Need advice on display technology please

[IMK]

Hello,

I am working on an innovation that will be used in automobiles and I require a small graphics display and I am happy to consider both b/w and colour. Size is about 128x128 or 128x64. Back lit (LCD) or self illuminating such as LED and it must be viewable over all light conditions from night to bright sunlight, also low cost please.

I am open to any suggestions as I am really not very familiar with display technology. However over the past few days of research I have come across Transflective technology as being a possible solution although I have been told it is very expensive.

I am at the prototype stage of the project and I am only looking for sample (small) quantities to do some evaluation on before ramping up to buy a device in commercial quantities.

Currently I am testing with an early 2000 colour mobile phone LCD that is fine in the office and in the car at night but is useless in daylight.

Can you help please?

 

[MATLABdude]

One of the best LCDs I ever used was a transflective black and white made by Optrex--it worked fine indoors and in the dark (with or without the white LED backlight on) and worked really, really well outdoors even in bright sunlight. It was on the larger side, approximately 6" x 2.5" (which, for our application, was perfect).

Not sure what your idea of "super expensive" is, but the ballpark price for transflectives is between $15 and $50 (US) at DigiKey or Mouser, in single-unit quantities (they'd be cheaper if your prototype works and you decide to go into higher volume production).

My suggestion: go to DigiKey, search for LCD, scroll down to Optoelectronics, and then click on Display Modules - Graphic, and sort by 'Transflective' and 'In Stock'. This would be a starting point for what you may be looking for.