Flat panel display in the context of LED screen

An LED display is a flat panel display that uses an array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as pixels for a video display. Their brightness allows them to be used outdoors where they are visible in the sun for store signs and billboards. In recent years, they have also become commonly used in destination signs on public transport vehicles, as well as variable-message signs on highways. LED displays are capable of providing general illumination in addition to visual display, as when used for stage lighting or other decorative (as opposed to informational) purposes. LED displays can offer higher contrast ratios than a projector and are thus an alternative to traditional projection screens, and they can be used for large, uninterrupted (without a visible grid arising from the bezels of individual displays) video walls. microLED displays are LED displays with smaller LEDs, which poses significant development challenges.

Their use in cinemas to replace projectors and projection screens has been explored.

Clamshell design is a form factor commonly used in the design of electronic devices and other manufactured objects. It is inspired by the morphology of the clam. The form factor has been applied to handheld game consoles, mobile phones (where it is often called a "flip phone"), and especially laptop computers. Clamshell devices are usually made of two sections connected by a hinge, each section containing either a flat panel display or an alphanumeric keyboard/keypad, which can fold into contact together like a bivalve shell.

Generally speaking, the interface components such as keys and display are kept inside the closed clamshell, protecting them from damage and unintentional use while also making the device shorter or narrower so it is easier to carry around. In many cases, opening the clamshell offers more surface area than when the device is closed, allowing interface components to be larger and easier to use than on devices which do not flip open. A disadvantage of the clamshell design is the connecting hinge, which is prone to fatigue or failure.

Drone racing is a motorsport where participants operate radio-controlled aircraft (typically small quadcopter drones) equipped with onboard digital video cameras, with the operator looking at a compact flat panel display (typically mounted to the handheld controller) or, more often, wearing a head-mounted display (also called a "FPV goggle") showing live-streamed image feed from the aircraft. Similar to full-size air racing, the goal of the sport is to complete an obstacle course as quickly as possible. Drone racing began in 2011 in Germany with a number of amateur drone controllers getting together for semi-organized races in Karlsruhe.

A field-emission display (FED) is a flat panel display technology that uses large-area field electron emission sources to provide electrons that strike colored phosphor to produce a color image. In a general sense, an FED consists of a matrix of cathode-ray tubes, each tube producing a single sub-pixel, grouped in threes to form red-green-blue (RGB) pixels. FEDs combine the advantages of CRTs, namely their high contrast levels and very fast response times, with the packaging advantages of LCD and other flat-panel technologies. They also offer the possibility of requiring less power, about half that of an LCD system. FEDs can also be made transparent.

Sony was the major proponent of the FED design and put considerable research and development effort into the system during the 2000s, planning mass production in 2009. Sony's FED efforts started winding down in 2009, as LCD became the dominant flat-panel technology. In January 2010, AU Optronics announced that it acquired essential FED assets from Sony and intends to continue development of the technology. As of 2024, no large-scale commercial FED production has been undertaken.

Flat Panel Display Link, more commonly referred to as FPD-Link, is the original high-speed digital video interface created in 1996 by National Semiconductor (now within Texas Instruments). It is a free and open standard for connecting the output from a graphics processing unit in a laptop, tablet computer, flat panel display, or LCD television to the display panel's timing controller.

Most laptops, tablet computers, flat-panel monitors, and TVs used the interface internally through 2010, when industry leaders AMD, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, LG, and Samsung together announced that they would be phasing out this interface by 2013 in favor of embedded DisplayPort (eDP).

VESA Plug and Display (abbreviated as P&D) is a video connector that carries digital signals for monitors, such as flat panel displays and video projectors, ratified by Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) in 1997. Introduced around the same time as the competing connectors for the Digital Visual Interface (DVI, 1999) and VESA's own Digital Flat Panel (DFP, 1999), it was marketed as a replacement for the VESA Enhanced Video Connector (EVC, 1994). Unlike DVI, it never achieved widespread implementation.

The P&D connector shares the 30-pin plus quad-coax layout of EVC, which carries digital video, analog video, and data over Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 (FireWire). At a minimum, the P&D connector is required to carry digital video, in which case the connector is designated P&D-D; when both digital and analog video are included, the connector is designated P&D-A/D.

Active matrix is a type of addressing scheme used in flat panel displays. It is a method of switching individual elements of a flat panel display, known as pixels. Each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor that actively maintain the pixel state while other pixels are being addressed, in contrast with the older passive matrix technology in which each pixel must maintain its state passively, without being driven by circuitry.

Active matrix technology was invented by Bernard J. Lechner at RCA, using MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors). Active matrix technology was first demonstrated as a feasible device using thin-film transistors (TFTs) by T. Peter Brody, Fang Chen Luo and their team at the Thin-Film Devices department of Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1974, and the term was introduced into the literature in 1975.