Home / Knowledge base / Display Fundamentals

Display Fundamentals

An LCD does not make light. It sits in front of light, or in front of a mirror, and twists a thin layer of liquid crystal to decide which pixels let that light through. Everything else on a datasheet, contrast, viewing angle, color, power, and cost, follows from that one arrangement. This hub is where the knowledge base teaches it, layer by layer, from the crystal itself to a finished module.

Start here if displays are new to you, or if you are about to specify your first custom part and want the vocabulary behind the numbers. These articles stay inside the LCD world and stay at the how-it-works altitude. Choosing between display families is the job of Display Technologies, and turning a choice into a bought part is the job of Specifying and Sourcing.

A labeled cross-section of an LCD cell with the viewer at the top: front polarizer, front glass with ITO electrodes and an optional color filter, the liquid crystal layer at the center, rear glass with ITO electrodes, a rear polarizer with or without a reflector, and a backlight at the bottom that is only present if the mode needs one. Each layer is tied to the article that covers it: positive versus negative modes, LCD color, liquid crystal types, how LCDs are driven, reflective, transmissive and transflective modes, and LCD backlight types, with a note that light crosses the whole stack so contrast, color, and viewing angle come from all of it.
Each layer of the cell is a separate decision, and each one has an article here.

Why the layers matter more than the label

Two modules can both be called a 16×2 character LCD and behave nothing alike. One is readable in direct sun and unreadable at night, the other is the reverse. The difference is never the label. It is the crystal type, the polarizer arrangement, whether there is a reflector behind the cell, and what the backlight does. Read the layers and a datasheet stops being a wall of numbers and becomes a set of choices somebody already made for you, or that you can still make yourself.

Start here

A suggested reading path

Read the cornerstone first. After that, jump to whichever layer your design turns on — nothing here is a prerequisite for anything else.

A four-step reading path. Step one, see the whole thing, with What Is an LCD and How It Works. Step two, look inside the cell, with crystal types, positive versus negative, and the light-path modes. Step three, judge what you see, with backlighting, viewing angle, and color. Step four, driven and built, with addressing, manufacturing, and how it all got here. Steps one and two are grouped under the cell, steps three and four under the finished module, with a note that nothing is a prerequisite and the Display Technologies hub is where a family gets picked.
Steps one and two cover the cell itself; steps three and four cover the finished module.
1

What Is an LCD and How It Works

See the whole thing: the light path end to end, and what the parts of the cell do.

6 min read — the cornerstone
2

Look Inside the Cell

Look inside the cell: which liquid crystal, which polarizer arrangement, and which light path.

~12 min across 3 articles
Liquid Crystal Types: TN, HTN, STN, and FSTN Positive vs Negative LCD Display Modes Reflective, Transmissive, and Transflective LCDs
3

Judge What You See

Judge what you see: the backlight, the usable viewing cone, and how color is produced.

~13 min across 3 articles
LCD Backlighting: LED, CCFL, and EL LCD Viewing Angle, Viewing Direction, and Contrast LCD Color: Monochrome, Field-Sequential, and CSTN
4

Driven and Built

Understand how it is driven and built, and how the industry arrived at the parts you can buy today.

~12 min across 3 articles
How LCDs Are Driven: Static vs Multiplexed Addressing How an LCD Is Made: From Glass to Finished Module History of Display Technology: From CRT to LCD, OLED, and E-Paper

Articles in this hub

The remaining nine articles, grouped by where they sit on the reading path above.

Every layer on this page is something you can specify. Orient Display builds LCD, character LCD, and graphic LCD modules to a drawing rather than around a fixed catalog part, down to the crystal type, the polarizer, and the backlight. Start a custom project, or talk to an engineer if you would rather work out the layers with someone first.

Related hubs: Display Technologies for choosing between LCD, TFT, OLED, and e-paper, Design and Integration for interfaces, touch, bonding, and temperature, Specifying and Sourcing for turning a spec into a part, and Reference for the glossary and the units behind every number named here.

The knowledge base

All clusters

Display FundamentalsYou are here Display Technologies Design and Integration Specifying and Sourcing Reference Embedded Displays