Sharp has developed a 3D touchscreen LCD featuring the industry’s highest brightness that can switch between 2D and 3D modes. Users can view 3D images without the need to wear special glasses, making this LCD ideal for mobile devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones, and smartphones.

The newly developed 3D LCD uses a parallax barrier system to display 3D images. This parallax barrier, which has a series of vertical slits, is incorporated into an ordinary LCD to control the path of light reaching the right and left eyes, thus creating a sense of depth.

The 3D LCD developed by Sharp improves image quality by achieving both high brightness and low crosstalk thanks to advances in CG-Silicon technology and optimization of the parallax barrier. Advances in CG-Silicon technology have shrunk the wiring width within the LCD panel, allowing more light to pass and doubling the brightness (to 500 cd/m2, the industry’s highest) compared to the conventional model. In addition, optimizing the parallax barrier design has increased the efficiency of light, thereby dramatically reducing crosstalk. Also, the thickness of the LCD module is about the same as conventional 2D displays even though it is a touchscreen display. As 3D images can be displayed in both portrait and landscape screen orientations, it is ideal for sophisticated mobile devices such as smartphones.

The 3.4-inch 3D LCD will offer 854 x 480 resolution, 500 cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio and touchscreen functionality. Sharp will start mass production of the new 3D touchscreen LCD in first half of 2010.