To be viewable, transmissive LCD (liquid crystal display) requires a backlight source that is always on. Traditionally, the backlight unit (BLU) has been built on edge-emitting LEDs, a lightguide plate and a dedicated stack of optical films to reflect and manipulate the light for maximized uniformity and brightness.
This setup falls short in competing with OLED in terms of CR. OLEDs can deliver true blacks in areas where OLED emitters are switched off, whereas an LCD with traditional BLU always leaks some light through and the resulting black always is a bit gray. To compete with this, a new backlight technology called miniLED has been emerging in recent years. MiniLEDs, sitting directly behind the screen in a matrix shape, allow for accurate local dimming of backlight for delivering ultimate black levels in the respective location. The achievable luminance levels for the highest peak brightness of the display can beat those of the OLED. This is of great value, e.g., in automotive applications where both high CR and luminance level are the absolute key qualities. The same goes for TVs, and in recent years, miniLED backlit TVs have conquered more market share. In portable devices such as tablets, notebooks, even smartphones, the mini-LED backlight unit must be built thin, and the number of LEDs must not be too high to keep the cost level reasonable. It seems OLED has a competitive edge in these product segments.
Nanocomp micro-optical films can serve the purpose of making miniLED BLU bright, uniform and thin. For instance, a combination of microlens arrays (MLA) with freeform micro-optical structures works efficiently in distributing, collimating and recycling the light in a desired manner to implement a highly efficient miniLED BLU.
Similarly, Nanocomp micro-structured LGP can be designed to work optimally with the film stack of traditional edge-lit BLU providing desired angular and luminous characteristics. This can simplify the stack and bring performance gains at the same time.