     

Ultrawide color gamut LCD display with CdSe/CdS nanoplatelets

We present a liquid‐crystal display (LCD) backlight made of nanoplatelets (NPLs) for the first time. Owing to the narrow emission linewidth of NPLs (8‐12 nm) and quantum dots (QDs), the spectrum exhibits a wide color gamut display with a 139.9% color gamut of National Television System Committee (NTSC) 1953 standard and 104.5% Rec.2020 (ITU‐R Recommendation BT.2020), realizing a truly ultrawide color gamut LCD display.     

Influence of wavelength red‐shift on color‐rendering index and luminous efficacy of LEDs

Abstract— The peak wavelength of light‐emitting‐diodes(LEDs) shifts towards the longer wavelengths when the temperature of the LED chip increases. The color‐rendering index (CRI) and luminous efficacy may change with the peak wavelength of the LED, and it is not expected to do so when the LEDs are used in fields which require a high CRI and luminous efficacy. A mathematical model of the LED spectrum was used to analyze the influence of the wavelength shift on the CRI and luminous efficacy of three‐ and four‐chip‐packaged LEDs, respectively. The results show that the CRI decreases with the peak wavelengths shifting towards longer wavelength for both three‐ and four‐chip LEDs; especially, the CRI of the four‐chip LEDs decreases more for a green‐color wavelength shift than for other colors. The luminous efficacy increases with a green‐color wavelength shift and decreases with a red‐color wavelength shift.     

A novel lens cap designed for the RGB LEDs installed in an ultra‐thin and directly lit backlight unit of large‐sized LCD TVs

Abstract— The objective of this study is to design a novel cone‐shaped lens cap on LEDs in order to achieve high optical efficiency in an ultra‐thin directly lit RGB LED backlight unit (BLU) for large‐sized LCD TVs. The use of the novel lens cap could play the role of a diffuser, a low light‐efficiency component in a BLU, in order to gain higher efficiency and simultaneously provide satisfactory uniformity in light distribution. The novel cone‐shaped lens is coated with aluminum on the outside surface of the cone for mirroring effects to reflect most of the LED emitted light horizontally and then reflect the light at the BLU boundaries, and then, finally to the output plane. In this way, bright spots on the output plane of the BLU can be avoided, leading to increased uniformity. Simulations were conducted to design and optimize varied aspects of the designed lens and BLU, including the cone angle of the proposed lens and the LED spacing (pitch). To further achieve color balance, a known Genetic Algorithm is used to search for the optimal angular placement of each RGB LED, resulting in better color balance. Finally, a prototype BLU for large‐sized 37‐in. LCD TVs with the proposed lens was built to verify the expected performance.