Seiko has retreated from the LCD business

Has your Seiko Graphic display been discontinued? Seiko has retreated from the LCD business. We may be able to help. We offer custom LCD design services to provide you with a replacement to your Seiko LCD. A custom LCD can be just the answer you need.

Seiko Instruments has discontinued many of their LCD modules and this has left several of their customers without a LCD display supplier.

What LCD Displays did Seiko discontinue?

Below is a list of discontinued Graphic Liquid Crystal Displays that are no longer manufactured by Seiko Instruments. These part numbers are the root part numbers only, meaning that these do not call out backlight type, temperature range, fluid type etc.

G121300N000 (122×32 Graphic LCD Display)
G1213B1N000 (122×32 Graphic LCD Display)
SA001Z20A (128×64 Graphic LCD Display)
SA001Z21A (128×64 Graphic LCD Display)
SA001Z22A (128×64 Graphic LCD Display)
SA001Z25A (128×64 Graphic LCD Display)
SA001Z26A (128×64 Graphic LCD Display)
SA001Z27A (128×64 Graphic LCD Display)

Obstacles when replacing your obsolete Seiko display?

Some of the available LCD options, such as bezel size, modified cable length and others, may require a custom LCD tooling fee or may no longer be available.

There are two main challenges we face when designing a custom LCD to replace obsoleted Seiko displays:

Cold Cathode Florescent or CCFL backlights have been discontinued (due to environmental concerns)
Many controller drivers have been obsoleted.

Discontinued CCFL backlights

CCFL backlights have reached their end of life. In fact, they have been extinct for some time. These backlights were very common for larger size Seiko graphic LCD Displays. When a customer needs a drop in equivalent, we suggest they switch from CCFL to an LED backlight. This is not a 100% equivalent display and the main difference being the CCFL is Alternating Current (AC) and LED is Direct Current (DC).

To remedy the change from CCFL to LED, an inverter needs to be inserted between the AC signal and the inputs of LED backlight. Sometimes there is not enough room on the LCDs printed circuit board (PCB). When this happens the customer may need to supply the inverter on their PCB.

Another possible remedy is that the customer’s product may already have a DC voltage being supplied on their board and only need a charge pump (or booster circuit) to match the voltage of the PCB to the LED backlight.

Many graphic LCD controller drivers are phased out

Another challenge is that many of the controller drivers used on Seiko LCD’s are no longer available and would need to be replaced with an equivalent IC. This is not an exclusive issue with graphic displays. This occurs with character modules and Thin Film Transistor (TFT) modules.

When a controller driver is label as equivalent, this does not guarantee that it will be 100% interchangeable. Sometimes the customer’s firmware needs to be modified to make the new IC compatible. This could prove to be a large problem if you are in need of replacement displays that are in the field.

Need a replacement to your Seiko Graphic LCD display? Contact us today…we’re ready to help.