It may be quite a ways from the enormous 42-inch convex DLP monitors shown at CES this year, but AU Optronics has managed to produce what it says is the world’s first convex LCD screen. Not to be confused with the first concave model AU Optronics unveiled at SID 2008 (which curves out toward the viewer), the tiny convex models curve out away from the viewer with a gentle 100mm radius.
The company says that special thinning technologies were required to make the glass substrate curve the way it does, along with a specially designed backlight to fill in the image uniformly without hotspots. Unlike monchrome e-paper, which also fits curved applications, AU Optronics’ model has all the full-color and motion capabilities of an ordinary TFT LCD.
Although the model unveiled on Thursday was merely a prototype, eventually AU Optronics hopes to use the technology to produce devices like watches (probably more of a concave application) and dashboards. Both the convex and concave models will be on display at Display Taiwan June 11 through 13.
