Ever since the days of the early PC’s and Mac’s, consumers have been conditioned to expect better / faster performing devices at lower costs driven in part by Moore’s Law. While there may be no known display industry corollary, LED manufacturers hope to leverage greater production efficiencies by migrating from 2-inch wafers to 4- and even 6-inch wafers with the goal to provide lower cost back light units (BLUs) to LCD panel makers.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
of Projection Monthly &
Microdisplay Report

An LED chip industry source predicts LED backlight prices will drop the level of CCFLs with the move to the larger wafer production. Currently LEDs maintain a significant price premium over conventional LCD light sources like cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) and this cost delta is preventing wide distribution in LCD-TVs today. There is much debate about the cost evolution of LEDs for LCDs, which is exactly why Insight Media is now working on a report about LCD backlight display technology.

While LCD backlight components may seem a trivial matter, the switch to LEDs as a backlight source can create a new wave of interest in an already hot LCD-TV market and help give LCDs a “superior image” boost over rival plasma displays.

The crux of the matter is that LEDs offer much better coverage of the NTSC color space. So much so, that the Qualia 05 LCD-TV by Sony with its “Triluminos” LED backlight system boasts 105% of the NTSC color gamut. By comparison, typical CCFL backlight can be as low as 75% of the NTSC colors. This means an LED backlit LCD-TV can display colors never before seen on TV. This a very powerful statement to make when trying to convince a consumer to buy LCD over plasma.

But there are other ways to achieve this wide color space without using LEDs. Again, many manufacturers are unclear which of these technologies can offer the best cost-performance alternative to CCFLs going forward.

DigiTimes reports that both 40- and 46-inch LCD-TV models will begin adoption early next year, and points to Samsung and Sony as likely first candidates for the upgrade to LED backlights. This would give them an advantage in the head-to-head competition against the 37- to 50-inch PDPs now coming on strong in this large TV display category.

LED supplier Seoul Semiconductor recently announced plans to enter the LCD-TV light source market and they were present at the FPD International conference for the first time this year with LED BLUs. The company also said they were currently in the process of gaining product certifications from LCD vendors. Lumileds Lighting, a U.S.-based LED manufacturer, began the industry’s first supply of LED BLUs after its LED light source technology was certified by Sony Corp. We also expect to see Samsung Electromechanics and many others to get into this space early next year.

If major LCD-TV vendors like Sony and Samsung begin shipping LED backlit units with expanded color fidelity, the rest of the industry (Sharp in particular) may follow - but this unclear. The ultimate winner is the consumer benefiting yet again from the invisible hand of competition-this time giving us stunning displays from color-rich LEDs.

Insight Media, 203-831-8464, steve@insightmedia.info