10 lumen tech.....educate me please?

Reading through the threads I can see that there is a lot of misinformation being posted about all the new plasma breakthroughs of recent. I was thinking that a plasma technology thread might be in order to answer all the scientific questions people want answers to regarding black levels, 1080p and high efficiency (10 lum/w). Kinda like the Isochroma threads. Anyway just a thought.

Regarding your question, I have read several patents and patent applications from Pioneer regarding high efficiency breakthroughs. Normal plasma displays have about a maximum of 2.5 lumen/watt efficiency. Pioneer patents claim cell structures and gas mixtures that can double that efficiency to 5 lumen/watt. The structure consists of a diamond coating that seeds the plasma cell with electrons. This is refferred to as a secondary electron source. This greatly reduces the voltage required to ionize the gas, which opens up opportunities like increases resolution, lower black levels, and lower power consumption. They are all tied together.

Now to get 10lumen/watt is not as easy. I've read a couple patents applications that suggest that Pioneer has added a secondary partition/segment within each cell (like a cavity) that at the moment I don't understand. When I do I will let you know

You're discussing items that outlined changes from the 5G Pioneers to 6G Pioneers. The coating you are referring to is magnesium oxide and Pioneer marketing has labeled it the crystal emissive layer.

Crystal emissive layer is a tradename for Mgo layer on the top of the cell. Every single plasma display has this.

Yes, no, sort of. What were they using prior to 6G?

I don't know? I would assume MgO to get a usalbe efficiency and contrast. Maybe they used nothing but the power consumption and black levels would be very high compared to with MgO.

Just to be clear, the coating I was referring to is diamond and it is on the bottom of the cell embedded into the phosphor layer just above the address electrode. It can also be MgO according to the patent.

The crystal emissive layer is on the top of the cell and is MgO (standard technology nowadays)

With the crystal emissive layer the efficiency is ~ 1.7 - 2.5 lumens/ watt relative to the gas mixture/pressure used (assuming deep encased cell)

With the secondary electron source the efficiency is doubled to ~5 lumens/watt max.

Also to be clear, increasing efficiency is extremely importants as it opens technology improvements in black levels, resolution, burn-in, and power consumption, and even motion blurring (I may have forgotten a few)

For any science geeks here, I’ve accumulated around 30 patents and patent applications describing high efficiency and high contrast (the two are related) plasma display technology. Rather than post them, as they are so difficult to read, I’ll give you a simple summary of what I read. First I’ll write some background and then a couple sentences describing the actual invention. Hopefully the background makes the invention more clear

Note: There is no proof these patents relate to actual products in the market but they are relatively recent.

High Contrast: As you may know the reason plasma cells emit light when they are off is because just like fluorescent bulbs, they need to be primed to be able to turn on quickly. This priming involves discharging the cell to get free charges into the cell gap. The priming discharge generates some UV light which in turn excites the phosphor and emits some unwanted light. And this occurs in all pixels many times per frame whether they are active or not to make sure the cell is ready to be activated quickly. The longer a cell is off without priming the harder and longer it takes to start it again (just like a fluorescent bulb).

A few years ago, Panasonic developed a ramp priming pulse that caused very little unwanted light to be emitted (dark discharge). But there is still room for improvement. Also, since plasma displays are somewhat passive matrix (no TFT switch) they must use dielectric material in the cell that accumulates wall charges. The wall charges allow the cells to be selected individually for activation. To create this wall charge they need to once again ionize the gas in the cell (more unwanted discharge). In fact in every stage of addressing the pixel, except the sustain stage (where the actual picture is generated) unwanted light is emitted. So reducing or eliminating stages that produce unwanted light during dark periods would lower the black level and increase contrast.

Invention: For Pioneer, thanks to a super efficient high gamma coating (secondary electron source) on the bottom of the cell they have made it possible to keep the cell primed with very little discharge and light emission. In fact it is so efficient that they only need to prime the cell once at the very beginning of each frame, as well as only one erase period at the very end of each frame. This eliminates unwanted discharge from constantly priming the cell as well as constantly resetting and erasing the cell for each pulse in the PWM scheme.

I will post several patent summaries on high efficiency (10 lumen tech) technology later.

Cheers

XROX,

Thanks much. Your information is very helpful and very well explained. This certainly makes the technology much easier for me to understand and evaluate.

Thanks again and keep it coming.

Cheers,

Gary

High efficiency Plasma display (10-15 lumens per watt)

Background : Without getting too technical, the luminous efficiency of a plasma display is how much light is produced per unit of energy. Current technology produces around 1-2 lumens per watt. Efficiency is the single most important factor for almost every display technology as it determines what can and cannot be accomplished regarding resolution, contrast, pixel addressing, motion performance, and of course power consumption. Below is an explanation of why higher lumens/watt enables higher performance.

Resolution : FullHD (1080p) plasma displays were slow in developing because as the cell size is reduced the luminous efficiency goes even lower making brightness and contrast unusable. This is because the phosphor area becomes smaller and the UV generation becomes too close to the wall of the cell. Manufacturers solved this by making the cell deeper (deep encased cell) as well as reducing the gap between sustain electrodes to concentrate the UV generation into a smaller spot. Now a FullHD plasma with 2 lumens per watt efficiency was possible. Now imagine 10 lumens per watt. This will enable 4000p PDP panels or very small 1080p panels.

Contrast/Black levels - While improving luminous efficiency allows for higher luminance levels, it also allows for lower black levels. It does this because the cell design for high lumens per watt allows for easy firing with little energy compared to conventional PDP cell designs. This means there is less need for cell priming and lower voltages are required to address the cell. This leads to less unwanted light emission during dark periods.

Power Consumption – New cell designs allow for much lower electrostatic capacity between electrodes which in turn massively reduces reactive current and power consumption. 100 watts or less is what 10 lumens per watt is capable of

Motion performance – Plasma displays use pulse width modulation. By having a high luminous efficiency (10 lumens per watt) the plasma cell does not have to emit light for as long a time to get a high luminance. Essentially the pulses can be compressed and still maintain high brightness. So the sample and hold effect can be reduced.

Pixel Addressing – Since less time is needed to emit light, there is also less time needed to address the pixels. So not only can more pixels be addressed but they can be addressed in a single scan mode (even 4000p)




Invention I have a copy of high lumen/watt patents by Pioneer, Panasonic, Hitachi, and Fujitsu as well as Samsung, and LG that I will explain later. They claim efficiencies as high as 12-15 lumens per watt are possible.

Phosphor?
Anyway, I eagerly await the patent explanations

So here is my question: just how much of this power savings will be realized in the first generation products? Current 50" 1080p plasmas burn 300-350 watts (rated at about 700w). So in an ideal world, a 4x improvement in power consumption would get us down to 75-90 watts. But that does not include other sources of power consumption such as the video processor that are not affected by the new technology. Even more importantly, I would expect a 4x (theoretical) improvement to translate into 1.5-2x improvement (real world) in a first generation product. So what kind of power consumption can we expect to see in the 2008 models. I would consider a 200w (rated) improvement (for 100w improvement in actual use) to be an amazing achievement.

I thought of another way to describe the reasoning behind plasma display efficiency problems. Since a plasma display pixels generate UV light which in turn excites phophor (just like a fluorescent bulb), the more UV light generated per unit of energy the higher the efficiency (assuming the phosphor has not changed). The problem is that the smaller the cell the less UV light is generated per watt of energy. In fact in a plasma display cell the UV generation efficiency is only a few percent (ie only 3-4% of the energy is converted to UV light). One reason is due to something called wall loss. If the plasma discharge is produced too close to the cell walls energy is absobed by the cell wall rather than generating UV light. So making the cell smaller brings the cell walls too close to the plasma (discharge) quenching the UV light generation.

discopaul, reducing the size of the cell (to increase the panel resolution) also reduces the surface area of phosphor in the cell. Meaning less light can be produced from the cell.

BBigJ, I have absolutely no info on what, when, or even if these patents relate to actual products (current or up and coming). D-Nice would be a good guy to ask that question.

Before going into some of the patents here is a couple of tidbits of info I just read: Historically Pioneer corporation was the leader in developing a usable efficiency in the FHD (1080p) plasma panel. In 2005 pioneer was able to achieve a 1.8 lumen per watt 1080p 50 panel using an advanced cell structure. This cell has the famous T-shaped electrodes and deep cell structure along with a crystal emissive layer (Mgo crystals on top of vapor deposited Mgo). This may be referring to what is in the FHD-1 I think.?

NHK laboratories is researching a 4320x7680 = 10 million subpixel 100 Plasma for Home theatre use. The small 0.1mm cell pitch will require a high luminance efficiency to be feasable.

Kyung Cheol Choi as well as Ki Woong Wang (LG affiliation?) have been working on the auxiliary electrode design for PDP for many years. The extra electrode placed between the two sustain electrodes on the top of the cell has the potential to achieve 10-15 lumens per watt

Here is some older info on auxiliary electrode design.

http://idmplab.kaist.ac.kr/rsch_info.htm
http://english.etnews.co.kr/news/det...d=200704130001

When I get some time I'll describe the patent shared by Pioneer, Panasonic, and Fujitsu-Hitachi

Cheers

D-Nice has said that the ten lumen technology will be in the 2008 models from Panasonic and Pioneer.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post11303508

Keep it coming xrox. It will be very interesting to hear what it actually is that comprises the upcoming 10-lumen tech to accomplish the greater efficiency and all the resulting improvements. PQ seems to already be getting to the outstanding state with the current KURO panels. A further boost there along with lower power consumption, less heat generation, reduced IR/BI risk and all at lower manufacturing cost levels would make PDP pretty much perfect.


ron

Sorry if this is too technical but the following is a summary of the only patent I have from the Advanced PDP development centre (Pioneer + Panasonic + Hitachi + Fujitsu).

Electrode/Gas Design : Conventional PDPs use two stripe shaped ITO electrodes on the surface of the cell. The ITO electrodes are relatively wide (400um in conventional PDPs). The electrodes are wide to maximize the UV (147nm) generation area because UV (147nm) is attenuated quickly within the cell. So the more UV (147nm) that can be generated the more UV(147nm) will reach the phosphor material. But making the discharge area wide also contributes to wall loss as the discharge is too close to the wall of the cell.

This patent describes using a special gas mixture containing 6.67kpa Xenon that creates a molecular beam of 172nm that excites the phosphor without any attenuation. This allows the electrodes to be made thinner which makes the discharge area smaller and farther away from the wall. The end result is more efficient generation of light thanks to less attenuation and less wall loss.

Furthermore, the thinner electrodes reduce the electrostatic capacity between the ITO electrodes which reduces current and massively reduces power consumption.

An added benefit is that the thinner electrodes eliminate the requirement for high precision placement of the electrodes thus enhancing product yield and reducing manufacturing costs.

Secondary Electron Emission Layer : The two thin sustain electrodes are covered with a dielectric material which is then covered with a floating electrode placed between the sustain electrodes. It is made of high gamma material which lowers the ionization potential of the cell making it easier to discharge the gas in the cell and produce 172nm molecular beam with high efficiency in a small area without wall loss. The result is lower power consumption and higher efficiency.

Cell Communication A small spacer is places between the front glass and the cell walls but only in one direction (column or row). This leaves a gap between the glass and one side of the plasma cell. This serves three purposes.

1 – During manufacture the air in the all the plasma cells can be evacuated all at once from one inlet. And then the proper gas mixture can be introduced all at once. This would bring a huge reduction in manufacturing costs.

2 – Since the gas can move from one cell to another, priming particles generated in one cell can also prime the adjacent cells. This greatly enhances the overall priming effect and thus increases the discharge probability and reduces discharge delay and boosts efficiency as the sustain pulse is shortened.

3 – Using a spacer moves the ITO electrodes further from the base of the cell (address electrode) which reduces the electrostatic capacity between them which in turn reduces the power consumption during the addressing stage.

thanks xrox, you can get as technical as you want, all appreciated.

The thing I am curious about - if Lumen 10 is to be incorporated into Pioneer's g9 next year, what would happen to the Kuro innovations? Would they have to abandon it for Lumen 10.

And would that make the the next generations of Pioneers, Panasoncis, and Hitachi's on the same playing field.

In response to the LG press release stating 30,000:1 contrast, 120Hz, and single scan I did some digging and have made some discoveries.

#1 - LG has developed what they call "split-scan" electrode cell design for PDP. This is essentially is an auxilliary electrode set between the two existing sustain electrodes on the top of the plasma cell. This design gives an impressive efficiency and reduces discharge current. This enables higher brightness, lower power, lower black level, single scan, and 120Hz.

#2 - LG has developed a new driving method for PDP that closely resembles that used in the Pioneer patents. Essentially there is only one reset period at the beginning of each frame period and priming is done in conjunction with sustaining (hybrid design). In other words, the minimum luminence is reduced dramatically .

I described in earlier posts the Pioneer/Hitachi/Fujitsu/Panny (APDC) partnership and the patent they hold together. What I've come to realize is that if you translate the terminology of the patents and articles claiming discoveries you essentially have the same or at least similar design concepts for all Parties. Namely (with a few holes to fill):

1) Improving efficiency by adding an "extra" electrode between the sustain electrodes.
- APDC calls it a secodary electron emission layer (traslated it means floating electrode)
- LG and KAIST call it an auxilliary electrode (note: KAIST seems to be affiliated with LG)
- Samsung ? don't know yet

2) Reducing unwanted emission of light when the cell is off (reducing minimum luminence)
- Pioneer and LG are reducing the reset pulse from once every subfield to once every frame. They do this by combining the sustain and priming steps together.
- Panasonic ? don't know yet
- Hitachi/Fujitsu ? don't know yet
- Samsung? don't know yet

3) Both Samsung and Pioneer have papers and patents on using a diamond or MgO layer imbedded in the phosphor (bottom of the cell) in order to improve discharge probability and increase efficiency and reduce miminum luminence.

NOTE: Again I want to point out I don't have a clue if any of this is currently in a product (although Pioneer has stated a secondary electron source at the bottom of the cell).

You're speaking of the KAIST plasmas (Korean version of 10-lumen tech). This is not what the G series LGs plasmas have.

As I said I don't know what is actually in the product (That's your job ). If you know exactly what is in the new LG plasma that makes it tick then I would like to know too

What I do know thanks to some digging tonight is that LG has made prototype designs similar to KAIST design (and so has Pioneer/APDC for that matter). I am just posting what each company or institute is working on based on technical publication and patent application. And it is becoming clear that all PDP manufacturers are disclosing similar designs.

BTW, look at the end of post 14 to see links to KAIST micro plasma design. This is where "_____" got his pictures from LOL. Also, it seems to me I've read that KAIST and LG are affiliated (maybe you can confirm?). After all KAIST won't be making plasma displays as they are an institute.

Cheers

Did my sound negative? If so, my bad. I didn't mean for it to be. Yes, LG and Samsung are affiliated with the KAIST group to counter their Japanese rivals in the APDC. I'm still trying to get information on what's in the G series. It sounds like they reduced the minumum luminance by 20%....but then again it doesn't.

Not at all.... I was just emphasizing I am not the one to ask for actual product info and my LG info only regarded development. Sorry if I sounded negative. Thanks for the info on LG/Kaist

Cheers

So do you guys think next years kuros will be a dramatic step up from this years if they use 10 lumen tech?

Next year's plasmas will not use all of 10 lumen tech.....Kuros included.

D-Nice, can you please elaborate on this? What parts of 10-lumen tech will be used and what parts won't be used next year?

Power reductions

Will next years Kuro's have lower black levels and higher brightness, or will lower power consumption be the main enhancement?

This question cannot be answer at this time due to "stipulations". You will have to wait and see.