1973–1983: Direct-view Displays

The world's first liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) device was built in 1973 by a team at Hughes Aircraft. Their one-inch square device initially utilized the nematic dynamic scattering mode (Figure 1, Ernstoff, 1973 Intl. Electron Dev. Mtg).

By 1981, teams at Toshiba and at Suwa Seikosha (now known as Seiko Epson) were developing direct-view LCOS televisions. Seiko's 210 x 200 device (Figure 2, Hosokawa, 1981 SID Digest), utilized the nematic guest-host effect and aluminum pixel electrodes textured to provide a diffuse white state (Figure 3).

Toshiba's 220 x 240 device, fabricated one display per 3" silicon wafer (Figure 4, Kasahara, IEEE Trans. Electron Dev. 1981), utilized the nematic dynamic scattering mode (Figure 5). The nickel-gold electrodes (later, platinum) of the Toshiba device were deposited over a planarized polyimide layer (Figure 6) to provide the specular reflection needed for the dynamic-scattering mode.

These devices were followed the next year by a 40 x 40 device of 51 mm diagonal from Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in the UK that also used the guest-host effect over textured aluminum electrodes (Figure 7, Crossland, Proc. SID vol. 23).

By 1983 Toshiba demonstrated a 480 x 480 device with integrated row & column drivers (Kasahara, 1983 SID Digest). In every case, the objective was a miniature direct-view portable television screen, as seen in Figure 8 (Yamazaki, Proc. SID vol. 23).

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