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Mitsubishi Electric is showing off a new LCD that can be viewed from both sides. The display, which the company says is a world first, was developed initially for use in clamshell-type cellular-telephone handsets and could help make such telephones thinner and lighter.


At present, many clamshell-style handsets have two displays: a large main display facing inwards and a smaller sub-display that faces outwards and is used to display basic information when the phone is closed. Each of these displays typically consists of a glass LCD panel on which the image is shown, and a backlight that sits behind the panel and projects light through it so the image can be clearly seen by viewers.


The displays are in a physically similar position inside the upper portion of the clamshell case. However, each display can only be viewed from one side because the backlights restrict viewing from the reverse. A cross-section of this part of the phone case would reveal a four-layer sandwich of components: two backlights positioned back to back in the center with their associated displays on the outer edge.

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