Glossary
- Active Matrix - TFT technology. See also TFT and Passive Matrix.
- AMLCD - Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display. See also TFT and Active Matrix.
- Backlight - A source of light from behind that lights up the display. The three most common are CCFL, LED and EL. See below.
- Backlight Enhancement - Any change to the native backlight that improves the visibility of the display.
- Bezel - A metal or plastic frame that fits over the display to hold it together and protects the glass.
- CCFL - Cold Cathode Fluorescent bulb used for backlighting. See backlight.
- Character Display - A display that shows characters such as numbers, letters, and symbols, but not pictures. Typical applications include clocks, temperature gauges, alarm displays, and calculators. Smaller and less expensive than graphic or TFT displays.
- EL - Electroluminescent. An older display technology with a yellow tint that may be used as a backlight or as a display.
- Graphic Display - A display technology using individually illuminated pixels to show pictures in addition to numbers and letters. Usually larger and more expensive than a character display and smaller and less expensive than a TFT display.
- High Brightened - An enhancement to increase a display’s brightness so that it is readable in direct sunlight. Usually over 500 NITS. See Nits.
- Inverter - A small circuit board used to power EL and CCFL backlighting. See EL and CCFL and Backlight.
- LCD — Liquid Crystal Display. A flat panel display made of two sheets of glass with a liquid crystal solution between them. As electric current passes through the liquid it causes the crystals to move and align so that light passes through them or is prevented from passing through. An LCD can be a
Segment, Character, Graphic or TFT display.
- Nits - A unit of light measure for a display. The more nits the brighter the display. Displays usually range from 70 to 2000 nits.
- Passive Matrix - A display technology that uses crossed wires instead of transistors with each pixel.
Passive displays offer lower costs, but are slower, not as bright and not as colorful as active
displays.
- Pixel - Also called a dot. Short for picture element. It is the smallest unit of an image. The more pixels the greater the resolution and image quality. Individual pixels are illuminated to create pictures.
- Reflective - One method of LCD illumination. A reflective display reflects
ambient light from whatever light is in the environment. The advantage of this type
of display is that it uses very little power because there
is no backlight. Best used in a well lit environment such as an office. See Transflective and Transmissive.
- Resolution - The number of dots (Pixels) per inch. The more pixels or dots the better the quality of the image. Resolution also refers to the way the pixels are organized on the screen. For example, QVGA resolution is 320x240 which means there are 320 pixels across the screen and 240 columns of pixels down the screen for a total of 76,800 pixels. There are nine standard resolutions available in TFT displays:
- QVGA 320x240 VGA 640x480 SVGA 800x600
XGA 1024x768
WXGA 1280x768 SXGA 1280x1024 UXGA 1600x1200
QXGA 2048x1536 QUXGA 3840x2400
- Smart Panel - LCD that has a controller and inverter attached.
- TFT - Thin Film Transistor. A display in which transistors are built into each pixel to improve and maintain image quality. Also called an Active Matrix Display.
- Transflective - An LCD illumination technique that combines the properties of both Transmissive and Reflective LCDs. It is partially lit by backlights and partially lit by reflecting
ambient light. See Reflective and Transmissive. Used under various lighting conditions from darkness to sunlight.
- Transmissive - Displays that are illuminated from behind. See Backlight. This type of illumination is best used in dark environments.
- Vandal Shielding - A display screen overlay added for ruggedization.