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Clairvoyante's New PenTile RGBW™ Achieves VGA Visual Resolution with Twice the Brightness

Proprietary Combination of Subpixel Rendering and RGBW Pixel Layout Improves LCD Performance in Mobile Devices

Cupertino, Calif.—March 1, 2005—Clairvoyante, Inc. is introducing a second generation of PenTile™ RGBW, Clairvoyante’s patent-pending design, that combines advanced subpixel rendering technology with a RGB + White subpixel structure. Part of the PenTile Matrix™ family of display technology, it offers significant improvement over conventional RGB stripe LCDs. The technology increases color saturation and contrast, improves white brightness, and reduces power consumption, resulting in VGA-perceived, or “visual resolution,” in sizes as small as 2.2-inch diagonal.

This generation of PenTile RGBW™ utilizes a new proprietary eight-subpixel configuration that adds white subpixels to the mix of conventional red, green, blue subpixels, and addresses each subpixel as an independent element contributing to neighboring and overlapping "logical pixels." Reducing the number of column drivers and widening each subpixel increases the aperture ratio and panel transmissivity. Combining this unique layout with Clairvoyante's proprietary subpixel rendering technology increases brightness, achieves higher visual resolution, improves contrast ratio, and lowers power consumption.

LCDs based on traditional RGB stripe pixel layouts are limited by the transmissivity of conventional color filters, degrading the representation of rich, saturated colors and reducing brightness. Clairvoyante's gamut mapping algorithms improve white luminosity, dynamic range and contrast while enabling wider color gamut, resulting in brighter, more color-saturated displays.

Production of PenTile RGBW™ displays does not require difficult changes to existing manufacturing processes. Improvements can be realized for both early-and next-generation production facilities, reducing the gap between older and new fabs. Enabling production of higher-resolution panels improves manufacturing yield because fewer TFTs are required to achieve VGA visual resolution compared to conventional RGB stripe layout.

Optimizing Mobile LCDs

"Display technology has experienced growth in many aspects of performance. Nonetheless, achieving VGA resolution in a cell phone faces a significant challenge: finding an ideal solution that maximizes brightness without sacrificing power consumption and battery life, while at the same time minimizing cost increases," said Ross Young, president of premiere display industry analyst firm DisplaySearch. "PenTile RGBW™ is a strong contender that can bring VGA to the market faster than most had anticipated."

This technology is ideal for cellular phones, PDAs and other mobile devices demanding high resolution displays, where video and text must be crisp and bright and battery life is critical. In addition to having higher visual resolution, PenTile RGBW™ displays gain numerous advantages over conventional RGB stripe:

• Visual resolution is achieved with 33 percent fewer TFTs, even with the addition of white subpixels. At high resolutions, reduced TFT density improves yield-and lowers cost.
• Twice the white brightness can be achieved with no power increase, due to the larger aperture ratio of the bigger subpixels, and utilization of white (clear color filter) subpixels.
• Contrast improvements of up to 50 percent have been measured.
• One-third fewer data drivers are required. This not only cuts the cost of electronics by as much as 40 percent, but lowers the clock rate, which reduces EMI and further reduces power consumption.

"Clairvoyante's PenTile RGBW™ offers manufacturers a faster, more cost-effective way to develop higher-resolution, brighter, lower power displays," said Joel Pollack, president and chief executive officer of Clairvoyante. "Driven by the escalating demand for high resolution, high performance applications, early adopters of PenTile RGB™W soon will be making these new displays available to their OEM customers, giving their next-generation product designs a significant competitive advantage."

Estimated Power Reduction for 2.4-inch VGA

When compared to an RGB stripe design of equivalent resolution, a 2.4-inch PenTile RGBW™ amorphous silicon TFT LCD panel at VGA visual resolution would decrease power consumption by 50 percent without affecting brightness. The table below compares these panels:

	2.4-inch PenTile RGBW	2.4-inch RGB Stripe
Visual Resolution	480 x 640 (VGA)	480 x 640 (VGA)
Effective DPI	333 DPI	333 DPI
Source Drivers	960	1,440
Gate Drivers	640	640
Contrast	300	200
Transmittance	8.1%	4.0%
Estimated Brightness	200 cd/m 2 (4 LEDs)	200 cd/m 2 (8 LEDs)

By reducing source drivers from 1,440 to 960 and reducing the number of backlight LEDs from eight to four, power is halved, brightness is maintained, and cost is reduced.

Availability

This second generation of PenTile RGBW™ is now available for licensing. PenTile Matrix® display technology is being designed into LCD panels by the industry's leading display manufacturers, including Samsung, an early Clairvoyante licensee. It is also being incorporated into LCD driver integrated circuits including Sitronix driver ICs. The first consumer products incorporating PenTile Matrix® will debut in the first half of 2005.

About Clairvoyante

Clairvoyante, Inc. develops and licenses unique pixel architectures and algorithms to the flat-panel display industry. The company's proprietary subpixel rendering technology optimizes the performance of next-generation LCD displays in terms of brightness, resolution and power consumption. Founded in July 2000, Clairvoyante maintains offices in Sebastopol and Cupertino, Calif. The company's investors include American River Ventures, Intel Capital, Pacifica Fund, Rocket Ventures, Selby Venture Partners, The Angels' Forum and Yasuda Capital. For more information, visit www.clairvoyante.com.

Logo, Clairvoyante, and PenTile RGBW are trademarks/service marks of Clairvoyante, Inc. PenTile is a registered trademark of Clairvoyante, Inc.