A Technical Survey on Micro Level Project

MONITOR
Submitted by

Adityavardhan G
Roll No.: 7176 23 03 066
FY BE EEE Sec.2 – 2023- 24 Batch – Semester I

In partial fulfilment of

ELECTRON DEVICES
23 FYP 113

Coimbatore Institute of Technology

Coimbatore

November 2023.
 Table of Contents

S.no. Contents Page.no.

1 Principle 2

2 Block Diagram 4

3 Roles of Components 5

4 Important Components in the Module 7

5 Characteristics of Important Components 7

6 Advantages of The Module 11

7 Limitations of The Module 12

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Principle of a Monitor

Cathode Ray Tube Monitors

Fig 1: CRT Monitor

A CRT has a large vacuum tube in the back, with a cathode containing a heated filament
pointing forward, toward the viewer. This heated filament becomes an electron gun, firing off
streams of electrons in response to the visual signal it receives from the computer. Ahead of
the cathode, ringing it, is a set of electromagnets which activate in response to the same
signal. These magnets alter the course of the electron stream, aiming it. At the front of the
monitor is a glass plate. On the back of this plate are millions of tiny phosphor dots. These
dots are combined into groups of three--one red, one blue and one green. These groups are
called pixels. When the electron stream touches the pixels, the correct combination of the
phosphor dots will light up and different intensities to create any color in the spectrum. The
stream passes over the entire monitor at a rate of 50 to 100 times per second to create the
continuous interactive image that we see.

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Liquid Crystal Display Monitors

Fig 2: LCD Monitor

An LCD monitor is composed of two specially treated plates of polarized glass pressed
together. Between these plates is a liquid crystal material which responds to an electrical
current by allowing different wavelengths of light through at various points across its surface.
Instead of creating points of light, the entire premise of an LCD monitor is to block out most
of the light, to allow only specific wavelengths, interpreted as colors by our brains, through
the front of the monitor. A backlight emits a continuous stream of light covering the entire
back of the monitor, at all visible wavelengths. The electrical current created by the visual
signal sent from the computer causes the liquid crystal material to block out different
wavelengths of light across its face to create the general shapes and colors of an image.
Behind the monitor's face but in front of the liquid crystal is an enclosed matrix of transistors
connected to pixels on the screen's face. This matrix is so thin that it appears to be
transparent. But when a varying current runs through it, the same current as the one
manipulating the liquid crystal, it causes certain pixels to light up, adding definition to the
overall color passing through from the backlight.

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Block Diagram

Fig 3: Block Diagram of Monitor

A liquid crystal cell consists of a thin layer (about 10 u m) of a liquid crystal sandwiched
between two glass sheets with transparent electrodes deposited on their inside faces. With
both glass sheets transparent, the cell is known as transmitive type cell. When one glass is
transparent and the other has a reflective coating, the cell is called reflective type. The LCD
does not produce any illumination of its own. It, in fact, depends entirely on illumination
falling on it from an external source for its visual effect.

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Roles of Components:

1. LED Backlight

Every computer screen has an LED backlight that produces white light. The light then travels
through many different layers to produce an image on the screen. Flat panel displays feature
LED backlights because they reduce overheating, have higher contrast ratios, more extensive
brightness settings, and excellent overall colour reproduction.
2. Liquid Crystals

Although they don’t produce light, liquid crystals are electrically charged molecules that have
the ability to block or allow light to pass through. Electrical voltages are used to charge each
liquid crystal and maneuver them to form specific patterns that result in the images that
appear on computer screens.

3. Transparent Conductive Screen Layers

In order for a screen to function properly and display crystal clear images without
interruption, every single pixel needs to be charged with an electric current. Transparent
conductive screen layers made from materials like indium allow the electric currents to pass
through with ease.
4. Reflector Sheet

Also known as a dual-action brightness enhancement film (DBEF), the reflector sheet
increases the brightness level of the screen by reflecting the light diodes produced by the
backlight. A single brightness enhancement film has the ability to increase brightness levels
by about 40% to 60%. Certain applications that require maximum brightness levels use two
reflector sheets to further enhance luminance.

5. Light Guide Plate

The light guide plate is a weather-resistant transparent corrugated stiff plastic panel that
controls the angle and direction in which light is displayed. As the light enters the back of the
panel, the pattern formed by the ridges on the front guides it into different directions to
illuminate the pixels and form the images that appear on the screen.

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6. Diffuser Sheet

Diffuser sheets disperse the light evenly across the screen to eliminate the risk of hot spots
that can cause the screen to overheat quickly. Spreading the light evenly across the screen
also enhances the visibility and clarity of the images of the screen and reduces eyestrain by
producing a softer lighting output.

7. Prism Sheet

Once the diffuser sheet evenly disperses the light, the prism sheet enhances the brightness
level by further refining the light produced by the backlight. Located on the front of the light
guide plate, the prism sheet consists of front-facing ridges that are on an angle to ensure that
the light is transmitted at the best possible viewing angles for the user.

8. Polarized Glass Sheet

LCD monitors feature two polarized glass sheets that function as filters that make it possible
for users to clearly view images on the screen. The liquid crystals are located between the
two layers of polarizing sheets. Essentially, polarizers allow vertical light waves to pass
through the filter and contact the light bending liquid crystals. Horizontal light waves are
blocked or filtered out because they distort the image quality. Since they’re made of a plastic-
like material, polarizers are sensitive to extremely humid and hot temperature conditions.

9. Glass Substrate (Backplane)

Backplanes are typically used in thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD monitors. Located toward
the front of the screen, this glass substrate displays the images that result from the dual
polarization process to the end-user.

10. Power Supply and Common Electrode

Modern LCD monitors use a material called indium-tin-oxide, which acts as the main power
source for the entire screen and its light-emitting functions. This common electrode sends
required voltage levels to activate and manipulate the liquid crystals. Most of the white light
produced by the backlight is blocked out and colour filters are used to create crystal clear
images on the screen. Colour filters consist of the primary colours red, blue, and green.

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Important Components in the Module
There are 3 major blocks:

1. The scaler unit

2. the timing controller (TCON) unit
3. the LCD panel

In the most typical configuration, the scaler unit will be a separate PCB. The TCON unit will
be on its own PCB as well, but the PCB will be attached to the LCD panel: the LCD panel
with TCON is something you buy together from the panel vendor. The scaler board is
designed separately by the monitor ODM.

Characteristics of Important Components

The Scaler Board

The scaler board has 2 major functional blocks: the scaler chip, and the backlight driver.
Many monitors have some additional units that are not display related. A USB hub is most
common, a webcam is another one. Something really exotic would be an infra-red transmitter
to control 3D stereo glasses.

The Scaler Chip

The scaler chip does all the heavily lifting to make sure that the desired final image will be
displayed on the screen. The actual functionality differs from chip to chip and from monitor
to monitor, but is a very typical block diagram:

1. Video input selection

Most scaler chips support a whole bunch of inputs, and different input formats as
well: HDMI, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort are the most common. The scaler knows how to
decode all these formats back into pure digital pixel format, select one of the ports and
sends the pixels into a pixel processing pipeline.

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2. Image processing

The sky is really the limit here: there are lots of algorithms that can be used to
improve image quality. But some of the more usual ones are image contrast
adjustment, resolution upscaling, gamma correction, six color component adjustment
and so forth.

3. OSD insertion

The On-Screen-Display unit generate images that need to superimposed on top of the
incoming image. It is used to display menus and monitor manufacturer logos.

4. Overdrive processing

This is the final processing step before sending the image to the TCON. It adjusts the
pixel values that are send to the LCD panel to compensate for dynamic behavior of
the LCD elements on the panel.

5. TCON output interface

This converts the pixel values back to some serial high speed interface format that is
compatible with the TCON board. Protocols that are often used are Panelink, V-by-1,
and eDP.

6. Backlight controller

The backlight is the light inside the LCD panel that makes things light up. Today, it
mostly consists of high power LEDs. The backlight controller creates the necessary
signals for the backlight driver, also the on the scaler board, which, in turn, generates
the necessary current to light up the LEDs.

7. CPU

Somebody need to make sure that the pipeline is set up correctly. That a button press
will result in the right menu to pop up or the backlight intensity to go down etc. So a
small CPU system is essential to make that happen.

8. Memory controller

A scaler has various memory needs: the OSD data (logos, menus) need to be stored
somehwere, the CPU needs a place to store its program and data, the previous frame
needs to be stored for overdrive processing. Especially that last part needs quite a bit

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 of memory, and since the cheapest memory around is DRAM, most scalers use that to
store all of that.

The Backlight Driver

The backlight driver can be best described as an advanced power or current supply. It
receives a control signal from the scaler, often in pulse width modulated (PWM) form that
indicates the strenght of the current that needs to be sent through the LEDs that are built into
the backside of the LCD panel.

Older monitors can only set one fixed current and vary the intensity of the backlight by
switching it on and off at a very fast rate. Some people get headaches by this, so many newer
monitors now send a variable current through the LEDs without ever switching off.

There may be more than just one backlight driver on the scaler board.

TCON Board

The timing controller (TCON) chip on the TCON board receives the pixels from the scaler in
serial format and does whatever is necessary to drive the individual pixel components of the
LCD array.

The interfacing between scaler and the TCON is an entirely internal affair that's invisible to
the user, so there's quite a bit of freedom in selecting the number of connections. While the
input to the monitor for a source is almost always just one cable that needs to carry the whole
image, this is usually not the case for a TCON: there are often many parallel links between
the scaler and the TCON.

A good example would be a 4K resolution at 60Hz: it requires a DisplayPort link that runs at
HBR2 speeds (4 data lanes at 5.4Gbps each). However, the TCON may only support eDP
HBR1 (4 data lanes at 2.7Gbps), but have 2 eDP ports, so 8 data lanes at 2.7Gbps instead.

It is even possible, not quite uncommon for state-of-the-art LCD panels, that there is no
TCON chip on the market that supports all the pixels of the LCD panel by itself. This is not a
problem either: the TCON board will simply have more than 1 TCON chip, where each chip
services a vertical strip of the LCD panel. For example: TCON0 services the left part of the
screen and TCON1 the right part.

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In some rare cases, the TCON chip also does overdrive, in which case it needs memory to
store the previous image, though that functionality is usually disabled when it's connected to
a scaler that already has a overdrive capability.

The TCON sends pixels to the source or column drivers of the panel. These are the chips that
will finally drive the TFT matrix that is used to make pixels do its magic.

LCD Panel

The LCD panel itself has the active thin-firm transistor matrix, the source drivers, and the
backlight LEDs.

Each source driver chip can drive a bunch, e.g. 240, of columns in parallel. Since most LCD
panels have more horizontal pixels than that, there are multiple source drive chips.

A digital to analog convertor generates the right analog voltage to pump the right charge into
each capacitor that's connected to pixel component.

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Advantages of this Module

 LCD Monitors are very thin in shape and size.

 They do not consume much electricity and emit less heat.
 They are preferred over CRT monitors because of their size as they can be
installed in small locations.
 They do not affect any magnetic fields.
 These monitors are used in graphics design and creating animation videos due
to their high picture quality and better resolutions (1080p).
 LCD uses millions and millions of small transistors that are controlled by the
system inside the display. This indicates that they can handle progressive scan
sources like progressive-scan DVDs and HDTVs.
 LCD monitors have unique shapes and sizes and are therefore very popular
these days special the curve monitors.
 LCD monitors have very sharp brightness which is useful in a working black
environment.
 They also possess image-perfect sharpness for better visibility and clarity.
 They are readily available in the market compared to OLED.
 Best in resolutions, color depth, refresh rate, etc.
 Very low power compared to CRT or Plasma.
 Zero geometric distortion at the native resolution of the panel. Minor
distortion for other resolutions because the images must be rescaled.

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Limitations of this Module
 They are slightly more expensive plasma flat panels.
 LCDs use a backlight shining through the liquid crystal; most of the light is
absorbed. As a result, the LCDs have lower contrast and are harder to view in
a brightly lit room. Can’t act as a portal to another dimension
 Although engineers and manufacturers are working intensively to improve the
viewing angle as they produce poor picture quality if you are not sitting almost
in front of the screen.
 They are very expensive compared to CRTs.
 They are not as power-efficient as OLED.
 They are not good at reproducing black images but present output as shades of
grey and in some cases the colors are difficult to identify.
 They have very high refresh rates.
 LCD has a slow response time which affects its performance.

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