Prysm to make own Laser Phosphor Displays

San Jose, CA-based Prysm is working on reducing the power needs of large-screen displays, specifically those meant for outdoor advertising. The company claims its laser phosphor display (LPD) technology uses up a fourth of the energy used by the current LCD or LED displays. Prysm plans to manufacture the screen in the US, and says they can be made into any size or shape. Brightness is also highly adjustable, simply by adding more laser power, the company's co-founder and CTO Roger Hajjar says.

The LPD screens are said to be more similar to CRTs than LCDs, and Prysm hopes its technology will eventually be found in theaters, casinos, stadiums, airports and virtually anywhere else LCD screens are currently found.

While the initial cost of an LPD screen is higher than that of an LCD, Prysm maintains the long-term costs will be lower, as they consume less energy and don't use lamps that will need to be replaced. Other advantages of LPD include higher resolution than LCDs or LEDs, as well as a lack of motion blur and wider viewing angles.

Unlike conventional displays that rely on a glass plane of transistors to drive each pixel, laser phosphor displays use a laser whose beam turns on and off at precise times as it travels across a specific array of phosphor stripes.

The plan is to make these screens in a plant in West Concord, Massachusetts, formerly used for building scanning electron microscopes. The plant already has 40 employees and will double that number this year, according to the company.

While the LPD technology can be applied to smaller displays such as those in notebooks and handheld devices, the costs need to come down in order for this to be feasible, like any other emerging technology, Hajjar said.

By Electronista Staff