Tokyo--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it will, this October, commercialize the world's first 4-inch color reflective low-temperature polysilicon thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display (LCD) with 202 pixels per inch (PPI) VGA resolution.

Toshiba is the industry leader in low-temperature polysilicon LCDs, and its 200 PPI series products offer the highest resolution available in displays for mobile personal equipment. The latest addition to the company's line-up, the 4-inch LTM04C387S, offers true VGA resolution, and is positioned to bring bright, sharp color displays to mobile terminals.

The new display will be Toshiba's first reflective low-temperature polysilicon LCD to be commercialized. With no need for the backlight found in most LCDs, reflective low-temperature polysilicon TFT displays enjoy significant advantages in cost and low power consumption.

LTM04C387S offers a bright, vivid display of 260,000 colors, the result of an integrated reflective electrode and the adoption of a single polarizer for enhancing contrast ratio. With no need for a backlight, power consumption is cut by approximately one third, while (panel/module) thickness and weight are both halved.

The crystallized silicon in low temperature polysilicon TFT LCD supports much faster electron flows in the transistors than the uncrystallized silicon used in mainstream amorphous silicon TFT LCDs. This performance enhancement allows most LCD drivers to be formed within the display itself, not externally. As a result, the space required at the periphery of the panel is minimized, the number of components in the LCD module cut by 40%, and the number of connections between TAB drivers and electrodes on the panel reduced by 95%. This simpler design fosters greater reliability and displays offering higher resolution, richer color and more design flexibility than other LCDs. In the LTM04C387S, the result is the first 4-inch display to offer VGA level resolution.

The new display will be displayed at the Electronic Display Exhibition 2000, from April 12, in Yokohama, Japan.

Background to Development

Next-generation wireless handsets and mobile terminals will support transmission of high-quality motion pictures and improved sound. MPEG-4, a recently established video compression technology, is specifically designed for wireless video transmission and is expected to become a key element of such services. As a result, demand is growing for brighter, high-resolution displays that consume as little power as possible while offering high resistance to shock and vibration. LTM04C387S has been developed expressly to meet these demands and offers all the features essential for mobile products.

Specifications of New Product