“Although US-based brands such as Apple and Hewlett Packard are expected to launch notebooks using LEDs as the backlight source starting from the second quarter 2007, Taiwan-based LED makers will not be the major beneficiaries, according to industry sources,” Max Wang and Carrie Yu report for DigiTimes.
“Taiwan-based LED makers will not likely earn orders from such major brands, as notebook makers have high requirements for their product specifications – a brightness of over 1,680 nits – and Taiwan-based makers have yet to offer such a brightness level, the sources said. Makers such as Nichia and Cree will be the most likely candidates for orders of the backlight sources, the sources added,” Wang and Yu report.
Full article here.
“LED technology has already found its way into certain Samsung HDTVs and has also appeared in color-accurate desktop LCDs, but has rarely if ever been seen in notebooks due to initial fears of high power consumption,” Electronista reports.
Full article here.
I had an LED calculator in the mid 70s.
Meanwhile the Dell ‘design’ department is having another meeting today to try and figure out how it can cram more blue LEDs on their case designs.
I would have thought LED’s would be relatively low on power to use as a backlight source. Seems this article states otherwise.
“…but has rarely if ever been seen in notebooks due to initial fears of high power consumption”
That’s interesting. I always thought LEDs were low power consumers.
What are the advantages of LED over LCD for a laptop monitor?
I had an LED watch in the 1970s.
Red glowing numbers.
Went well with my Lava lamp in my dorm room.
They may be referring to OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) which offer lower power consumption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode
hairbo: it’s not LED vs. LCD.
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) would just function as the source for backlighting. In other words, LEDs would determine the screen brightness. Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) currently use some other lighting source, which people are now looking to replace.
question: yeah, i agree. i would have thought that LEDs would be the obvious choice once they could get significant brightness at a small size. However, low power consumption would have been my rationale for using LEDs.
hmm…
It’s still LCD.
LED is the backlight.
If done in an array, it could be very very cool. Insane contrast and vividness (is that a word?)
OLED could be very interesting. Since it’s so thin, it could significantly reduce the form factor of a MacBook.
The article isn’t talking about replacing LCD displays with LED, rather replacing the currrently common mercury tube backlights with LEDs.
Low-output LEDs have pretty low current draw, but the light levels needed for display backlighting with neutral-color LEDs is still fairly high.
LEDs do have some advantages, both in total operating life, and in being less of a problem for disposal, what with having no mercury and other heavy metals to be recycled/disposed of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHOLED
So shouldn’t the headline read, “Apple to launch LED-based notebook display backlighting”?
Not to grasp at lice eggs.
LED’s generate 4 crans light consumption per milawatt phos, thus, divided by the negative pole reaction to the norm, it’s definitely a plus procedure.
MDN should do better research when posting these type of articles. From what I see this article is baseless and factless. It is a PRC hit job on ROC quality and technology. They are hoping HP and Apple employees/vendors will read it and doubt the quality of Taiwanese LED’s.
MDN should not be propogating this silliness. The Taiwanese, Philipino, Indian, South Korean, American, Chinese, Japanese, etc…should all get a fair shot at being suppliers for components.
Just my $0.02
Breaking news: Dell to introduce LSD based notebook to build enthusiasm for Windows Vista.
<i>notebook makers have high requirements for their product specifications – a brightness of over 1,680 nits</b>
1,680 nits? They sure are picky about their nits! You could even call them… nitpickers! BWAH-HAHAHHAHA! Whew! I kill myself.
In HDTV — expensive ones — LED back-lit screens, several LEDs are used; RGB and sometimes one more — crimson — which results in spectacularly improved color performance. This also reduces the amount of light needed for each pixel, because if the color is mostly red, you don’t need to put too much power to the other color LEDs for that pixel. I am not so sure that you end up with using more power, as the article claims. These screens are for the top end displays – as in $$$$.
Maybe Apple is also adding something like the Panasonic Ambilight with LEDs around the edges of laptop monitor bezels. Chameleon patent?
there used to be a cool LED Zeppelin – years ago
“there used to be a cool LED Zeppelin – years ago”
Yeah, but it turned out to be a plant bobbing for some bonzo jonesing to jimmy a studio page in the john.
Totally different application, but LED flashlights are popular because of their extremely low power consumption.
>”Totally different application, but LED flashlights are popular because of their extremely low power consumption.”
It is true that LED flashlights are popular bcause they use much less current per lumen than incandescent light bulbs. But, with respect to laptop backlighting, LEDs are not replacing wasteful incandescents, they are replacing relatively efficient frlorescent lamps A.K.A CCFL (cold cahtode florescent lamp. Very huge difference.
Well, great, someone blew my bubble. I was hoping for a LED-based display, like, you know, those Lite-Brite toys I saw as a kid.
Joe Blow said it right, but there is one more thing.
Eliminating the CCFL, while it is efficient, would in
turn eliminate the need for the inverter board (the
circuit board that ramps up a nominal voltage to
hundreds or even thousands of volts to fire the
lamp up). LEDs have a longer life span than CCFL,
and the inverter boards are prone to failure at times.
The challenge with backlighting w/ LED’s is to get the
light diffused and evenly distributed behind the LCD panel,
thus preventing “spotty” illumination. The CCFL is a nice
even strip of consistent light, yet the lumen output does
begin to degrade as the lamp approaches end of life. Our cell
phones and iPods have LED backlighting on their screens,
but not a challenge with such a small screen.
BTW, DistantThunder you cracked me up. You know what you describe as a Lite Brite is actually done on a large scale (with LED’s like on the huge screens at sports stadiums and such. LOL
Thorin
-I love it when you talk technical.
MadMac
-Like this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-TEXAS-INSTRUMENTS-TI-1000-GOLD-CALCULATOR_W0QQitemZ200064284549QQihZ010QQcategoryZ58042QQcmdZViewItem
Larry the Lawyer
-Like this?
http://www.oldpulsars.com/
Unsquirted
-Careful, you’re about to blow it. (your cover, that is)
To All
-I’ve been seeing some LSD flash-backlighting lately…
MW:idea, as in I had one once.
“Apple to launch LED-based notebooks”
Are we back to little red numeric displays. That should definitely cut down on power usage, but Photoshop users may be disappointed at having to use Ascii Art.
http://www.chris.com/ASCII/
But seriously…
That would be a great move and another opportunity for Apple to lead the way in adopting a new technology for use in computers. The current light sources for LCDs fade over time. The only fix is to replace the whole screen, or do some delicate “surgery” to replace the long thin bulb at the edge of the LCD. From my limited experience with LED light sources, they maintain brightness and seem to last a long time.
Just read in the new Mac/Life (old Macaddict) that the problem with the LEDs is that the blue ones don’t have the life span of the red or green and that while OLEDs draw less power, its not that much less. Samsung is working on nano tubes, as turns out not only are they stronger than steel, conduct electricity very well but they also produce light which according to Samsung makes them great for backlighting.
We’ll see.
That’s o.k., TowerTone! I can always rely on an earth lion for help.