DailyTech - LED Backlit LCDs Overtaking CCFL in All Markets

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Gadgets LED Backlit LCDs Overtaking CCFL in All Markets
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - January 26, 2010 1:02 PM

48 comment(s) - last by sdfasdgdhasdf.. on Jan 30 at 1:01 PM

(Source: GadgetFolder)

LED LCD Adoption (Source: DisplaySearch)

LED backlit notebook screens will hold 84% of the market in 2010

Over the last few years, LED backlighting on TFT LCD screens has moved beyond tech that is found in a few high-end notebooks and other devices to being one of the more common technologies used in notebooks and netbooks at a variety of different price ranges. CCFL backlit screens are slowly being replaced in most product categories.

Research firm DisplaySearch issued a report today that claims by 2013, the penetration rate in 10-inch and larger TFT LCDs using LED backlighting will reach 74%. That will leave the minority of systems using the less efficient CCFL backlighting systems. In the shorter time frame, TFT LCD panels with LED backlighting will surpass CCFL backlit panels in the 10-inch range starting in 2011.

“Without a doubt, LED backlights will be the dominant light source in all applications in 2011—representing a significant business and technology evolution for the entire backlight and panel supply chain,” noted Kevin Kwak, DisplaySearch Director of LED Backlight Unit Research.

The research firm forecasts the shipment of LED-backlit screens in the LCD TV market to increase from 36.5 million in 2010 to 184.9 million by 2015. Growth in LCD TVs with screen sizes 26-inches or less are expected to grow rapidly with the cost premium in the size range more acceptable to consumers.

The highest penetration of LED backlit screens is in the notebook segment where the reduced energy consumption compared to CCFL backlighting has an impact on battery performance. With the notebook market being so popular, the penetration of LED screens for notebooks will hit 84% in 2010 and close to 95% in 2011.

DisplaySearch forecasts the shipment of LED backlit units for LCD TVs to grow from 36.5 million units (a 20% penetration rate) in 2010 to 184.9 million units (a 72% penetration rate) in 2015. “In order for LCD TVs with LED backlight units to gain market share, they must provide attractive performance and cost competitiveness simultaneously,” Kwak added. “Three main components will play a role in reducing costs: LED chips, light guide plates and dual brightness enhancement films.”

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Curious

By jimhsu on 1/26/2010 1:13:51 PM , Rating: 2

Are there right now ANY advantages at all to CCFL backlit LCDs aside from cost? Or is this a case of LED backlit TVs dominating in every category.

RE: Curious

By geddarkstorm on 1/26/2010 1:15:19 PM , Rating: 5

CCFLs have a better color gambit and accuracy unless you use a more expensive Red/Blue/Green LED instead of standard LED.

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RE: Curious

By amanojaku on 1/26/2010 2:28:27 PM , Rating: 2

Actually, the only advantage CCFLs have is price. Both forms of LED backlighting have better color gamut and accuracy than average CCFLs, no matter if it's the $1,800 edge-lit white LED or the $3,500 back-lit RGB LED. There are some who say the edge-lit white is on par with averae CCFLs, but my eyes said otherwise during side-by-side comparisons at the stores this December. Actually, I spent six months drooling over this TV and waiting for the price to drop, so I did a lot of comparison shopping. The only CCFLs that compare to LED back-lighting of any kind are the more expensive units like the Sony Bravia.

That being said, the only reasons to go edge-lit LCD are the power, heat and space savings. My 46" Samsung uses less than 80% of the power of my 32" Westinghouse, which had average consumption at that size. It's also cool after having been left on for hours and light as a feather. Actually, had Samsung opted for a plastic bezel instead of glass this thing might have lost five more pounds.

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RE: Curious

By ExarKun333 on 1/26/10, Rating: 0

RE: Curious

By phattyboombatty on 1/26/2010 2:56:04 PM , Rating: 5

We've got color gambit, color gamut, and color gammut.
.
.
.
. . . and the winner is . . . . color gamut!!

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RE: Curious

By XINFU4 on 1/27/10, Rating: -1

RE: Curious

By amanojaku on 1/26/2010 3:10:42 PM , Rating: 5

First of all it's color GAMUT, not GAMBIT.

Secondly, LED backlights produce more light than CCFLs, therefore LED backlighting is capable of more numerous and accurate colors. The RGB LED lighting is better because there are MORE LEDs, not because they are red, green, and blue. With more LEDs you get more light, but also more granularity in the white balance. You can vary the light output of each LED, whereas edge-lighting at best is uniform.

Don't forget that the LEDs aren't producing color; they're producing white light. Technically, the best backlight would be white LEDs across the back. White LEDs are more expensive, however, and harder to manufacture. Most are green/yellow-balanced, although newer, more white LEDs are being developed.

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RE: Curious

By The0ne on 1/26/2010 3:41:22 PM , Rating: 3

For an even better read and info, check out Anand's comment on this LCD review.

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=372...

Should clear things up, hopefully :o

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RE: Curious

By GTVic on 1/26/2010 3:44:58 PM , Rating: 2

More light does not equal better light. As you said, the white LEDs are expensive so the end product tends to use cheaper LEDs that produce a limited range and that results in poorer image quality compared with a CCFL monitor that is using a less expensive and more mature lighting technology. This is backed by numerous reviews of LED backlit monitors.

RGB LEDs are a better solution in some ways because each of the 3 LEDs only produces a limited spectrum and it is easier to produce a full spectrum with lower cost LEDs but you need more of them. Since the LCD panel only transmits RGB, you are giving the panel exactly what it needs. The main problem is that the component and assembly costs are higher and the power requirements may go up.

In practice RGB granularity is not useful because it is not likely that all the pixels covered by an RGB group will be the same colour.

Edge vs. RGB is not a fair comparison. Edge is designed for reduced thickness. You can only compare non-edge based white LED backlit vs. RGB backlit which is non-edge based by definition.

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RE: Curious

By Zorlac on 1/26/2010 5:04:46 PM , Rating: 3

I would also like to add that wide color gamut CCFL/LED displays are not actually better like the marketing depts. claim. Most all SDTV/HDTV/Blu-Ray and Console/PC content is stuck in the sRGB color space (or very close to). Its pretty much impossible to calibrate a wide color gamut display to sRGB. Some pro level displays can emulate the sRGB color space, but it usually still pales in comparison to a native standard gamut (sRGB) display. Wide Gamut displays make colors appear neon when the source is sRGB or near to sRGB.

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RE: Curious

By bupkus on 1/26/2010 4:23:57 PM , Rating: 2

Just as LEDs are used in a back lit matrix to add finer granularity to offset the contrast shortcomings of LCD panels so can they be used to increase color gamut and saturation by providing color shifts using RGB LEDs.

Ideally, each and every pixel or LCD cell would have its own unique light source perfect in both light intensity and gamut.

Hence, I would propose an OLED panel laminated to an LCD panel for a one-to-one match up </MyDailySillyFix> or perhaps a matrix of oLEDs of postage stamp size...
OK, I'm done.

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RE: Curious

By geddarkstorm on 1/26/2010 4:31:08 PM , Rating: 1

Errr, from Anand's recent LCD review, that TheOne posted a link to...

quote:
For one, Apple uses LED backlighting whereas the U2711 sticks with CCFL technology. But isn't CCFL worse? That depends on what you're after; the iMac 27 offers a 72% color gamut while the U2711 has a 102% color gamut (based on the CIE 1931 standard). Using RGB LEDs, it would be possible to get a similarly high color gamut, but our experience with RGB LEDs to date is that they cost more and consume more power than regular LEDs, so we can understand Dell's interest in sticking with the "older" technology. (We've only seen RGB LEDs in a few laptops so far, and as one example it's a $175 upgrade on the Dell Studio XPS 16 compared to a regular white LED display.)

Yes, I misspelled gamut, oh noes, the world will end. But unfortunately, current "white" LEDs are inferior to CCFLs. This shouldn't be a surprise. How long have CCFLs been around and LCDs optimized for their light spectrum? In the end, LEDs will be superior, but /not quite yet/. Just like there's some aspects of CRTs that still beat an LCD; though nothing compared to overall smackdown LCDs give the old tech (still enough though that some people prefer CRTs.. as strange as it may sound).

OLEDs will change the game again. Eventually...

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RE: Curious

By amanojaku on 1/26/2010 5:33:20 PM , Rating: 2

It's a little unfair to compare the LED backlight of a general purpose iMac with that of a monitor or TV designed specifically for display quality. Don't believe the RDF, particularly in light of the last few weeks' issues.

The current LEDs are yellow/green-biased, but the electronics compensate for this. However, better LEDs are around the corner to address this problem AND improve the color gamut. You'll see them in TVs first as they're expensive, but they'll trickle down to less expensive displays eventually.

http://www.nec-lcd.com/en/release/release_090529_0...

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RE: Curious

By mooncancook on 1/26/2010 5:20:03 PM , Rating: 1

As an average consumer I don't care what Gamut or Gambit is, I just know that when I saw those newer LED LCD tvs that's about a fifth the thickness of my current Samsung LCD tv I just want one, even though I'm very satisfied with the picture quality of my current tv. The only thing holding me back is my wallet.

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RE: Curious

By MrPoletski on 1/27/2010 6:37:53 AM , Rating: 2

"First of all it's color GAMUT, not GAMBIT."

What do they call you? Wheels?

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RE: Curious

By RandallMoore on 1/27/2010 10:39:02 AM , Rating: 2

Fully agreed. Anyone who says LED doesn't produce an overall better picture has not been into best buy to look at the Samsung LED displays.

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RE: Curious

By XIAOYI on 1/26/10, Rating: -1

RE: Curious

By ZHENZHEN on 1/27/10, Rating: -1

RE: Curious

By jwilliams4200 on 1/26/2010 3:12:52 PM , Rating: 4

FYI:

CCFLs use a gas discharge in a glass tube to excite a white phosphor on the glass.

WLEDs use a violet/UV LED to excite a white phosphor

RGB LEDs use red, green, and blue LEDs, mixed with certain intensities for each color to produce "white" light

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RE: Curious

By GTVic on 1/26/2010 3:52:05 PM , Rating: 2

The mixing aspect is irrelevant because the LCD uses RGB filters to display red, green and blue pixels.

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RE: Curious

By plague911 on 1/26/2010 5:10:25 PM , Rating: 2

WRONG. liquid crystals are NOT perfect filters. Not even close. you get some light bleeding. The easiest way to prove that you have no idea what your talking about is to place a light bulb behind a red slip of paper and right next to that a blue slip... Your mostly going to get some light coming out of the red. But you sure are going to get a non insignificant amount coming out of the blue.....

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RE: Curious

By bupkus on 1/26/2010 4:01:12 PM , Rating: 1

Thank you, Mr. Wizard.
@-@
<|>
\__/

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RE: Curious

By Screwballl on 1/26/2010 1:19:58 PM , Rating: 2

From what I have seen it is currently about the same price or slightly cheaper to use the LED backligthing.... as this becomes more predominate and more manufacturing processes get switched over, it will become cheaper.

Yet another advance in technology and manufacturing that will eventually bring LCD TVs and monitors closer to the price of a typical CRT TV/monitor.

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RE: Curious

By bug77 on 1/26/10, Rating: -1

RE: Curious

By Screwballl on 1/26/2010 1:44:07 PM , Rating: 2

That is part of the point of this article... to explain that now as the LED backlighting is comparable in cost to CCFL, it is starting to be used more in the smaller units to start. Cost wise on larger units it is still more exspesive due to scaling issues, but as it becomes cheaper for larger displays, they will start to be used on them as the price point dictates.

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RE: Curious

By DanNeely on 1/26/2010 2:18:43 PM , Rating: 2

The reason for putting the backlights at the top and bottom of the screen instead of behind it is that when he goes to his local electronics BoxMart Joe Moron to buy a new TV he looks at Price and Thinness first. Image quality, if considered at all is ranked around priority 153, somewhere below if the TV comes bundled with a Monster HDMI cable (at a $100 markup on the TV vs vendors who don't do cable scams).

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omg that korean chick is hot...

By riottime on 1/26/2010 7:32:33 PM , Rating: 3

what's this post about again? :)

RE: omg that korean chick is hot...

By hiscross on 1/26/2010 7:44:08 PM , Rating: 2

All Korean women are hot, especially when they mad at you

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RE: omg that korean chick is hot...

By daInvincibleGama on 1/27/2010 12:05:54 AM , Rating: 2

Truer words were never spoken..

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RE: omg that korean chick is hot...

By Yongsta on 1/27/2010 2:58:10 PM , Rating: 2

Unfortunately they don't find typical dailytech readers as attractive.

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RE: omg that korean chick is hot...

By hiscross on 1/30/2010 12:19:30 PM , Rating: 2

I'm sure glad I'm not typical.

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I'm all for it

By kyleb2112 on 1/26/2010 7:24:58 PM , Rating: 3

Backlighting Japanese girls is a great idea.

RE: I'm all for it

By AstroGuardian on 1/27/2010 2:52:04 AM , Rating: 2

My thought exactly...

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RE: I'm all for it

By rburnham on 1/27/2010 10:30:41 AM , Rating: 3

I see a nice backside I'd like to light up. Jumping Jiminy Crickets! Good golly Miss Molly!

(What does that even mean?)

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LED not ready for prime time

By Gungel on 1/26/2010 1:52:32 PM , Rating: 1

My first experience with an LED back-lit monitor was about 2 months ago. I had purchased an Acer S243HL bmii LED monitor. While the hardware was nice the picture quality was horrible. The white was blue with shades of grayish yellow. It also had a astigmatism, depending on the viewing angle some of the text became foggy while text on the opposite side looked suddenly sharper. I exchanged it for a CCFL 24" unit which looks now much better and was 35$ less.

RE: LED not ready for prime time

By mattspeer01 on 1/26/10, Rating: -1

RE: LED not ready for prime time

By Reclaimer77 on 1/26/2010 2:13:08 PM , Rating: 2

Because it was a TN panel.

People are confusing the lighting source with image quality. LED monitors will not magically look better. A good non TN panel CCFL will still kick a LED TN panel's ass in all ways as far as quality is concerned.

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RE: LED not ready for prime time

By mattspeer01 on 1/26/2010 3:02:24 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
People are confusing the lighting source with image quality.

Reminds me of people who buy digital cameras based on the number of megapixels, rather than the lens quality.

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RE: LED not ready for prime time

By bupkus on 1/26/2010 3:47:03 PM , Rating: 2

Marketing people always narrow focus to some specific characteristic that lesser products can boast even if that characteristic offers no effective advantages.

"Sell the sizzle, not the steak".

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All cool

By InternetGeek on 1/26/2010 3:13:48 PM , Rating: 2

This is all cool, but I bought my LCD about 3 years ago. I'm not about changing it just yet. Basically I'll do that when it dies. Hopefully when its 10yo or so.

RE: All cool

By rburnham on 1/27/2010 10:33:43 AM , Rating: 2

You need not replace it. You can have two!

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What what TV sets these days have RGB LED lighting?

By Blood1 on 1/26/2010 10:10:10 PM , Rating: 2

What what TV sets these days have RGB LED lighting?
Do the Samsung 6K, 8K 8.5K or 9K have it?
What about VIZO or are these all just LED white lighten tvs?