Toshiba is bringing its low-temperature polysilicon display technology to notebooks in hopes of eventually lowering their price, the company said Monday.
Such technology is already used in smaller devices, including some handheld computers and cell phones, and offers higher quality images using fewer components--40 percent less, according to Toshiba--than its counterpart called amorphous silicon.
Low-temperature polysilicon is also lighter than amorphous silicon and has the potential to allow all of a computer"s components, from the processor to the memory, to be built into the screen. This would allow manufacturers to create thinner and less-expensive devices. The trade-off is that low-temperature polysilicon displays currently cost considerably more than amorphous silicon screens. Most liquid-crystal displays currently use amorphous silicon technology.
Toshiba announced that its 14.1-inch display with a high resolution of 1,024 pixels by 768 pixels is available in small volumes now with mass production slated for the end of the month. The price is expected to be around US$650, according to the company. Market researcher Stanford Resources estimates that similarly sized displays using amorphous silicon cost US$220 in August.