By Charles Annis – Vice President, Manufacturing Research, DisplaySearch

Last weekend I bought my first LCD TV. I know, it was long overdue, but I have always been much more interested in how LCDs are made than what is typically shown on them. Without doing much research in advance, I went to Yodobashi Camera, one of the largest electronics retailers near where I live in Japan. After about an hour or so of deliberating over the various makers and models, I purchased the 40” Sony BRAVIA KDL-40EX700.

Sony lists some basic specifications for the TV, but I decided to do some research to find out about the display.

I asked the Sony sales clerk who made the LCD module, and he responded that “we buy panels from a variety of makers and can’t tell whose panels go into every set.” But with the help of a 10X magnifying glass, I was able to determine that the set uses a Sharp UV²A optically aligned cell.

Figure 1: My BRAVIA and Magnifying Glass 

It was a little challenging to take a clear photo with a hand-held digital camera through the magnifying glass, but even so, the distinct square shaped, double four domain RGB sub-pixels of the UV²A panel are identifiable in the following figure.

Figure 2: ASV Conventional VA versus UV²A Pixel Structure

Source: Image on left is from Sharp.

Sharp’s optical alignment technology uses a patterned photo sensitive polymer that enables wide viewing angle performance without the conventional VA features. This reduces light leakage, which improves black and contrast levels, as well as reducing liquid crystal response times.

Sharp is heavily promoting its UV²A technology on its own sets, but Sony doesn’t mention the fact. Despite offering improved image quality, I guess they don’t want to advertise their reliance on Sharp.

Another feature of the KDL-40EX700 is the adoption of an edge-lit LED backlight so the set depth is a very thin 22 mm with a very low power consumption of 107W. The top/bottom LED bars are provided by Samsung; DisplaySearch assumes that Sharp is assembling the backlight unit according to Sony’s design and attaching to the TV module. Sony’s sets are assembled by an OEM, perhaps Foxconn, and sold around the world.

The panel was probably made at Sharp’s new Gen 10 line in Sakai, or it might have been made on the Gen 8 line in Kameyama. The color filter was produced by either Toppan or DNP. The glass substrates were probably formed at one of Corning’s Japan tanks, or potentially by Asahi Glass. The liquid crystal was probably manufactured by Chisso. And the polarizers were probably supplied by Nitto Denko.

I paid ¥158,000 for the set, which was on sale from the recommended retail price of ¥170,000. At ¥90/$ that’s $1,756. I see on Amazon that the same TV can be bought in the US for $1,229, and that includes an HDTV cable kit. I am quite happy with my TV, but would appreciate an explanation for the 35% premium for a Japanese brand TV, made mainly in Japan.