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PenTile matrix is a family of patented
subpixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...
matrix schemes used in electronic device displays. PenTile is a trademark of
Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...
. PenTile matrices are used in
AMOLED AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode; ) is a type of OLED display device technology. OLED describes a specific type of thin-film-display technology in which organic compounds form the electroluminescence, electroluminescent materi ...
and
LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...
displays. These subpixel layouts are specifically designed to operate with proprietary
algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for per ...
for
subpixel rendering Subpixel rendering is a method used to increase the effective resolution of a color display device. It utilizes the composition of each pixel, which consists of three subpixels of which are red, green, and blue that can each be individually ad ...
embedded in the display driver, allowing
plug and play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving reso ...
compatibility with conventional
RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three ...
(Red-Green-Blue) stripe panels.


Overview

"PenTile Matrix" (a
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
from
penta- Numeral or number prefixes are prefixes derived from numerals or occasionally other numbers. In English and many other languages, they are used to coin numerous series of words. For example: *triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, octagon ...
, meaning "five" in Greek and
tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, Rock (geology), stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, wal ...
) describes the geometric layout of the prototypical subpixel arrangement developed in the early 1990s. The layout consists of a
quincunx A quincunx ( ) is a geometry, geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them forming a Square (geometry), square or rectangle and a fifth at its center. The same pattern has other names, including "in saltire" ...
comprising two
red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
subpixels, two
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...
subpixels, and one central
blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
subpixel in each unit cell. It was inspired by
biomimicry Biomimetics or biomimicry is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. The terms "biomimetics" and "biomimicry" are derived from (''bios''), life, and μίμησις ('' mīm ...
of the human
retina The retina (; or retinas) is the innermost, photosensitivity, light-sensitive layer of tissue (biology), tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some Mollusca, molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focus (optics), focused two-dimensional ...
, which has nearly equal numbers of L and M type
cone cell Cone cells or cones are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the vertebrate eye. Cones are active in daylight conditions and enable photopic vision, as opposed to rod cells, which are active in dim light and enable scotopic vision. Most v ...
s, but significantly fewer S cones. As the S cones are primarily responsible for perceiving blue colors, which do not appreciably affect the perception of
luminance Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls wit ...
, reducing the number of blue subpixels with respect to the red and green subpixels in a display does not reduce the image quality. However, the layout may cause color leakage image distortion, which can be reduced by filters. In some cases the layout causes reduced moiré and blockiness compared to conventional RGB layouts. The PenTile layout is specifically designed to work with and be dependent upon subpixel rendering that uses only one and a quarter subpixel per pixel, on average, to render an image. That is, that any given input pixel is mapped to either a red-centered logical pixel, or a green-centered logical pixel.


History

PenTile was invented by Candice H. Brown Elliott, for which she was awarded the
Society for Information Display The Society for Information Display (SID) is an industry organization for displays, generally electronic displays such as televisions and computer monitors. SID was founded in September 1962. Its main activities are publishing technical journals ...
's Otto Schade Prize in 2014. The technology was licensed by the company Clairvoyante from 2000 until 2008, during which time several prototype PenTile displays were developed by a number of Asian
liquid crystal display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liq ...
(LCD) manufacturers. In March 2008, Samsung Electronics acquired Clairvoyante's PenTile IP assets. Samsung then funded a new company, Nouvoyance, Inc. to continue development of the PenTile technology.


PenTile RGBG

PenTile RGBG layout used in
AMOLED AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode; ) is a type of OLED display device technology. OLED describes a specific type of thin-film-display technology in which organic compounds form the electroluminescence, electroluminescent materi ...
and plasma displays uses green pixels interleaved with alternating red and blue pixels. The
human eye The human eye is a sensory organ in the visual system that reacts to light, visible light allowing eyesight. Other functions include maintaining the circadian rhythm, and Balance (ability), keeping balance. The eye can be considered as a living ...
is most sensitive to green, especially for high resolution luminance information. The green subpixels are mapped to input pixels on a one-to-one basis. The red and blue subpixels are subsampled, reconstructing the chroma signal at a lower resolution. The luminance signal is processed using adaptive subpixel rendering filters to optimize reconstruction of high spatial frequencies from the input image, wherein the green subpixels provide the majority of the reconstruction. The red and blue subpixels are capable of reconstructing the horizontal and vertical spatial frequencies, but not the highest of the diagonal. Diagonal high spatial frequency information in the red and blue channels of the input image are transferred to the green subpixels for image reconstruction. Thus the RG-BG scheme creates a color display with one third fewer subpixels than a traditional RGB-RGB scheme but with the same measured luminance
display resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor, or other display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resoluti ...
. This is similar to the
Bayer filter A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color model, RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digit ...
commonly used in
digital camera A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in Digital data storage, digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Dig ...
s.


Devices

As of 2021, "almost all" OLED screens in portable consumer devices use some form of Pentile subpixel layout. * Apple iPhone X * Apple iPhone XS/XS Max * Apple iPhone 11 Pro/11 Pro Max * Apple iPhone 12/12 Mini * Apple iPhone 12 Pro/12 Pro Max * Apple iPhone 13/13 Mini * Apple iPhone 13 Pro/13 Pro Max * Apple iPhone 14/14 Plus * Apple iPhone 14 Pro/14 Pro Max *
BlackBerry Q10 The BlackBerry Q10 is a touchscreen-based QWERTY smartphone developed by BlackBerry, previously known as RIM (Research In Motion). The BlackBerry Q10 is the second of two BlackBerry smartphones unveiled at the BlackBerry 10 event on January 30, ...
* Dell Venue Pro * Galaxy Nexus * HTC One S * HTC Desire (AMOLED variants only) *
HTC Vive HTC Vive is a line of Virtual reality, virtual and mixed reality Virtual reality headset, headsets produced by HTC, HTC Corporation. The brand currently encompasses headsets designed for use with Personal computer, personal computers as well a ...
* Huawei Ascend P1 * Huawei Mate 20 Pro * Huawei P30 * Huawei P30 Pro * Microsoft Lumia 650 * Motorola RAZR i * Motorola Droid 3 * Moto X (2nd generation) *
Nexus One The Nexus One (codenamed HTC Passion) is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC as Google's first Nexus smartphone. The Nexus became available on January 5, 2010, and features the ability to transcribe voice to text, an add ...
* Nexus S (Super AMOLED variants only) *
Nexus 6 The Nexus 6 (codenamed Shamu) is a phablet co-developed by Google and Motorola Mobility that runs the Android operating system. It is the successor to the Nexus 5, and the sixth smartphone in the Google Nexus series, which is a family of Andr ...
*
Nexus 6P Nexus 6P (codenamed ''Angler'') is an Android smartphone developed and marketed by Google and manufactured by Huawei. It succeeded the Nexus 6 as the flagship device of the Nexus line of Android devices by Google and was the final Nexus befor ...
* Nokia N9 * Nokia Lumia 730/ Nokia Lumia 735 * Nokia Lumia 800 * Nokia Lumia 925 * Nokia Lumia 928 *
Nokia Lumia 1020 The Nokia Lumia 1020 (known as Lumia 909 during development) is a smartphone developed by Nokia, first unveiled on 11 July 2013 at a Nokia event in New York. It runs Windows Phone 8, but is also Windows Phone 8.1 ready. It contains Nokia's Pure ...
*
Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets, virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a virtual reality company founded by Palmer Luckey that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality indust ...
*
Oculus Quest The first-generation Oculus Quest is a discontinued virtual reality headset developed by Oculus (now Reality Labs), a brand of Meta Platforms, and released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device, tha ...
* OnePlus 3 * OnePlus 3T *
OnePlus 5 The OnePlus 5 (also abbreviated as OP5) is a smartphone made by OnePlus. It is the successor to the OnePlus 3T, which was released in 2016. The OnePlus 5 was officially unveiled during a keynote on 20 June 2017 and first released on June 20, 20 ...
* OnePlus 5T * OnePlus 6 * OnePlus 6T * Pantech Burst *
Pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
* Pixel XL *
Pixel 2 The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are a pair of Android (operating system), Android smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Google as part of the Google Pixel product line. They collectively serve as the successors to the Pixel (1st generation) ...
*
Pixel 2 XL The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are a pair of Android (operating system), Android smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Google as part of the Google Pixel product line. They collectively serve as the successors to the Pixel (1st generation) ...
* Pixel 3 * Pixel 3 XL *
Samsung Galaxy S The Samsung Galaxy S series is a line of Android-based smartphones and tablet computers produced by Samsung Electronics. It serves as Samsung's high-end line of its wider Galaxy family of Android devices and in conjunction with the foldable Gal ...
* Samsung Galaxy S Plus *
Samsung Galaxy S III The Samsung Galaxy S III (unofficially known as the Samsung Galaxy S3) is an Android smartphone developed and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2012, it had sold more than 80 million units overall, making it the most sold ph ...
* Samsung Galaxy S III Mini *
Samsung Galaxy S4 The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...
*
Samsung Galaxy S5 The Samsung Galaxy S5 is an Android-based smartphone unveiled, produced, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics as part of the Samsung Galaxy S series. Unveiled on 24 February 2014 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it was relea ...
*
Samsung Galaxy S6 The Samsung Galaxy S6 is a line of Android-based smartphones manufactured, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Succeeding the Samsung Galaxy S5, the S6 was not released as a singular model, but instead in two variations unveiled and ...
* Samsung Galaxy S6 Active *
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous affiliated businesses, most of which operate unde ...
* Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ *
Samsung Galaxy S7 The Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Samsung Galaxy S7 Active were Android (operating system), Android-based smartphones manufactured, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics. The S7 series served as the successor to the Samsun ...
* Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge * Samsung Galaxy S8 * Samsung Galaxy S8+ * Samsung Galaxy S8 Active * Samsung Galaxy S9 * Samsung Galaxy S9+ * Samsung Galaxy S10e/S10/S10+/S10 5G * Samsung Galaxy S20/S20+/S20 Ultra * Samsung Galaxy S21/S21+/S21 Ultra * Samsung Galaxy Note * Samsung Galaxy Note 3 * Samsung Galaxy Note 4 * Samsung Galaxy Note 5 * Samsung Galaxy Note 7 *
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is an Android phablet smartphone developed, produced and marketed by Samsung Electronics. The successor to the discontinued Samsung Galaxy Note 7, Samsung Galaxy Note Fan Edition, Samsung Galaxy Note 5, and Galaxy ...
* Samsung Galaxy Note 9 * Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 * Samsung Wave S8500 * Samsung Ativ S * Samsung NX10 *
Sony Xperia XZ3 The Sony Xperia XZ3 is an Android smartphone manufactured and marketed by Sony. Part of the Xperia X series, the device was announced to the public at a press conference held at the annual 2018 IFA Berlin event on August 30, 2018. It is the fir ...
* Xiaomi Mi A3


PenTile RGBW

PenTile RGBW technology, used in LCD, adds an extra subpixel to the traditional red, green and blue subpixels that is a clear area without color filtering material and with the only purpose of letting
backlight A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) that provides light from the back or side of a display panel. LCDs do not produce light on their own, so they require illumination—either from available light, ambie ...
come through, hence W for
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
. This makes it possible to produce a brighter image compared to an RGB-matrix while using the same amount of power, or produce an equally bright image while using less power. The PenTile RGBW layout uses each red, green, blue and white subpixel to present high-resolution
luminance Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls wit ...
information to the human eyes' red-sensing and green-sensing
cone cell Cone cells or cones are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the vertebrate eye. Cones are active in daylight conditions and enable photopic vision, as opposed to rod cells, which are active in dim light and enable scotopic vision. Most v ...
s, while using the combined effect of all the color subpixels to present lower-resolution chroma (color) information to all three cone cell types. Combined, this optimizes the match of display technology to the biological mechanisms of human vision. The layout uses one third fewer subpixels for the same resolution as the RGB stripe (RGB-RGB) layout, in spite of having four color primaries instead of the conventional three, using subpixel rendering combined with metamer rendering. Metamer rendering optimizes the energy distribution between the white subpixel and the combined red, green, and blue subpixels: W <> RGB, to improve image sharpness. The display driver chip has an RGB to RGBW color vector space converter and gamut mapping algorithm, followed by metamer and
subpixel rendering Subpixel rendering is a method used to increase the effective resolution of a color display device. It utilizes the composition of each pixel, which consists of three subpixels of which are red, green, and blue that can each be individually ad ...
algorithms. In order to maintain saturated color quality, to avoid simultaneous contrast error between saturated colors and peak white brightness, while simultaneously reducing backlight power requirements, the display backlight brightness is under control of the PenTile driver engine.Brown Elliott, Candice, Chapter 12, "Image Reconstruction on Color Subpixelated Displays", ''Mobile Displays: Technology and Applications'', Wiley, 2008, When the image is mostly desaturated colors, those near white or
grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...
, the backlight brightness is significantly reduced, often to less than 50% peak, while the LCD levels are increased to compensate. When the image has very bright saturated colors, the backlight brightness is maintained at higher levels. The PenTile RGBW also has an optional high-brightness mode that doubles the brightness of the desaturated color image areas, such as black-and-white text, for improved outdoor viewability.


Devices

* Motorola MC65 * Motorola ES55 * Motorola ES400 *
Motorola Atrix 4G The Motorola Atrix 4G (also known as the MB860, ME860 in Asia, or MB861 in Korea) is an Android-based smartphone developed by Motorola, introduced at CES 2011 along with the Motorola Xoom, Motorola Droid Bionic, and Motorola Cliq 2 on Janua ...
*
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 The Samsung Galaxy Note series, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is a 10.1-inch tablet computer designed, developed and marketed by Samsung Electronics. The tablet runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0.3 (Android Jelly Bean, Android 4.1.2 in Europ ...
2014 version * Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro * Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro * HP ENVY TouchSmart 14-k022tx Sleekbook * MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 4K * Lenovo IdeaPad Y50 4K * Asus ZenBook UX303LN 4K * Asus ZenBook Pro UX501JW * LG UH7500/6500/6100 * LG ThinQ G7/G7+ * Oculus Quest 1


Controversy

An ongoing controversy regarding the definition or measurement of resolution of color subpixelated flat panel displays led many people to question the resolution claims of PenTile display products. Journalists have noted that in "''just about every flat-panel TV in existence, each pixel is composed of one red, one green, and one blue subpixel (RGB), all of uniform size''". In traditional flat-panel screens, the resolution is defined by the number of red, green, and blue subpixels, in groups of three, in an array in each axis. As a result, each pixel or group of subpixels can render any colour on the screen, regardless of neighbouring pixels. This is not the case with PenTile screens. The Video Electronics Standards Association (
VESA VESA (), formally known as Video Electronics Standards Association, is an American standards organization, technical standards organization for computer display standards. The organization was incorporated in California in July 1989To retrieve ...
) method of measuring and defining resolution in color displays is to measure the contrast of line pairs, requiring a minimum of 50% Michelson contrast for displays intended for rendering text. The developers of PenTile displays use this VESA criterion for contrast of line pairs to calculate the resolutions specified. In the RGBG layout the alternate red and blue subpixels are 'shared' or sub-sampled with neighboring pixels. Due to the one third lower subpixel density on PenTile displays the pixel structure may be more visible when compared to RGB stripe displays with the same pixel density. The loss of subpixels for a given resolution specification has led some journalists to describe the use of PenTile as "shady practice" and "sort of cheating". For a given size and resolution specification, the PenTile screen can appear grainy, pixelated, speckled, with blurred text on some saturated colors and backgrounds when compared to RGB stripe color. This effect is understood to be caused by the restriction of the number of subpixels that may participate in the image reconstruction when colors are highly saturated to primaries. In the RGBW case, this is caused as the W subpixel will not be available in order to maintain the saturated color. In the RGBG case, this effect will occur when the color boundary is primarily red or blue, as the fully populated (one green per pixel) sub-pixel cannot contribute. For all other cases, text and especially full color images are effectively reconstructed.


Advantages and disadvantages

The PenTile layout reduces the number of subpixels needed to create a specified resolution. Consequently it is possible to achieve an HD resolution on a PenTile AMOLED screen at lower cost than other technologies, and most reviewers note that "300 ppi" (as per VESA - not full pixels) resolution displays (such as
Samsung Galaxy S III The Samsung Galaxy S III (unofficially known as the Samsung Galaxy S3) is an Android smartphone developed and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2012, it had sold more than 80 million units overall, making it the most sold ph ...
) make the PenTile effect less obvious than lower resolution PenTile displays ( Droid Razr). The second advantage is lower power consumption: the HTC One S's use of a PenTile display makes it more energy efficient and thinner than equivalent LCD screens, giving it better battery life than the HTC One X's IPS LCD. A PenTile AMOLED screen is also cheaper than an RGB stripe AMOLED. According to Samsung, PenTile AMOLED displays have a longer life span due to having fewer blue subpixels. Most PenTile displays use rectangular grids of alternating green and blue/red pixels. However the
Samsung Galaxy S4 The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...
uses a PenTile Diamond Pixel array, where the green pixels are oval and repeat in a single line, while red and blue pixels are larger and alternate between the lines of green, ensuring more uniform colours with fewer aberrations compared to the earlier generation PenTile display on the Galaxy S III.


Reception

PenTile displays for smartphones have received a mixed reception. For instance the
Motorola Atrix 4G The Motorola Atrix 4G (also known as the MB860, ME860 in Asia, or MB861 in Korea) is an Android-based smartphone developed by Motorola, introduced at CES 2011 along with the Motorola Xoom, Motorola Droid Bionic, and Motorola Cliq 2 on Janua ...
's display had "inaccurate colours and poor viewing angles, not to mention practically unreadable text at its furthest zoom". Also in a comparison between the original Droid Razr and the cheaper RAZR V, the RAZR V's TN TFT LCD (a low-end LCD, compared to the higher-end
IPS panel IPS (in-plane switching) is a screen technology for liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). In IPS, a layer of liquid crystals is sandwiched between two glass surfaces. The liquid crystal molecules are aligned parallel to those surfaces in predetermined ...
LCD) was found to be much crisper than the Droid Razr's Super AMOLED Advanced PenTile despite both screens using the same 'resolution'.


See also

* Quattron – RGB reproduction via RGBY *
RGBE filter In digital photography, the RGBE filter is an alternative color filter array to the Bayer filter (GRGB). It similarly uses a mosaic of pixel filters, of red, green, blue and "emerald" ("like cyan" according to Sony), and so also requires demosaici ...
– RGB with an additional emerald subpixel *
Bayer filter A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color model, RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digit ...
- RGGB filters used in image sensors


References

{{Reflist 2000 introductions Computer graphics Digital typography