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Technology

Cold CRT Guns for Thinner CRTs 110

Posted by michael from the instant-on dept.
Fly writes: "According to EETimes, an Austin startup company is close to producing CRTs with cold-emission electron guns. They claim this will reduce the parts needed for electron guns as well as allow for greater control and deflection of the electron beams leading to thinner CRTs. Their technology uses older chip-manufacturing techniquest to deposit diamond tips for the guns on silicon wafers. They hope to enter the CRT market next year."
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Cold CRT Guns for Thinner CRTs More

Cold CRT Guns for Thinner CRTs

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  • More efficient? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are these going to be more energy efficient than regular CRTs? I don't really care about space, but I hate how much electricity a regular monitor wastes

  • CRT are on thier way out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pennsol ( 317791 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:05AM (#2793617) Homepage
    CRT monitors no matter how small are still big, clunky, and waist energy. They also contain lead, which is banned from landfills. LCD and TFT monitors will take over the market simply because they are better for the sellers as for the buyers, Smaller size cheaper to store, cheaper to ship. IMHO this company has a few merits but is beating a dead horse.
    • indeed...one might ask if there will even be much of a CRT market next year...
    • I somewhat agree with this.. But there are a few of us (including myself) that like CRT better. The only flatpanel displays that look as good as a CRT to me are extreamly expensive. All the ones that are of lower cost have that wacky ghosting effect, not as bad as the old dual scan LCD displays, but it's there when playing higher framerate games.. And even with those huge flat panel plasma TVs, I sill like a good Sony Wega TV better.

      • I agree that the gamming quality on lcd still leaves something to be desired, but i'm pretty sure i read here on /. awhile back an article on speeding up or redesigning the controllers for LCDs to make the as fast as a standard CRT monitor. As for useing this technolgy for TV sure.. we all wish we could afford a plasma screen but we can't, if this makes big screen TVs cheaper and thinner, they do have a good point, but as for the monitor arena.. i still think LCD will take the market in the next year or so.
      • Another problem with LCD/TFT is that they do not reproduce all colours properly. (I think the problems were something like forests looking too purple and such.) So, even if TFT generally takes over, CRT might still be preferred for image processing applications. Nevertheless, I'd prefer a big TFT if they were cheap, which they're not.

      • Ghosting was recently solved. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @11:06AM (#2793815) Journal
        The only flatpanel displays that look as good as a CRT to me are extreamly expensive. All the ones that are of lower cost have that wacky ghosting effect, not as bad as the old dual scan LCD displays, but it's there when playing higher framerate games..

        That was recently solved - by remembering the previous frame and computing a voltage that would rapidly force the liquid crystal to the correct transparency rather than feeding it the voltage that would eventuall lead to it stabilizing at the desired transparency and letting it relax to that transparency in its own sweet time. There was an article about it maybe a month ago in slashdot.

        Exepct TV-rate LCDs without ghosts as soon as this gets incorporated into the driver electronics - assuming the patent holders don't sit on it.
    • They also contain lead, which is banned from landfills.

      They contain leaded glass, which should be recycled anyway, into more CRTs.

      Besides, show me a LCD monitor that can display 1600x1200 and I'll show you a new car.

      • Re:CRT are on thier way out (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Viewsonic VP230mb [viewsonic.com]

        ViewSonic proudly introduces the 23.1" VP230mb LCD display with 170 viewing angles and a 1600 x 1200 native resolution

        As for some new cars: here's [edmunds.com] a good place to start :)

      • Here's one from IBM [ibm.com]. Resoultion is 2560*2048, but you can scale it down to 1600*1200 if you really want.

        I hope the car is nice!
        • Yeah, but he made out better in the trade of the LCD vs the car.
        • Yum, yes, but: $18,999.00 IBM Web Price*

          I could get a very nice car for that. Even down payment on a house.
        • Fuck that! Try Apple's Cinema Display (22", 1600x1024, yeah not 1600x1200 or 2500x2000) at apple.com, it's only $2500 US.

          With the extra $16,500 you can still buy a car!

          Also widely regarded as having a superior picture. Only downside (if you actually consider this a downside) is that you need a Mac with an ADC output. Personally, I do since my Mac is 5 years old (4 years too old to have ADC), but oh well.
    • Yes... but not all of us can afford LCD & TFT monitors... CRTs are much more affordable
    • hot CRTs waste (sp?) energy, it can be measured as heat. but the whole point of the article that you didn't grasp is that these are "cold". Instant-on, they don't require any actual heating for operation, and I doubt (though I don't know) that they'll even get warm in operation.
      • hot CRTs waste energy ... they don't require any actual heating for operation, and I doubt (though I don't know) that they'll even get warm in operation.

        The CRT's heater wastes some energy. But most of the energy consumed in a monitor is the energy dumped when the magnetic deflection field "flys back" at the end of each horizontal scan line. Some of this is recycled - into the accelleration high-voltage supply or even powering the CRT's heater - but most is just dumped as waste heat.

        This is just a replacement electron gun, so it won't do anything about the deflection power waste. But see my other posting and its parent here [slashdot.org].
        • This is just a replacement electron gun, so it won't do anything about the deflection power waste.

          Maybe I didn't fully get what all they were doing from reading the article, but it seemed to me that they weren't using deflection plates to direct the electron flow. Wasn't that the point of having 100,000 of them little diamond things?

          From the article...
          Cold-cathode guns are under electronic control and can more easily shape an electron beam, and achieve wider deflection angles, Extreme Devices said.

          That's the part that is throwing me. Well duh! Hot-cathode guns are under electronic control. Seems they were alluding to some different method of moving the beam around. Heck, I dunno.

    • Re:CRT are on thier way out (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ewieling ( 90662 ) <user@d e v n u l l . n et> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @10:50AM (#2793783)
      LCDs will replace CRTs when they are *cheaper to buy*.

      --Eric
      • Just bought a 19" CRT based monitor for a net retail cost of well under $200. It is a really nice monitor which looks good. The only negative is that it is slightly slower changing resolutions than my old 17" was - so switching to a GUI screen from a text screen takes slightly longer.

        When I can buy a similarly featured LCD screen at an equivalent price I will - until then I'll stick with CRT's.
    • I agree.
      We have leftover part from Phillips in our lab - they abandoned the project a few years ago.

      They stopped the research on improving manufacturing of CRT tube cases.

    • Re:CRT are on thier way out (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shepd ( 155729 ) <slashdot.org@gma ... Nom minus author> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @11:16AM (#2793845) Homepage Journal
      >They also contain lead, which is banned from landfills

      Not everywhere. I threw out some old TVs at the local landfill just a short while ago.

      I guess the environmentalists gave up when a scientist explained to them how difficult it is for lead to leach out of glass...

      If this were actually dangerous you'd see "Tell your kids: don't lick the TV screen" warnings near the tube of the monitor.

      >CRT monitors no matter how small are still big, clunky, and waist energy.

      Agreed.

      > LCD and TFT monitors will take over the market simply because they are better for the sellers as for the buyers, Smaller size cheaper to store, cheaper to ship. IMHO this company has a few merits but is beating a dead horse.

      You forget the merits of a CRT:

      - Better saturation
      - Closer colour tolerance
      - Adjustable colour temperature
      - Clearer picture
      - Better resolution flexibility
      - Better contrast
      - Better brightness
      - Faster response time
      - Simple manufacturing
      - Consistent quality - No "dead pixels"
      - Very high refresh rates making them perfect for 3d shutter glasses
      - Cheaper to fix
      - No backlight to wear out (no, don't point out the irony)
      - No ghosting
      - Free antialiasing

      All at a much, much lower price than LCDs.

      I don't agree they are better for all buyers, just those forced to buy a 2' x 3' desk for their computer. ;)

      As far as better for the sellers, other than the weight difference, I don't see how. Normally customers want cheaper and better. Weight and size are often only a concern when the buyer has made a poor choice in purchasing a desk.
      • > You forget the merits of a CRT:

        Looks like you've never seen an SGI 1600SW. Even today this 4+ year old technology continues to outperform many new LCD flat panels. Unfortunately, they are now discontinued - good thing I picked up a few when you still could.

      • - Better saturation
        - Closer colour tolerance
        - Adjustable colour temperature
        - Clearer picture
        - Better contrast
        - Better brightness

        I have a CRT sitting next to an LCD. I'd much rather use the LCD for any major graphics work. The only time the CRT really beats it out is when the brightness is turned up almost all the way, at which case the saturation goes down, not to mention it's harder to use... Also, my LCD does have adjustable colour temperature...

        - Better resolution flexibility
        True, but how many times do you change resolutions other than for gaming?

        - Faster response time
        - No ghosting
        These are probably the only things I really see as the CRT holding over an LCD, which are also the reasons I'm still using a big, bulky 21" CRT as my main vewing box (for games, primarily).

        - Consistent quality - No "dead pixels"
        I've had a CRT with a bad pixel once...

        - Very high refresh rates making them perfect for 3d shutter glasses
        How true

        - Free antialiasing
        Eh? no free antialiasing on a CRT, unless you mean the capability to run at lower resolutions, in which case it's just easier to see the individual pixels. LCDs are better for this as long as the resolutions are evenly divisible by the native one... DOS looks better on an LCD.

        - Cheaper to fix
        - No backlight to wear out (no, don't point out the irony)
        - Simple manufacturing
        Don't know anything about these...

        "Weight and size are often only a concern when the buyer has made a poor choice in purchasing a desk. "

        Maybe, but I'd rather carry around an LCD for LAN parties (despite it being really bad(TM) for fast-pased games). Also, having another square foot of deskspace can be useful for those of us who actually use paper every once-and-a-while.
        • >True, but how many times do you change resolutions other than for gaming?

          Playing DVDs, viewing TV from (some) TV cards, DOS, when you're tired and just want things "big"...

          >I've had a CRT with a bad pixel once...

          They probably screwed up on the shadow mask on your monitor. I'd return it... This is pretty unusual. But finding dead pixels on LCDs is completely normal, unfortunately.

          >Eh? no free antialiasing on a CRT

          You need a monitor with a sharpness control... There's one inside labelled focus, but then again there's 20 kV inside. Don't open up your monitor unless you know what you are doing!

          >I have a CRT sitting next to an LCD. I'd much rather use the LCD for any major graphics work. The only time the CRT really beats it out is when the brightness is turned up almost all the way, at which case the saturation goes down, not to mention it's harder to use... Also, my LCD does have adjustable colour temperature...

          I don't know what CRT and LCD you're using, but $ for $ I've found that if you buy an LCD and CRT of the same size and price, you get a CRT that beats out the LCD.

          But hey, maybe I haven't seen a good LCD for a while... the only one I've got is on this laptop I'm typing on, and the brightness, colour, and contrast fade unless I'm viewing it at the "right" angle. :-/
      • They also contain lead, which is banned from landfills

        Not everywhere. I threw out some old TVs at the local landfill just a short while ago.

        I guess the environmentalists gave up when a scientist explained to them how difficult it is for lead to leach out of glass...

        If this were actually dangerous you'd see "Tell your kids: don't lick the TV screen" warnings near the tube of the monitor.

        The static zap would very quickly educate them on that matter, not to mention the dust that collects on the screen...eww.

    • > CRT monitors no matter how small are still big, clunky, and waist [sp] energy

      Not all of them, check out the stuff that Candescent is making:
      http://www.candescent.com/

      These are "thin" crts (field emmisson displays). They essentially are thousands of microscopic cathode ray guns per pixel. The resulting display is much brighter than liquid crystal based displays.

      Sadly, they do not seem to be mass producing yet.
    • If I could get an LCD monitor that was bright, clear, and had colour as good as my CRT for a reasonable price, I would. But at the moment I can't. The only one I've ever seen that meets my requirements(apart from price) is the old SGI ones.

      I think I'll probably have to wait for OLED before I get my flat panel. I can't wait to get this huge massive thing off my desk....

  • These screens are really cool. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tempmpi ( 233132 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:10AM (#2793625)
    I have reed an article an year ago about these screens, if they get them to work they should be really cool.
    They have almost all advantages of TFTs but have also almost all advantages of CRTs. They are very flat like a TFT, but have no problems with the viewing angle, smearing or bad color display. They need more power than a TFT so they shouldn't be suitable as a replacement of a laptop tft. They also shouldn't have any pixel faults because for every pixel there are many nano electron guns, so if one of these breaks down it doesn't matter. They should be cheaper to produce than a TFT because the process is more fault tolerant.
    One of the biggest problems in the development of these things is that there isn't that much room between the electron emiter and the phosphorus, because of that they couldn't speedup the electron to the same speeds they get in a normal CRT and need to find new low-energy phosphoruses.

    • Two articles confused. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @10:48AM (#2793779) Journal
      I have reed an article an year ago about these screens, if they get them to work they should be really cool. They have almost all advantages of TFTs but have also almost all advantages of CRTs. They are very flat like a TFT ...

      I think you may have two articles conflated.

      This one seems to be talking about using a diamond "forest" of cold emitters to replace the heated-cathode in a conventional electron gun, then deflecting the beam in the standard fashion, leading to an ordinary rectangular-cone CRT (but with no heater and instant-on).

      You seem to be referring to another approach that was to use cold-emitters (which would also benefit from this breakthrough.):

      The display consisted of a (glass) honeycomb of short individual "tubes".

      Each "tube" had a single emitter "spike" (substitute "small forest") at the base.

      A control electrode near the emitter (maybe substitute one per emitter in the "forest") switched it on/off and modulated the beam intensity. The voltage is near the cathode's and the voltage swing is just a couple volts, so you can use conventional transistor electronics.

      (You can actually use two or more electrodes to do a matrix address and beam modulation, with the voltage gradient at the emitter tip or a space charge near it performing the computation so you don't need a separate switch per-pixel.)

      The beam was accellerated along the narrow channel - the front portion of which contained an accelleration electrode with a constant high voltage - similar to a normal CRT. Difference: The beam could be bounced repeatedly between the channel walls, picking up additional electrodes by secondary emission.

      The beam strikes a single phosphor dot at the end of the channel.

      So you end up with something that can be fabricated (except for the cathode spike and maybe the modulation electrodes) by glass molding, vapor deposition of electrode metal, and micropipette phosphor-solution placement, and driven by essentially the same chips that run an LCD plus a single, unmodulated, high-voltage supply. The tubes are very short and the honeycomb of glass separating the individual tubes also supports the front screen, so you don't need thick heavy glass to fight 15 PSI of atmospheric pressure across more than a foot of unsupported span. Pixel placement is controlled by fabrication, so there's no sensitivity to local magnetic fields, no geometry adjustment. Of course in addition to no need to heat the cathodes there's no need to power and rapidly modulate an enormous magnetic deflection field.

      And this new article tells you why we don't yet have either the cold-emission conventional CRT or the honeycomb flat-panel CRT: Positive ions from any impurities in the vacuum or kicked off the target or the sides of the channel are accellerated back toward the gun, slamming into the tip(s) and rapidly eroding it. RCA had a patent on field emission vacuum tubes but didn't feel like pursuing the technology with materials research. So the whole filed languished.

      One of the biggest problems in the development of these things is that there isn't that much room between the electron emiter and the phosphorus, because of that they couldn't speedup the electron to the same speeds they get in a normal CRT and need to find new low-energy phosphoruses.

      Huh? Space shouldn't be an issue. The final velocity of the electron only depends on the accelleration voltage, not the length of the path. The path only needs to be long enough to prevent arc-over along the surface of the glass (or in any residual gas in the "vacuum"), and that's a fraction of an inch.

      With a conventional tube the voltage gradient also has to be low enough that the electrodes don't bend out of place. But that limit would be MUCH higher with the electrodes plated onto a glass surface or supported by the walls of a pixel-wide glass honeycomb cell, rather than by mica spacers and thin copper wire.

      I expect the conventional-CRT style to come out first. It's only being held back by the RCA patent that just expired. The flat-panel might take longer, due to other patents, the need to build a "wafer" the size of the screen rather than the size of an electron-gun cathode, and possibly worse problems with tip erosion due to the limited number of tips per pixel.

      • Pixtech [pixtech.com]is one of the companies hoping to make field emission CRT displays. They've been around for a while, and always seem to be on the verge of something great. Perhaps the problem with maintaining the sharpness of the emitting points mentioned in this articles is the sticking point.

        This page [atip.org] is a good primer on the different competing display technologies.

        thad
      • Presumably the lower initial velocity of an electron stripped from this diamond tipped cathode allows for greater x-y displacement (rastering) in a shorter z displacement (length of tube).

        Heated cathodes were originally devised to overcome the problem of the enormous field strength required to strip electrons from a cold, metal cathode. Once enough voltage was generated, electrons were stripped with enormous velocity, and passed through a much longer tube to produce x-rays. Generating visible light with these devices was difficult, and ultimately, dangerous to the viewer!

        One problem with the cold cathode technology mentioned in this article would be ensuring that the electron striking the phosphor particles had sufficient velocity to cause an electron shell jump (ie. not enough energy and the phosphor won't emit photons.) By using these diamond tipped cathodes, they must be able to get the electrons off the cathode at lower field strength. Lower field strength = lower velocity, which would allow for a shorter deflection path and a shorter tube. But it won't gurantee that the phosphor will light up.
  • I usually don't get into things that don't go into my PC case. To me these things are all extras. I could care less if I use a TV as a monitor.

    But, can we expect cheaper monitors out of this deal? For many of us a good LCD isn't an answer. And if you want a 17 or 19 inch LCD - you better sell your PC!

    Maybe when my Proview [ouch!] dies I'll be able to get a 'cool' looking Cold CRT?

    Let's hear from the experts.

    --
    • "I usually don't get into things that don't go into my PC case. To me these things are all extras. I could care less if I use a TV as a monitor. "

      Are you trolling? My monitor is the single most expensive component in my system, and the one I went for the best quality in. I will use it for many years, and it will out last several systems including their upgrades. Anything that I have to stare at for many hours at a time had better be of high quality. Of course, the next most important component to me is my graphics card... a good monitor won't improve crap output from the system.
    • Cool, do you use a telepathic intereface into your box instead of a keyboard and/or a mouse?

      :-)
      • Cool, do you use a telepathic intereface into your box instead of a keyboard and/or a mouse?

        No, but I'd use a mouse I found in the garbage if I found one.

  • Lower Cost...Higher Quality (Score:4, Interesting)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <petedaly&ix,netcom,com> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:12AM (#2793631)
    While it may be lower cost (for the gun) and higher quality, I bet the first ones we see will be more expensive. I've got a Sony Trinitron 21" in front of my face right now. I also have a Dell Laptop whos LCD can do 1600x1200. The SOny monitor pales in comparison. The monitor (and the one I previously used at work) have not done great things for my eyes, due to their slight bluring at super high resolutions. My eyesight has improved since I started using primarily my LCD/Laptop. It would be nice to see what kind of quality gain is possible with this. I would be willing to upgrade my hot 21" to a cold 21" if the sharpness is much better.

    This sounds like a cool technology.

    -Pete
    • Yes, but that is because any new technology requires investment in people, equipment, infrastructure, etc. Just because one component is cheaper doesn't mean that then entire assembly becomes cheaper.
    • Slight blurring at super high resolutions? Does that mean you are pushing it beyond its recommended resolution? Perhaps this isn't even a monitor issue, but more a question of the quality of graphics card? BTW, I use a Sony 19" (G400) - I stick to it's recommended 1280x1024. It can go much higher, but it's not the blurring that gives me eye strain, but rather the small size of everything!
      • Slight blurring at super high resolutions? Does that mean you are pushing it beyond its recommended resolution?

        Another possibility is a crummy video cable. I run a KDS VS-195 at only 1152x864 @ 85 Hz, but I was able to tell the difference between a straight VGA cable and a VGA-to-5BNC cable. The shielding of the latter cable is better, so text is a little bit sharper.

    • Sony monitors are known to produce a bit blurry image(at high resolutions)... and have grey background. I currently use Sony 420GS (19" at 1024x768).. and it suckz completely compared to my 17" iiyama 410. So if you really want a good monitor ged iiyama... or if you want a value monitor.. LG Trinitron (goldstar)
  • Shouldn't OLED based monitors be out sometime within the very near future? I am not yet convinced that conventional TFT panels are up to the quality of a good Viewsonic or Sony CRT, but OLED sounds like it will be the cat's a$$ for much less. Cold CRT is a great idea, but perhaps a little bit too late.
    • As far as I know, the only problem with OLED at this point in time is that they degrade quickly, in about 5000 hours. Kodak is working on the problem, and from what I last heard they reckon it will be fixed soon. If I could get a 17 inch OLED monitor for the same price as a 17 inch CRT I'd definately get one.

  • yupeee yahoo hoorray (Score:5, Funny)

    by atari2600 ( 545988 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:15AM (#2793634)
    You guys mean that i will be actually able to carry that 21in monitor all by myself - hoorray no more asking the school bully :)
    • Who said it would be lighter? Making a vaccuum-tube smaller doesn't really make it much lighter, unless nothing have a mass. ;)
      • Im celebrating already - that post has a 5score mod now. Yipeeee for a /. newbie this is an achievement.
      • Refraining from calling you something mean....

        A smaller vacuum tube has less material containing the vacuum, therefore less mass. Think of this- your TV has a vacuum inside it; now think of your entire bedroom holding a vacuum- which unit do you think would weigh less? This scale just magnifies the differences. The vacuum contained within does not scale with the material needed to contain the larger vacuum area.
      • Actually, making the size of the monitor smaller without reducing the weight may be good enough, as you don't have to carry around a huge, bulky thing anymore.

  • Uh Oh, Staffed with Zenith employees (Score:5, Funny)

    by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:15AM (#2793635)
    Extreme Devices received what Kalar called "a godsend" when LG Electronics decided to close the former Zenith CRT manufacturing facility in Melrose Park, Ill., in October 1998, the same time that Extreme Devices was staffing up.

    We can expect displays that will be encased in a big wood console.

    • I can already imagine the comments that 14yo boys will be making to each other and to Fry's salespeople (15yos):

      "Uhh, I want a woody. Gimme a woody! Heh-heh-heh. Hey Beavis, did that guy give you a woody?"
    • We can expect displays that will be encased in a big wood console.

      I know you say that like it's bad, but I have seen some case mods where they redid their case/monitor/keyboards in a nice woodgrain, and they are super-stylin'. I've thought about it more than once...

  • CRT's (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With the poor quality of Active Maxtrix (XGA) and LCDs (when I say poor, I mean poor for certain applications) this is nice for us CRT loving folk.

    I have a nice Gateway 9500 series laptop with a 15.7" LCD on it. It's great, I will quite often stare at it for hours reading e-books and no fatigue whatsover.

    While these LCDs are great for office applications, and text publishing, CRTs will continue to shine for computer gaming, and gfx publishing.

    Lighter, smaller, and better looking CRTs are going to be great, now I can realistically tote a 19" monitor to the next LAN party.

  • almost makes flat screen technology easier (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dkemist ( 199970 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:22AM (#2793645)
    A cold electron gun has some other benefits as well. Historically, the biggest problem with making monitor screens truly flat (no warping at the corners) was that the front material needs to be incredibly strong. Screens were rounded slightly to keep them from breaking due to the forces of the vacuum behind them. As screens grew larger and the depth of the monitor increased (in order to let the electron gun get the necessary width) screens had to be stronger. The premium for flat screens is still a couple hundred dollars more than their conventional counterparts.

    By having a cold electron gun that allows wider dispersion angles, you can reduce the depth of the monitor, and thereby reduce the strength required from the front screen material.

    • This won't have much effect on the face of the tube. It still has to have the same surface area acted on by the external air pressure.

      However, since the cold emission guns can work at greater deflection, the tube can be shorter, so the sides of the tube benefit from a reduced surface area and a shorter span..

      The gun itself should be smaller since it won't need a bulky heater.

      A big benefit comes from not having to power the heaters. While still requiring more energy than LCD displays, it's an improvement.

      Given the less complex assembly (15 rather than 35 parts), reduced materials cost, and simplified and smaller power supply, it may be possable to produce monitors based on this technology for about the price of a conventional CRT (once retooling costs are covered).

      Since this CRT will have some of the advantages of LCD (only to a lesser degree) over conventional CRT, it will apply more competitive pressure to LCD and the not yet here LED display developers.

      Even if vastly improved and cheap LCD and LED screens come out tomorrow (hah!), the company will be OK. The cold emission technology still has applications for devices in high radiation environments AND military hardware than must withstand EMP. It might even shift the balance back to tubes (from power transistors) in some high power applications.

      • "withstand EMP"

        I guess you are assuming that every bit of electronics in the display (not to mention all the affiliated computers) are ALSO all based on tube tech?

        Yes, the cold guns may survive, but howabout the driving electronics? I kinda doubt that this would be a purely mechanical device.

        • Yes, the cold guns may survive, but howabout the driving electronics? I kinda doubt that this would be a purely mechanical device.

          Tubes man! The cold emitter technology could be applied to most any vacuum tube, not just a CRT. Think emergency radio communication and minimal radar, etc. Such devices would still be bulky and limited, but would at least not be AS bad about power consumption as conventional tubes.

          • Interesting....

            I REALLY do not know (ie serious question)- so the wires in tubes do not absorb any energy from an EMP blast? I figured that an EMP would be multi-freq and therefore crush most electronics due to voltage spikes. Hell, I thought even lightbulbs would fry due to this, but I guess I'm wrong. Maybe I misunderstood the effects of an EMP blast.

            • Maybe I misunderstood the effects of an EMP blast.

              The pulse will induce a voltage in the tubes. Because of the nature of tubes, they are unlikely to be adversely affected by a voltage spike. Lightbulb filiments would be OK as well. Most ICs will fry.

              This is because the EMP would likely be a very sharp spike which would impart very little total energy. In the case of silicon devices, that's enough to do them in since there is very little actual matter in a transistor gate vs. that in a triode tube.

              It is quite possable that due to the nature of the clod emitter, some degradation would take place while a conventional tube is likely to show no damage at all.

  • Multiple Guns in CRT's (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PoiBoy ( 525770 ) <brian@@@poiholdings...com> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:22AM (#2793647) Homepage
    From the article I gathered that these electron guns are really a type of semiconductor, meaning that they can be controlled rather precisely.

    That got me thinking. Currently, all CRT's have one set of electron guns at the center of the screen. Would it be possible to partition the screen into, say, four areas, each of which is painted by it's own set of guns.

    This would have many advantages. Displays could be thinner, larger screens with higher resolution could be made, and (possibly) less energy would be required since the electrons from the guns would not have to fly nearly as far.

    It seems the only tricky part would be getting the borders of adjacent areas to line up properly.

    • Re:Multiple Guns in CRT's (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Yarn ( 75 )
      Interesting idea.

      However, the electronics to drive it would not be simple. Currently we have 3 fairly high frequency signals, one for each gun (red, green and blue). For this idea you'd need a set of three signals for each separate gun. Assuming you split into 4 subdisplays, you'd need 12 signals (plus the various sync and other control channels). I don't think a common-or-garden graphics card is going to do that very well. Better to do it within the monitor, I'd guess it'd increase the price by about $100.

      Now, the alignment. Not as hard as you imagine; at least all the parts are within one enclosure. The display could auto-calibrate by aligning signals off the edge of the viewable area.

      Cross-talk between the different steering coils would be a far larger problem. You could either compensate for this automatically (increased electronics complexity, expensive, reliability issues) or put in some mu-metal to absorb the field (expensive, heavy)

      I suggest you do a patent search, see if anyone's had this idea before. Personally, I don't think it's feasable ;)

      Oh, and as for energy saving, I don't think so! Electrons lose very little energy during flight.
      • I'll admit I know next to nothing about any of this, but oh well. ;) I agree with you that it's probably not feasible. As you say, crosstalk is probably the biggest problem. The way I would attempt to go around this is, rather than trying to actually make all four guns aim and fire at once without disturbing each other (sounds bloody impossible to me) I'd just strobe them one at a time. How well this would work, I don't know.

        As for saving energy, I agree that there'd be no savings from the distance the electrons have to travel. However, the deflecting electromagnets wouldn't have to be nearly as strong as they would on a bigger screen (it seems to me), so you might still save overall.

        But like you said.. probably not worth it. ;)
    • That got me thinking. Currently, all CRT's have one set of electron guns at the center of the screen. Would it be possible to partition the screen into, say, four areas, each of which is painted by it's own set of guns.

      That's been done. But it's a problem getting the pictures to join.

      Better is gun-per-pixel. That's also been done but this should make it practical.

      See another set of postings in this thred here [slashdot.org].
      • I have to agree, even with my limited knowledge.

        I suppose a version of SLI would do the trick.
        Or, a type of "4 panel convergence" where the panels are aligned individually.

        The SLI idea worked ok (to my recollection) when every other line was rendered, but less so when the top/bottom rendering was done (1/2 screen).

        I admit the idea has merit (possible jafar voice inserted) and could best be done like the true-flat monitors where the apeture grill is "broken" in two places.
        (side note...I got a 20inch monitor at work by pointing those "lines" out to someone who could not 'un-see' them...hehe...I'm such a snot, sometimes)

        Only difference with the 'cold' ones would be 4 panels of "mini" monitors, perhaps.

        I wonder what the metrics are? 6 inches from gun to screen makes a 17 inch monitor perhaps?
        Damn, that'd be nice.

        .

  • This could be VERY popular (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:29AM (#2793660)
    Folks,

    While the new LCD flat-panel displays are dropping in price, you still have to deal with three issues: 1) screen blurring on very fast motion (though this has gotten way better in the last year or so), 2) LCD's are optimized for one display resolution and 3) they're still fairly expensive (especially now with 19" CRT monitors now under US$200 in price).

    Given the CRT monitors maintain their sharpness from 640x680 all the way up to 1600x1200 and beyond (depending on the dot pitch of the monitor) and can run at 85 Hz vertical refresh rate for true flicker-free viewing, I think they're still preferred for serious imaging processing work. The new very-low profile CRT's using this new technology will allow 17" to 21" monitors have less physical depth than even the old 14" monitors from way back, which means more room saved on your desk.

    I think this company may license the technology to Samsung or LG Electronics, both of which now make excellent monitors at reasonable prices. Samsung could have a huge winner right here with high-resolution CRT monitors that have half the depth of their predecessors.

  • Cold CRT?! (Score:2, Funny)

    by boa13 ( 548222 )
    What will warm my room then?

    Nothing like four CRTs to light and warm your room on a long and cold winter night...
  • I wonder if this will reduce EF emmisions, and in turn reduce the possibility of van Eck phreaking [techtarget.com]?

    Just a thought for the incredibally security paranoid ;-)

    --
    Patrick Cable II

  • CRT has its merits over LCD (Score:4, Informative)

    by tepes ( 234179 ) <jmmckenzie AT operamail DOT com> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @09:48AM (#2793681) Homepage
    CRT emits light, doesn't have to worry about latency and visual memory causing ghosting (a problem, I've heard, with TFT and OLED). CRTs also handle colors better. Some of the comparisons and an overview of LCD technology are at ZDNet [zdnet.co.uk] and ErgoDynamix [ergodmx.com]
  • Guys, dont get your hopes up, This sounds a lot like a scam some block was trying too pull in my own country, Oz, a few months back. Althought this one seems more creditable because at least they exaplain some of the tech rather then just saying "that's propertry"

    The problem is that, at least with computer screens crt really is a dead tech, Apple have even gone to the point of ditching crt for lcd's in their range. While the things will be around for years, development on them has all but stopped in favour of lcd, For one simple reasion: Everyone who need a crt has already got one and people are not going to buy a new crt when they could get an lcd (this is john q public we're talking about)

    This company has done the equivant of inventing a slightly better video player when the world runs on DVD.

    • While CRTs for computers may be in a fast decline, they still dominate television sets. It will be a long time before LCDs have the size, brightness and price to compete in that market..

    • This company has done the equivant of inventing a slightly better video player when the world runs on DVD.

      Given the price difference, my next display will probably be CRT.

      Furthermore, given the price difference plus the region coding and other freedom subtracted drawbacks to DVD, my next video player will probably be VHS unless it's something based on an MPEG board for my PC. Given the cost and conflicting standards, such a system (if I bother) will be based on removable IDE DRIVES. Doing the math, IDE drives are cheaper than DVD for bulk storage.

      • DVD still doesn't compare to VHS for ease of use. Pop in a DVD and you have to navigate a ton of irritating menus to find the movie instead of hitting fast forward to skip the previews. DVDs are also fragile so that scratches can make them unplayable while they are also (for most consumers) un-copyable. When did CD's start to replace tape decks? When consumers could make their own CD's. When will LCD's replace CRT's? When they are just as big, just as clear, and just as cheap. The vast majority of consumers will not jump on the LCD bandwagon until the new technology surpases the old in every way. These guys may not be making millions off the cold CRT technology 50 years from now, but I'd bet that they will make plenty before then.
  • Personally, I'm waiting for this one [slashdot.org].

  • scarcity of engineers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @10:49AM (#2793781) Journal
    "Most U.S. engineers with experience in the CRT industry are retired, and finding good people in this field was very hard," Kalar said. Extreme Devices received what Kalar called "a godsend" when LG Electronics decided to close the former Zenith CRT manufacturing facility in Melrose Park, Ill., in October 1998, the same time that Extreme Devices was staffing up.

    Part of this was the close down of many manufacturing sectors in the USA. Most TV makers are now non-US, or are US in name only, for example

    I know of several folks who will rant at the drop of a hat on this subject alone.

  • Interesting sentence about patents (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tlk nnr ( 449342 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @10:58AM (#2793802) Homepage
    Blockquoting the article:
    As the RCA patents expired, scientists at Systems and Processes Engineering Corp. (SPEC), a small technology think tank here, were developing emissive tips, based on synthetic diamond and silicon carbide, that could be used in the cathodes needed for radiation-hardened, high-bandwidth radio frequency amplifiers. The U.S. Air Force funded much of the SPEC-based research, which continues at Extreme Devices as a contract research effort.
    Patent application in 1974, thus no reseach until the patent has expired.
    Aren't patents supposed to promote research?

  • Digital In? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Lewisham ( 239493 )
    Analogue is a old blurry beast which we must destroy. How any company can believe that it can revive a dying sector which is wholly based on analogue transmission is beyond me. LCD is flatter and uses less power. That doesn't really bother me (hell, this space rock's enviornment is on it's way out too :) ) and the desk space I'd save I'd fill up with old magazines/important college work never to be see again/toast growing new organisms. *But* the crystal clear digital transmission afforded by new LCD monitors interests me a great deal. The image quality is a lot better than a VGA in and CRT monitors can't offer that.

    Death to waves! Long live the 1/0 revolution!
  • Well, it's a cool idea. I hope they have better luck than candescent! [ebnews.com]
    • NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

      These are the joes I was expecting to save my table from breaking under the strain of a 21" Monitor!

      Flat panel CRT's....mmmmmm....was so sweet an idea...too bad they only came out with dinky lil 11 inch displays (tops)...Damn.

      Okay then...Back on the LCD Bus!
      Keep all arms inside until the ride comes to a stop, or we find something holographic!
  • How long do you think it will take for LCDs to get into the mainstream, by which I mean as likely (or more) to be found in an average consumer's home as a CRT? How long will it take for their prices to become reasonable? I have this 17-inch Compaq Qvision 172, and dammit, I just want to saw off the back of it sometimes.

  • Is this field emission (tunneling)? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @01:16PM (#2794141)
    The actual technology they are using isn't mentioned in the article, but I have a hunch it is some form of field emission. This is the same principle used in electron microscopy. A narrow emission tip is placed in a large potential gradient (electric field), and the electrons simply tunnel out of the tip. Their secret is probably the material the tip is made of: different materials have widely different tunneling rates.

    The article brings up a good point. Using thermoionic emission (as is done now) is a little outdated and almost barbaric :)

  • Not just for computer monitors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @01:39PM (#2794176)

    I've not seen this mentioned here yet, but from my reading of the article they are intending to use this on televisions, too.

    Yes, I can see the benefits of a shorter tube on a computer monitor (I'm using a 21" monitor right now that is nearly 20 inches deep and weighs nearly 65 pounds). The shorter tube would require less (heavy) glass and less plastic framing. So, smaller and lighter would be good. Also, instant on without requiring a warming circuit is a great plus, too.

    BUT, these same benefits ALSO APPLY to conventional TVs, too! My current 27 inch TV sticks well out from my wall unit and weighs so much and is so bulky, I'm not ever going to try and move it again without help. It would be nice to be able to get a larger TV that would fit into the same space, weigh less, and would also not consume power just to keep the electron gun warm for "instant-on".

    Other applications: shorter CRT tubes would be an advantage in any technical instruments that have a built-in display. Think: oscilliscope, medical instruments (pulse, BP, oxygen, etc. monitors), in-dash car displays, airplane cockpit displays, etc.

    Now, to drool a bit for a more personal application... combine Cold CRT Gun with HDTV!

  • In another few years, LCDs will be more or less equal to CRTs in terms of quality and low cost, AND they'll be able to be made *huge* without requiring a desk made of rebar-reinforced concrete to sit on.

    These guys are working on improving the horse-drawn cart, while people are whizzing past their lab in Porsches.

    ~Philly


  • http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1459000 /1459817.stm [bbc.co.uk]

    this article documents the fact that one of the major players are abandoning the manufacture of CRT as quote "There are no prospects for growth of the monitor CRT market."

    while televisions may escape the death for the moment i fear its time has come also

  • The technology formerly known as microtip displays (Score:3, Informative)

    by SysKoll ( 48967 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @12:40AM (#2796533)

    SET MODE=OLD FART

    Reading this article made me jump way back in time. At that time, I worked in a Big Company located in the same campus as PixTech, a startup that had a deal with Japanese display specialist Futaba to produce microtip displays in a European lab in Montpellier, France. Pixtech produced a monochrome prototype, then the price of LCD collapsed and the funding dried up. That was in 1993 or 94 if I remember correctly.

    PixTech wanted to create a technology and then licence it to mass producers. They entered an agreement with Texas Instrument, but after LCDs started to be dirt cheap, the agreement collapsed.

    The principle in these screens seems to be the same as the technology explained in the article. Behind each phosphorus dot (1/3 pixel roughly), a few dozens to a few hundreds cold cathode cones emit electrons and replace electron guns. The European technology was using silicon tips instead of diamond, but the principle stays the same: In an electrical field, a tip tends to concentrate charges, hence a cone easily releases electrons when negatively charged.

    The beauty of the scheme is that even if the yield of the microtip fabrication is not perfect, you don't care because there are many of them behind each phophorus dot. Compare and contrast with LCD screens, where a single defective transistor will leave a permanent dead pixel.

    I am a strong supporter of this technology, because it allies the advantages of CRTs with the flatness of LCDs. But I have seen several startups fail while trying to market microtip screens, so I am wondering if it's not jinxed or something...

    -- SysKoll
  • I don't know about the rest of you but I like my beer cold and my monitors hot and heavy ;)

    rm -r windows
  • Candescent Technologies [candescent.com] has been working on this technology since 1991 and it looks like its about ready to go prime time with it. It has the same brightness, contrast, refresh time, and viewing angle that normal CRTs have but uses less power than LCDs in the same size package. Can't wait to hang one of these on the wall.

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