ITI Techmedia yesterday announced that it would invest £3.8m into a project aimed at developing technology that will reduce the weight and improve the viewing quality and power efficiency of flat-panel televisions and other display screens.
ITI Techmedia yesterday announced that it would invest £3.8m into a project aimed at developing technology that will reduce the weight and improve the viewing quality and power efficiency of flat-panel televisions and other display screens.
The Scottish Government-funded R&D sponsor said Design LED of Glasgow, Cambridgeshire-based TTP, multinational Matrics, and Texas-based research specialist DisplaySearch have been appointed to carry out the work in the initial concept design phase of the two-year programme.
The idea is to develop a new backlight technology platform using polymer optics for liquid crystal displays.
Current backlight technology is considered inefficient and costly, amounting to 25%-30% of the cost of an LCD screen.
As a result, ITI Techmedia said, LCD manufacturers are now demanding improved backlight units.
The flat panel display market is expected to be worth $100bn within the decade, and market research projects annual sales of LCD televisions to top 100 million units annually by 2010.
The ITI, or Intermediary Technology Institutes, initiative is central to the Scottish Government's Smart Successful Scotland drive, and is aimed at creating numerous high-growth companies.
The initiative involves a publicly-funded investment of £450m over 10 years, and aims to improve upon previous attempts to ramp up the so-called "knowledge economy".
