What Determines the Power Consumption of My TFT?

Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) are right at your fingertips. The phone you use, what’s displayed on a piece of monitoring equipment, and the screen on your car dashboard. TFTs are designed to always deliver high-quality visuals.

However, with great displays comes great electricity consumption. Industries today rely more on advanced displays, so understanding the power consumption of TFTs has become more crucial than ever.

The electricity used by a TFT display often contributes heavily to a device’s overall power consumption, making it a focal point for electrical engineers when designing new products.  So, finding out what determines the power consumption of TFTs and how you can minimize it while still being able to maintain optimal display performance is important to developing any power-conscious new products.

Do TFTs Have Low Power Consumption?

To understand power consumption on TFTs, let’s first look at how these screens work. 

A TFT screen consists of tiny transistors and liquid crystal cells. These transistors act as switches, controlling the electrical current that flows through each liquid crystal cell. This setup allows it to be controlled precisely as needed—the brightness and color of each pixel for consistently crisp images.

TFT screens aren’t exactly the most efficient when it comes to power consumption. The total power consumption of a TFT screen includes the LCD panel, LED backlighting, and touch screen. The backlighting, in particular, is responsible for around 90% of the total power consumption.

If totally minimizing power consumption is your goal, going for OLED or alternate LCD screens is generally more energy-efficient. These work better because they use ambient light for better visibility while also reducing the need for backlighting. Transflective TFTs are also a good alternative because these displays can turn their backlight off and let bright ambient light shine in, however, these are only available in specific sizes and resolutions. 

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Factors that Determine TFT Power Consumption

The precision that TFTs offer comes at a cost: power consumption. Here are the factors that drive TFT power consumption to help you optimize power efficiency. Control your costs, improve energy efficiency, and reduce your carbon footprint.

Screen Size

The size of a TFT screen can directly impact power consumption. While we mainly deal with smaller displays here, even at this scale, the screen size can make all the difference.

Larger screens require a lot more transistors and liquid crystal cells. This means that more energy will be needed to control the additional components. Choosing a bigger screen, in turn, requires higher power consumption.

Resolution

The resolution of a TFT screen affects its power consumption because of how light is transmitted through the display. Higher-resolution screens will have more pixels in the same area. More lines and structures will block the light, so more power will be needed to maintain the same brightness level as lower-resolution screens.

An increased number of pixels will demand more electrical current to achieve the desired display quality. This is what leads to higher overall power consumption.

Brightness Level 

The brightness of a TFT screen will rely on its backlight. To get more brightness requires more beads in the LED backlight. The higher the color gamut, which refers to the range of colors a display can reproduce, the more likely it will also reduce the brightness by lowering transmittance. The screen will need more power just to maintain the same brightness level.

Increasing the brightness level, combined with enhancing the color gamut, results in greater power consumption because of the additional energy required just to keep it optimized. 

Backlight Type

Common backlight types are Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL) and Light Emitting Diodes (LED). CCFL backlights are considered less efficient because they consume so much more power to produce the same level of brightness as LED backlights.

LED backlights, especially edge-lit and direct-lit LEDs, are quite energy-efficient and can be controlled precisely to reduce power usage. Choosing an LED backlight over a CCFL can save you a ton more. 

Display Panel

How you display your screen can also affect the power it needs to consume. Something as simple as light and dark modes, for instance, makes a difference. But this will vary on the working principles of your screen’s display panel. 

For example, the Twisted Nematic (TN) display mode has a normally white state, which means that it’s better to use with light mode to consume less power. Meanwhile, In-Plane Switching (IPS) display mode has a normally black state. This lets it consume less power when displaying in dark mode. Knowing your display mode can help cut down on your energy consumption. 

Power-Saving Features

Power-saving features are specifically designed to reduce the energy consumption of TFT screens, so it’s highly recommended to utilize them. Aside from lowering electricity costs, these features also extend the lifespan of the display.

• Automatic Brightness Adjustment: The screen brightness naturally increases to provide better visibility, while the brightness decreases in darker settings to save energy and reduce eye strain.
• Sleep Mode: This automatically turns off the display or puts it into a low-power state when it’s not in use to save battery in between uses.
• Dynamic Backlight Control: Adjusts the intensity of the backlight depending on the content being displayed (less backlight on darker images and more when displaying brighter ones).
• Power Timer: Allows users to set specific times for the display to turn off or enter sleep mode.
• Eco Mode: A preset configuration taking into account the screen’s brightness, contrast, and performance, that is optimized to provide the best picture while consuming the least power.

A little goes a long way. These power-saving features can contribute to lower operational costs and promote a more sustainable use of technology.

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The Bottom Line

Your TFT screen can certainly do great things. Understanding what drives the power consumption of your display helps you make it the best it can be.

Choosing the right combination of these factors can optimize your display’s performance. So, partner with a trusted manufacturer that can ensure that you will get top-notch screens that meet your needs while minimizing power usage.