IPS Panels Gain in Popularity Among Display Makers

In the last year of so, IPS panels have become increasingly popular in tablet devices and now desktop display makers have also started to use this technology to build an even larger number of computer monitors, not only 27-inch and larger screens.

Mitsubishi, AOC, and Viewsonic are some of the companies that have currently decided to use this technology for building a new breed of 23-inch monitors.

The first two companies have already started to ship such solutions in some parts of the world since the end of June, while Viewsonic will also introduce a 23-inch IPS display really soon.

According to an article published by DigiTimes, IPS panels with diagonals ranging from 19 to 22 inches cost roughly $35 more than their TN counterparts to produce, and the price difference grows as we move towards larger panels.

The higher fabrication costs are however only part of the story, as other factors also affect the final MSRP of IPS displays.

Among these, some of the highest costs to make their appearance are associated with all the goodies that are usually packed with IPS monitors, such as additional video inputs, integrated USB hubs, and built-in calibration sensors, just to name a few.

IPS stands for In-Plane Switching and the technology was developed by Hitachi in 1996 to fix the main limitations faced by TN (twisted nematic) panels, which included small viewing angles and low-quality color reproduction.

The improved color reproduction is possible thanks to the eight bits per channel used for such panels, instead of the six bits used by their TN counterparts.

However, this advantage could soon fade out of sight as manufacturers are slowly moving towards six bits per color channel in conjuction with Advanced Frame Rate Control (A-FRC), for decreasing production costs.

It remains to be seen how the performances of IPS monitors will evolve once the technology starts moving into mainstream, but the glory days of TN panels could soon be over.