STN: Super Twisted Nematic

This fluid has the most options and features.  It offers better viewing angles than the TN technology and can be configured with various background colors.  The most common use for this type of technology can found on  vending machines, portable bar code scanners, medical equipment, PC Mod Kits, MP3 Players, etc.

This fluid is ideal for dot matrix displays, both character and graphics based.  This works best when the displays duty cycle is 1/8, 1/16, and up to 1/240.  Duty cycles of less than 1/8 would not improve any visual characteristics of the display, just your bottom line...the cost. 

This fluid  cost a little bit more  than the TN fluid.  But the slightly higher price offers much more variety and benefits.  For starters, the viewing cone of the STN fluid is almost double the size of the TN, and does not have a dependent on top or bottom viewing preferences (see diag 2.0).  As seen the diagram, the viewing cone can be adjusted from any position of the display and can be optimized for either top or bottom viewing by adjusting the contrast adjustment for the display.

Diag. 2.0

This type of fluid offers several background colors to choose from.  The typical background colors available are Neutral/Grey, Yellow, and Blue.  With the Neutral/Grey and Yellow background, the display is used in the "Positive" mode, which simply means that your characters are dark and the background color is light.  A good example of positive mode is writing text on a white sheet of paper, your ink is dark (blue or black) and the background is light (white, yellow, etc).  Whereas if you configured your display to be a blue mode display, then you will have a "Negative" mode display, the opposite of positive mode.  Light characters/dots on a dark background.  Examples are Hi-fi stereos, digital clo

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cks in most cars, microwave ovens, etc.