Electroluminescense (EL) - EL is a very thin (0.010"), short life backlight to requires an inverter to operate.  Fiber Optic backlights have up to 100,000 hour life and do not require an inverter.  Thus the fiber panel produces no EMI/RFI and is functionally passive.  For low voltage dc applications, the fiber optic panel used in conjunction with a LED is much simplier to design in.  Typical woven construction is 0.068" thick, thus if EL thinness is required, notify the Lumitex Applications Engineer as special constructions are available.

LED Light Pipe - An injection molded acrylic rectangle (usually 0.090" thick) with LED's attached to one or more sides.  High volumes and tooling is normally required.  Design lead times are long.  The fiber optic panel usually requires no tooling, very low engineering charges and has short lead times.  In addition, the fiber optic panel can span a longer and wider LCD with fewer LED's, thus becoming more power efficient.

LED Array - An array of individual LED's that cover the entire backlight area.  This option can be more expensive in larger sizes and consumes much more power in all cases.  LED arrays require more thickness in order to diffuse all the bright spots into a uniform light.  The fiber optic panel replaces this with a thinner backlight and much fewer LED's (as few as one) dramatically reducing the power load.

LED Edge Lit - One or more LED's at one or both sides of the LCD.  This works with very small LCD's, but fails to adequately light the center of larger LCD's.  The fiber optic panel is much more uniform and uses fewer LED's.

Cold Cathode Fluorescent (CCFL) - One or more fluorescent tubes coupled to an injection molded light pipe.  This type of source is very bright and white, but requires an inverter that emits EMI/RFI.  Life is typically aroung 10,000 hours.  The fiber optic backlight will not be as bright, but will be thinner, less complicated, have no EMI/RFI, consume less power and have a much longer life.  Depending on the conditions of use, the fiber optic panel will probably be more durable.  The cost of the fiber optic panel increases with increasing brightness, thus it is important to establish the desired tradeoff between cost and brightness early in the design process.