Putting LCDs on Display

They will be replaced with LCDs (liquid crystal displays), and maybe plasma displays. In fact, the changeover is already underway.

LCDs have been on show since the early 1970s, when they first popped up in wristwatches and electronic calculators. In the early 1980s, Epson introduced the first portable computer incorporating a small monochrome LCD, which also used an audio microcassette for storing data.

Tandy really got the liquid crystal ball rolling in 1983 with its 40-character, 6-line LCD Model 100 portable. Then Toshiba charged into the game with its T-1100 portable. Except for a brief time-out with gas plasma, its 3100 clamshell portables, Toshiba and its many competitors have run with LCDs ever since.

From laptop to desktop
Now, LCD technology is reaching a size, resolution, and price point that enables it to take on the overweight CRT for a place on the desktop. While the CRT is rapidly aging, the LCD is hitting a growth spurt, says Bob Conner, head of corporate marketing for Applied Komatsu Technologies (a US-Japan joint venture making the equipment that produces LCDs).

Conner may be wearing rose-colored LCD glasses, but when we look at what's happening on the leading edge of the display market, it's easy to be convinced that big changes in smaller packages are on the way. CRTs have become so large and bulky that something's got to give - even if it's only the desks that support them.

At about 100 dpi (dots per inch), CRTs have just about reached the upper limit of their attainable resolution, claims Conner. By contrast, the new 14-inch TFT (thin-film transistor) LCDs coming down the pipeline sport resolutions ranging from 117 to 146 dpi. Further on, LCD resolutions will climb as high as 300 dpi.

To put this in perspective, newsprint is about 1200 dpi, while Computing Japan is printed at around 2400 dpi. The point, however, is that the more dots you pile into each inch, the smaller you can go with font sizes, and thus the more information you can present comfortably in the same viewable area.

Not surprisingly, Conner asserts that "The next huge market for LCDs will be the desktop monitor market: stand-alone monitors at the high-end, and PCs with integrated LCDs in the high-volume market."

In fact, this is already happening. Akia Corporation, a bright new Japanese PC startup, now bundles LCDs with both its desktop Windows PCs and Macintosh clones. Compaq and Acer have also launched consumer PCs with built-in LCDs.

Taking their measure
Besides the absence of possible worrisome emissions attributed to CRTs, LCDs have yet another advantage in that they are a WYMIWYG technology: what you measure is what you get. Unlike CRTs, which lose about 10% of their viewable area because of the way they're made, LCDs give pretty much what you can measure across the diagonal. This is why a 13.3-inch LCD is actually "bigger" than a 14-inch CRT.

On the downside, LCDs cost significantly more than CRTs. The reason is no longer chiefly the difficulty involved in the manufacturing process; rather, LCD manufacturers have been squeezed by the lack of standardization in display sizes - a problem caused by the rapidly changing demands of PC manufacturers. Conner complains that it's been tough for LCD manufacturers to form a business plan for even three years ahead, given that PC manufacturers launch new generations of portables - and, therefore, different sizes of LCDs - every six months or less.

It's certainly difficult to remember all the LCD sizes that have blossomed and disappeared over the past few years. They've covered a broad range of incremental jumps, from 8 inches all the way up to today's 12.1-inch displays. And with each size increase, manufacturers can cut fewer displays from their substrates (the thin sheets of glass from which several finished displays are made). This results in lower productivity and profitability for the maker, and in higher prices for end users.

The CRT industry, in contrast, has focused on a limited number of sizes: 15-inch, 17-inch, 19-inch, and 21-inch. So they know where they're going, and how much it costs to get there.

Now that the LCD monitor market is emerging, Conner is advocating that the PC and LCD manufacturers stop competing on display size, and agree on certain fixed diagonals just like the CRT business. Differentiation can be fought over resolution, where this technology offers lots of room to maneuver. The outcome of such an agreement, according to Conner, would be longer product life cycles, larger volumes, stable supplies, and - best of all - lower prices for end users.

Now that sounds like something worth making a display over.