BrightSide technology uses LCD technology. Usually LCD displays have a backlight provided by CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light) tubes. That’s why even when the LCD screen is black it is not actually black, it still has some residual light: the tube is still turned on. The main idea of BrightSide technology is to remove this CCFL backlight and use several LEDs instead, a technology they call IMLED (Individually Modulated Array of LED backlights).

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Figure 3: Conventional LCD displays use CCFL backlight.

The brightness of each LED is controlled by an 8-bit signal, so each LED has 256 brightness steps (zero would mean “tuned off” while 255 would mean “totally turned on”; a “128” value would turn on the LED with 50% of its luminance, a “64” would turn on the LED with 25% of its luminance and so on). The first display launched with this technology – called DR37-P (which is a 37” panel) – has 1,380 white LEDs behind the LCD screen.

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Figure 4: Using several LEDs instead of one CCFL tube as backlight.

So, the idea is quite simple. Instead of having just one light source behind the LCD screen that is turned on all the time with the same brightness, BrightSide technology displays use several white LEDs where each one can have its brightness controlled (256 different brightness steps).

On Figure 5 you can see BrigthSide technology in action. On the left side you can see the original image sent to the display. On the right side you can see how the LEDs are illuminating the LCD screen. As you can see, each LED can be turned on using a completely different brightness. On the center, you see the final result, how the image is displayed on a monitor using this technology.

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Figure 5: BrigthSide display technology in action.