Barco launches Coronis® 3MP DuraLight®
Barco’s new backlight technology extends LCD lifetime by a factor of 3 to 5 and comes with 5 years of warranty
KORTRIJK, BELGIUM, 9 October 2003 – Barco has announced the launch of DuraLight®, a new backlight technology, drastically extending the lifetime of medical LCD displays. Compared to conventional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL), the lifetime of Barco’s new DuraLight® backlights is prolonged by a factor 3 to 5 without increasing power consumption or compromising visual performance of the LCD display system. As a result, Barco’s new DuraLight® technology effectively addresses cost of ownership concerns associated with the use of LCD technology in Medical Imaging. DuraLight® backlights come with 5 years of warranty.
During their lifetime, LCD backlights gradually lose consistency and performance, because the phosphors, used in these lamps to generate visual light, get less efficient when they age. Today’s CCFL backlights, delivered with commercial and medical LCDs, provide a life span that is shorter than the LCD itself. Because of this, lifetime of the entire flat panel unit is determined by the life span of the backlights. Barco’s new DuraLight® lamp technology drastically extends lifetime of these lamps, making them last as long as the LCD itself. Because of this, lamp replacement during the economic life span of the medical display becomes superfluous, which substantially reduces cost of ownership.
Barco’s DuraLight® offers prolonged lifetime without compromising brightness or visual characteristics of the LCD panel. DuraLight® offers optimal image quality at all viewing angles and there is no reduction of image uniformity. Moreover, DuraLight® has a multi-lamp structure, which inherently offers redundancy. This means that, in case of a lamp failure, the display remains operational. In this respect, DuraLight® meets the strong requirements attached to life-critical medical applications.
In addition, DuraLight®’s extended lifetime is combined with optimal efficiency. Unlike other technologies, DURALIGHT®’s long lifetime does not come at the expense of increased power consumption. The savings in lamp replacement costs are not offset by an increase in cost of use.
Barco’s DuraLight® comes as an option on Barco’s Coronis® 3MP medical display systems with BlueBase viewing mode and is available from stock.
Coronis® is Barco’s family of high-performance digital grayscale flat panel display systems, available in 1, 2, 3 and 5 MegaPixel resolutions. The compact, space-saving Coronis® display systems combine the highest diagnostic image quality, consistency, Quality Assurance and lowest cost of ownership. Coronis® bundles one or more high-resolution LCD displays (1MP, 2MP, 3MP or 5MP) with a high-speed, 10-bit display controller and MediCal® QA management software into a compact digital display system.
About Barco
Barco, an international company headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, is active in three key areas of imaging technology. Barco designs and develops solutions for large screen visualization, display solutions for life-critical applications, and systems for visual inspection. Barco has a network of subsidiaries, distributors and agents in almost 100 countries. Barco is quoted on Brussels/Euronext and is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company.
