Chimei Ready To Mass Produce Quad HD Panels

Chinese screen panel manufacturer Chimei Innolux Corporation (CMI) claims it's ready to start mass producing Quad HD TV screen panels with 3840 x 2160 pixels. You may never have heard of CMI, but the name of one subsidiary the firm absorbed in 2010—CMO—may ring a bell, as CMO screen panels cropped up here, there and everywhere in our investigations into panel-switching.


The 46'' display presented at the FDP International 2011 trade show was a 120 Hz, IPS (!) screen with LED backlighting. CMI now says it's just waiting for orders from firms looking to use its panel.

There is one drawback, however, as this panel uses a huge 190 watts of power—that's four times as much as a regular screen this size. There may be four times as many pixels as in Full HD screens, but we find it hard to believe that there's no way of pushing down the power use. In any case, CMI will no doubt have to come up with something, as the screen would have serious trouble meeting the technical specifications manufacturers lay down before agreeing to use a certain panel. Plus, power consumption is a major factor these days, with consumer tech brands racing to gain energy efficiency accreditation and adorn their products with pretty stickers and labels to let us know how green they are.




> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products