Sharp is working on in-cell touchscreens for laptops

Sharp is working on touchscreens based on in-cell technology for laptops. This allows laptop touchscreens with igzo panels to become lighter and thinner. At the same time, Sharp reports that it has started mass production of in-cell touchscreens for smartphones.

Sharp develops medium-sized screens based on in-cell technology. The panels will probably have diagonals of about 12 to 13.3 inches. In addition to laptops, tablets can use the igzo panels with integrated touch technology. There are rumors, with Digitimes as the source, that Sharp will make the 12.9 “screen for the iPad Pro. With in-cell technology, the touch-sensitive layer is integrated into the LCD, making the screen thinner and lighter.

At the same time, Sharp reports that it has started mass production of in-cell touchscreens for smartphones. This does not concern IGZO screens, but LTPS panels, although Sharp is considering using its factory for IGZO technology for production. Ltps has better electrical properties than igzo and panels can therefore function more economically and have higher resolutions. On the other hand, LTPs production is more expensive than igzo. The majority of smartphones produced now have an ltps LCD, DisplaySearch calculated last year.

When it comes to smartphones, Sharp lags behind competitors such as JDI, a consortium of Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba, with in-cell technology. That company announced in March the mass production of 5″ screens and larger with in-cell touch and a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels. More and more companies are using in-cell touch, including Apple for its iPhone 5 and 6 models. Samsung uses on-cell technology for its screens, IHS wrote in March.