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Miniaturisation & Plastronics
Annual report 2015

Thinner, higher-performance TV screens: TP Vision and Sirris rise to the challenge

As part of the Change2Micro project promoting the microprocessing of plastics in Flanders, TP Vision and its partners set themselves a challenge during the summer of 2015: to make a range of optoelectronic sensing features found in television sets four times more compact and unobtrusive fit for a sleek design. Developing a working prototype took just a few weeks.
  • TP Vision is exploring ways of discreetly incorporating complex electronic features in its television screens.
  • It teamed up with a range of experts to achieve a specific goal: making some strategic electronic features four times more compact.
  • A working prototype with a slimmer integration of sensing functions in television set was developed in just a few weeks.
  • Sirris designed the mechanical interface between the electronics and optics.
     

TP Vision is a subsidiary of TPV Technology, one of the world’s leading TV and computer monitor manufacturers. It develops, produces and markets television sets for the Philips brand. The company’s Belgian operations are based in Ghent, where it has an innovation centre.

“It only took a few weeks to develop a prototype as the constraints associated with integrating electronic features were factored in from the outset.”

Consumer products enhanced by microtechnologies 

Microtechnologies offer an array of benefits for consumer products, making them lighter, more discreet and more flexible to integrate and enhancing their reliability and performance. Television manufacturer TP Vision understands this only too well. It wanted to explore the potential of microtechnologies to produce a less bulky TV set flexibly incorporating complex electronic features in a very sleek design.

Pooling of competences

Thanks to a boot camp organised by Flanders Plastic Vision and Sirris to promote the microprocessing of plastics in Flanders, TP Vision was able to benefit from the expertise of various partners: Sirris’ SMALL-Lab, the B-Phot unit at VUB and Ghent University’s Centre for Microsystems Technology (CMST). The partners set themselves a very clear goal: to make a range of specific electronic features found in television sets four times more compact

Working prototype within weeks

Sirris designed the mechanical interface between the electronics and optics. Designing and producing a working prototype only took a few weeks thanks to the pooling of the partners’ complementary competences and the fact that the constraints of integrating electronics were taken into account from the start of the design process. The solution will be considered for future televisions in 2017 or later.