30 Jul 2002
QinetiQ, the commercial arm of the former UK MoD Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, announced today that it has taken a 6% equity stake in Screen Technology, a developer of photoluminescent LCDs spun out of Bill Crossland's work at Cambridge University in the mid-1990s.
The company, which has kept a low profile over the last couple of years, is confident that its seamless technology for large-screen television (40-60 inch) and upwards for ultra-large displays is ready to be taken up by major manufacturers. The company, until now principally funded by UK private investor Thomas Swan, will take heart from the interest of QinetiQ, which was the original inventor of the LCD some 20 years ago.
Said Graham Brown, QinetiQ's director of new ventures: "With QinetiQ's expertise in LCDs and current work on advanced flat panels, Screen Technology represents a good partner. The FPD market is currently worth $30 billion and Screen Technology's new ITrans technology has great potential in this hugely valuable market."
ITrans uses standard LCD panels, but the technology can also work with a variety of current and emerging displays including organic LEDs, the company claims.
Early prototypes that the company has already demonstrated worked on narrow-band collimated ultraviolet backlights instead of wide-band white light to modulate the LCD, and a RGB phosphor screen emitting uniformly instead of color filters and a limited viewing angle.
Micro-optics expand the image of an unlimited number of small displays to produce seamless tiling behind a continuous phosphor screen. In this way it is similar to a technology just announced by the spin-off of Oxford university - Seamless Display - which is also hoping to target the large video wall market.
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