Ultra-brightness fringe field switching (UB-FFS) LCD technology

Modern, high-quality smartphones and tablets run longer before having to be recharged. Their displays shine more brightly with increasing resolution and sharper images. This trend is enabled by our energy-efficient UB-FFS (ultra-brightness fringe field switching) technology. 

Without UB-FFS technology in our customized licristal® liquid crystal materials, many modern, ultra-flat smartphones or tablets wouldn’t exist. The specially arranged liquid crystals allow brighter transmittance of the backlight that illuminates every display, and the optimized use of light cuts the energy demand of every display by a third and simultaneously improves image quality. The result: longer runtime, brighter displays.

UB-FFS technology has won several awards, including the 2014 Meyer-Galow Prize for chemistry (watch the video on YouTube), the 2015 German Innovation Award, and the 2015 SID Award for Display Component of the Year.

The pixel structures of UB-FFS technology exactly match those of FFS. However, the preferred orientation in UB-FFS is virtually perpendicular to the strip-type pixel electrodes, being rotated by 90° in comparison to FFS. The same is true of the orientation of the polarizers. In addition, liquid crystal materials with negative dielectric anisotropy are used. The electric dipole moment is almost perpendicular to the molecular axis. 

In the “off” state, the molecules are aligned perpendicular to the electrode in the plane. In the “on” state, the molecules switch parallel to the electrode within the plane owing to the vertical dipole moment. All in all, the molecules are able to remain better in the plane and will line up much less along the electrode edges compared to FFS technology. As the result, they will allow a significantly higher light transmittance per pixel.

Explore UB-FFS with the LCD Explorer