Design architecture of realizing high performance IPS‐LCDs with a 30% improved transmittance, less color shifting, and faster response time of less than ms 16 in the grayscales was represented. The newly developed pixel structure, consisting of transparent electrodes arranged on organic insulator, improved the transmittance and shielding effect for a data line. Finally, we have developed a 20‐inch diagonal wide‐XGA LCD to confirm the performance available to flat‐panel TVs.

We have successfully developed 2.4"QVGA transflective IPS-LCDs which maintains excellent transmissive performance and higher reflectance. We have an in-cell retarder patterned only in the reflective region. And we devised the pixel design so that the reflectance became higher. We have realized transflective LCDs with sufficient outdoor readability and wide viewing angle. Furthermore, we reduced thickness of the LCD panel at the same time.

Viewing angle performance of transflective LCDs, affected by many optical parameters such as Nz of retardation films and azimuth of slow axis, is improved when the optical parameters obey a simple rule. A new optical design is deduced from the rule, and applied for transflective IPS‐LCD with a single gap structure and a twisted liquid crystal layer. A viewing angle performance comparable to transmissive IPS LCDs is realized in transflective IPS‐LCD.

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High-viewing-performance transflective in-plane switching (IPS) liquid crystal displays (LCDs) with in-cell retarders have been developed. Transflective LCDs have pixels with transmissive and reflective display portions; the transmissive display portion is designed to have the same structure as the transmissive IPS-LCDs, and the reflective display portion is formed by patterning the in-cell retarder. The latter is designed to give a normally close mode characteristic, which has a brightnessvoltage (B-V) curve similar to that of the former. The reflective display portions, which work as quarter-wave plates at dark states, can be classified into five structures according to the number of in-cell retarder(s) and the stacking order of the liquid crystal layer. In this study, on the basis of the five possible structures, the viewing performances of the transflective IPS-LCDs are investigated by simulation, and suitable solutions are also discussed.