Sharp 7-Inch Tablet with Revolutionary New MEMS-IGZO Display Tech Coming in 2015

Most mobile devices these days rely on LCD technology. Surely, there are the ones that come with AMOLED displays, but they aren’t really that widespread. But, Japanese company Sharp wants to push the boundaries of display making, so to that end it has partnered with chip giant Qualcomm.

A while ago, Sharp promised amazing new MEMS-IGZO displays are coming in 2017 and this week we are finally able to tell you more about the project.

Sharp will be making a 7-inch tablet

It appears the development process of the new tech is going quite well, because Sharp seems confident a 7-inch tablet taking advantage of this display tech will be ready to be released to the public by 2015. The MEMS-IGZO combo should bring about a high-speed display on thin panels that will boast the same energy efficiency as e-ink grayscale panels. But what is MEMS-IGZO, to be more precise? Well, you might be familiar with the MEMS name, as the technology showed up in Qualcomm’s TOQ smartwatch. The wearable didn’t turn out to be all that popular with consumers, despite it taking advantage of an MEMS display which doesn’t put a strain on battery life. Qualcomm claims MEMS utilizes just 1/6 of the power in current displays.

Moving on IGZO, the name stands for indium, gallium, zinc and oxygen. This combo pushes pixels around the screen and, in doing so, brings about a thinner plane. IGZO makes use of a thin-film transistor located on the rear of the device, in order to decrease the size needed to house the screen. On top of that, it can move images at about 150% the speed of LCD. The extra TFT layer brings about other advantages too, a batter backlighting and it doesn’t need a color filter. In the long term, it should allow MEMS-IGZO to produce brighter colors without the washed out effect being attached to it.

Preliminary specs have been revealed

To summarize, MEMS-IGZO could bring about a Sharp tablet with a thinner, faster and power-efficient battery. The tablet doesn’t currently have a name, but we’re given a few specifications to cling to before the device makes it on the market. The 7-inch display will boast a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution (lower than you’d expect from Sharp, but given that this is a new tech, we shouldn’t be all that surprised). The powerhouse of the device will be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and Android 4.4 KitKat will run as default operating system. Sharp says the tab should be IPX7 rated for water resistance and should bundle an LTE chip. Expect it to make an appearance in 2015.

Sharp's future tablet will take advantage of MEMS-IGZO display
Image credits to Sharp Japan

Posted in: Hardware, Preview, Tablet