Lighting Electronics Magazine: Cree

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Lighting Electronics

Each display technology has the same goal in mind, that is, produce a large number of high quality pixels in order to create a crisper, cleaner picture at high resolutions.

What started as a few experiments with cathode rays by J.J. Thomson in 1897, turned into a whole new industry of displays. J.J. Thompson was able to deflect cathode rays, which is one of the main functions of the commercially produced CRT. Engineers of Western Electric started to produce commercial display products based on this design. But, the television in the form of a CRT, as we know it today, wasn’t produced commercially until 1934 by Telefunken. Over the next several years, display technology remained relatively stagnant, in terms of televisionesque displays. Other types of display technology were developed such as the Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube in 1968, which was able to provide a static display, one that didn’t need to be refreshed consistently. Around the same time LED displays began entering the main

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stream display market, but they were mainly used as business displays, rather than in consumer televisions. The technology to implement LED technology into commercial televisions didn’t materialize until much later. LCD technology began to evolve in the mid 1980’s as twisted and supertwisted nematic LCD screens began entering the market. These LCD screens didn’t make much of a splash in commercial displays until the thin film transistor (TFT) LCD was introduced in 1986. The next step in display technology came in the form of plasma televisions. Plasma televisions were released in 1995 with a low resolution by Fujitsu. The most recent development in display technology is Organic LED technology. It is taking over the market and is able to produce a high quality picture without using a


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