37.4: High Image Quality of Ultra‐Low Power Digital Micro‐Shutter Based Display Technology

Abstract

The Pixtronix DMS™ (Digital Micro Shutter) display technology intrinsically provides exceptional image quality due to its optical architecture and device technology. This technology, based on MEMS micro‐shutters formed on active TFT backplanes, has enabled the development of color sequential, time division gray scale, direct‐view displays achieving breakthrough performance ‐ including 150% NTSC (CIE 1976 u'v' color space) color gamut, 24‐bit color, > 500:1 contrast ratio and 170° viewing angle, all at 1/4 the power consumption of comparable TFT‐LCD display modules. In addition to this, these displays present horizontal contrast viewing angle comparable to that of OLEDs providing exceptional color saturation in large angle viewing directions. This paper will briefly describe the Pixtronix DMS™ display technology. It will also describe key display architecture elements of DMS technology responsible for the excellent optical performance. The optical characterization of prototype displays and discussion of the results will be presented. A non‐emissive technology like DMS technology is able to provide performance close to that of emissive technologies like OLED at a power much lower than that of an LCD display.

62.1: Invited Paper: The Joys of Being Digital for Low‐Power, Mobile, Multi‐Media Devices

“…The digital shutter is paired with a high efficiency BLU employing a time-division multiplexed driving scheme using red, green and blue LED's [1]. The optical path is clear and free of birefringent material, as is evident from Figure 1, resulting in the widest color gamut of any mass produced display technology along with outstanding color over all angles [2]. While the optical properties of the DMS technology have been reported before, in this paper the digital control is emphasized since it enables the grey scale and color point to be controlled to 24 bit precision with reliance on the timing precision of the digital controller and not on any 8-bit precision analog voltages (LCD) nor on any 8-bit precision currents (OLED).…”

“…Pixtronix has developed a new MEMS-based display technology which has a highly advantageous digital architecture. The advantages of the general optical design and resultant FOS properties have previously been discussed at previous SID meetings (amongst other forums) [2][3][4][5][6]. They include low-power operation which derives from a 10× optical throughput efficiency over LCD, wide color gamut from the filter-free use of RGB LED's, [6][7] color-purity over a wide view angle due to absence of birefringent materials [11], and transflective feature inherent in the shutter architecture and its highly efficient recycling Back Light Unit (BLU).…”

P‐84: Mechanical Reliability of Digital Micro Shutter (DMS™) Displays

“…Because each image frame requires multiple shutter movements, a fast response time is desired. DMS display performance and attributes are detailed in [1], [2].…”

22.5: 7 inch Digital Micro Shutter Display Driven by IGZO Oxide TFT

“…Digital Micro Shutter (DMS) Display based on MEMS design can provide a lot of unique characteristics [1] [2].…”