June 9, 2006 – Korean fabless chip firm Tomato LSI says it will produce the world’s smallest single-chip IC driver for amorphous silicon TFT VGA display panels, utilizing technology from Clairvoyante, in response to demand for high-resolution panels used in handheld mobile devices.

The 21.9×1.45mm LCD driver IC, now being sampled, will support panels up to 3.0-in. diagonals, and support up to 262K colors and visual resolution of up to 480×640 and standard data formats, while requiring only two-thirds of the memory and source drivers of standard RGB stripe smart driver ICs. Integrated gate driver support will further reduce the chip size and number of transistor contacts.

The companies claim Clairvoyante’s “PenTile” technology provides inroads for older amorphous silicon display producers into the VGA display market, because it requires only minor production modifications, and uses fewer TFTs and columns. They also claim the technology improves display performance by reducing power consumption by more than half, or more than doubling brightness.

“This new chip will be at the cutting edge of power efficiency for aSi driver chips,” stated Joel Pollack, president and CEO of Clairvoyante. “We believe the development of this PenTile VGA driver chip will be a key building block to facilitating development of the high-resolution displays needed to encourage adoption of new generations of mobile products.”

“The addition of data-centric features such as cameras, enhanced audio, and internet capabilities continues to increase the demands for higher resolution displays and more power-efficient portable devices,” added Justin Sy Hong, president and CEO of Tomato LSI. The new LCD driver will “offer display manufacturers a fully optimized, single-chip solution that will enable them to develop VGA resolution displays faster without sacrificing brightness, power efficiency or cost.”