Abstract The wide viewing angle (WVA) multi-domain vertical-alignment (MVA) and in-plane switching (IPS) LCDs offered significantly better optical performances than the WVA film-compensated twisted nematic (TN) LCDs. But for the low-end LCDs, normal and WVA TN/LCDs are still the dominating LCD because of lower cost and higher yield.

In this paper, we report a significant progress in the high-performance low-cost MVA where for the low-end WVA LCDs, the new MVA could offer a much better performance over the conventional WVA TN but with a cost even lower than TN. This low cost MVA is make possible by our recent breakthroughs where with a super intrinsic fringe field controlled MVA LCD pixel design, we had obtained one new major route to manufacture low-cost high-performance high-yield MVA LCDs with a cost comparable to or lower than TN LCDs. We calculated and measured the optical transmission and contrast ratio versus voltage and viewing angles for the new MVA. Very large viewing angles (>±80°) in all four major viewing angle zones were obtained with the normal polarizer, and all viewing angles were improved to larger than ±80° by the use of existing WVA MVA polarizer.

Detailed performance and cost comparison with TN and conventional MVA LCDs are summarized. This new MVA is highly competitive for all applications, such as low-end mobile phone, PDA and notebook PC, entry level and high-end WVA LCD monitor and TV applications.