Samsung Electronics says that it has developed a three-inch LCD panel with VGA (640 x 480 pixels) resolution that directly meets industry interface standards for digital still cameras. Executive vice-president, Yun Jin-hyuk of Samsung Electronics, says: 'Our LCD panel will make viewing of digital pictures distinctly more impressive on camera screens, personal multimedia players and other products requiring high-image resolution and low-power consumption.'
Digital camera makers use an interface known as ITU-R601, an international standard for cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs that operates at 30Hz. This standard is incompatible with LCDs, which normally run at 60Hz. Manufacturers have had to reconcile the difference either by compressing the images or by manipulating the signal. However, such approaches will only work with LCDs having a resolution of qVGA (320 x 240 pixels) or less. Samsung's LCD operates on 30Hz, aiming to allow VGA images to be obtained from a digital camera without having to create another interface. According to Samsung, the three-inch VGA LCD also incorporates a dot inversion scheme that lowers power consumption while substantially reducing the image flickering that has prevented such an approach in the past. Power consumption is further reduced because the 30Hz source driver requires less power than the 60Hz type, helping to better differentiate mobile display-based products, the company adds. Samsung will exhibit the device at IMID 2006, which opens in Daegu, Korea, on August 23, and will begin commercially producing the panel in the first half of next year.
