The Origins and History of LCD TV

You want LCD TV, you need LCD TV, you've got to have LCD TV…but what the heck is LCD TV? The hype for LCD TV is everywhere, as the spreading technology seeks its place as another household acronym alongside IBM and DVD. And yet, relatively few have any idea what that futuristic-looking thing is that has taken over the television's space. What is LCD TV? Did you know that LCD TV technology is at least forty years old? Well, sit back and enjoy this brief primer.

LCD TV technology is based on the concept of liquid crystal display, now used as the world's most popular flat-screen technology. An LCD contains a pair of transparent surfaces. Grooves are cut into these and filled with liquid crystal. By use of transistors, electric current is applied to the liquid, thus twisting the crystal in what would become known as the "twisting nematic field effect." The process of twisting and untwisting the crystal blocks light to the given area of the LCD TV display. In effect, the moving crystals are creating the colors moving around on your LCD TV, creating the LCD TV image. And when plasma is replaced with this technology, there are no burn-in problems. Your LCD TV display will stay fresh for years.

The history of LCD TV is a good old American one, showing ingenuity through pioneering spirit. An early LCD TV groundbreaker was George Heilmeier. After earning degrees at B.S. (University of Pennsylvania, Electrical Engineering), Ph.D., M.S.E. and M.A. levels (all Princeton University, Solid State Electronics), Heilmeier went on to RCA to help shape the new LCD TV technology there.
Co-managing with Richard Williams a team of researchers that included Lucian Barton, Joseph Catellano, Joel Goldmacher, Nunzio Luce and Louis Zanoni, Heilmeier assembled disparate technologies into what would become LCD TV under the premise of using liquid crystal materials for display, i.e. what we know as LCD TV. LCD TV itself, however, was felt to be a long way away, and thus RCA's team used the technology for clocks and watches. You can thank Mr. Heilmeier for that bedside alarm clock with the block numbers and annoying alarm beep. And calculators and LCD TV and almost everything digital…

Advancing the LCD TV was James Fergason. A University of Missouri graduate in the early 1960s, Fergason went on to Westinghouse Research Laboratories. The breakthrough for LCD TV came in 1969, though, while Fergason was Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute associate director. Fergason discovered the twisted nematic field effect. This allows for the proto-LCD TV displays of Heilmeier's team to become LCD TV technology of today.

In fact, the LCD TV was first presented to the public by Fergason's team in 1971. Heilmeier went on to various upper-governmental posts. Fergason went on to found his own company and garner some 100 patents related to LCD TV technology. LCD TV has become the cornerstone in the greater $10 billion industry LCD TV technology now represents.

And you can have LCD TV in your home to view the televised world in more clarity and comfort than ever before and kiss the big bulky box of cathode tubes goodbye. A happy ending for all.