Ortus, of Japan, began in 2010 as a joint venture between Toppan and Casio. It has its own sunlight-readable display technology, Blanview, which is a type of transflective LCD. These displays are created by combining an amorphous silicon TFT panel, with high transmittance, with a design that reflects a high degree of external light.
Several new Blanview displays were on show, which have higher colour purity, reflectance, transmittance and outdoor visibility than older models. There is one model with 320 x 240 resolution; four with 800 x 480 resolution; and one with 1280 x 720.
The lowest-resolution model is the 2.2″ COM22H2P16 (400 cd/m²). It is followed by the 4″ COM40H4M66 (350 cd/m²); the 4.3″ COM43H4M64 (340 cd/m²), COM43H4M78 (300 cd/m²) and COM43H4M85 (400 cd/m²); and the 4.8″ COM48H4M87 (300 cd/m²). All of these models use VA panels, unlike the older types.
Ortus was also showing two interesting concepts, prototypes of which it expects to begin producing in 2016. One of these is a liquid crystal display for cold environments, which maintains a 77ms response time at -25 deg , compared to a conventional LCD which – according to Ortus – would have an average response time of 820ms.
The second prototype is called the ‘Colour Movie Paper’ display. It shows full movement and colour like a transmissive display, but does not require a backlight. Reflectance is high and power consumption is low. Its technology is “like LCD”, we were told. Early specifications are 50% reflectance, 20% NTSC coverage, 10:1 contrast ratio and 262,144 colours. Potential applications could range from smartwatches to digital signage displays.
