New Embedded Displayport 1.4a specification supports 8k resolution

VESA has released version 1.4a of the embedded displayport standard. The updated standard allows, among other things, higher throughput speeds for video signals. These faster speeds should enable 8k UHD displays on devices such as laptops and tablets.

The ’embedded displayport 1.4a’ specification is an extension of the ‘1.4-embedded displayport’ standard, which was published in February 2013. The specification of the ‘normal’ 1.4 displayport standard serves as the basis. This gives the 1.4a standard a link rate of 8.1Gbit/s per lane. Due to these higher throughputs, displays with 8k resolutions should be able to be driven, while also allowing greater color depths.

Embedded displayport 1.4a also introduces a new feature dubbed “multi-sst operation” by VESA. Through this mechanism, energy-efficient, thin and light screens can be controlled more efficiently. The multi-sst technology has been proposed by Samsung, according to VESA, in order to be able to control cheaper and more efficient LCD panels.

VESA has also improved the panel’s self-refresh mechanism. In the 1.4a specification, the GPU can be controlled in such a way that it only needs to update the part of the screen that has actually changed after processing a frame. This mechanism should also reduce the energy consumption of, for example, laptops or tablets.

According to VESA, the first devices using the ’embedded displayport 1.4a’ specification will hit the market sometime next year.