Firstly, what is IGZO?
IGZO stands for Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide and is a semiconducting material which can be used as the channel for a transparent thin-film transistor. It replaces the material used as an active layer for LCD screens called amorphous silicon. This allows it to have smaller pixels (for screen resolutions higher than HDTV) or much higher reaction speed for a screen.
Sharp has just announced and showcased the IGZO display prototype with 498 PPI. PPI stands for Parallel Peripheral Interface and is a peripheral found on the Blackfin embedded processor. The PPI is a half-duplex, bi-directional port that is designed to connect directly to LCDs, CMOS sensors, CCDs, video encoders (video DACs), video decoders (video ADCs) or any generic high speed, parallel device. (source: Wiki)
The 4.9 inch display is able to achieve a pixel resolution of 720x 1280 or 302 PPI whereas the 6.1 inch display has 2560 x 1600 or 498PPI. They are looking at developing this technology for the commercial market.
The benefits with this technology:
1. More compact and more performance
2. Achieve higher resolutions
3. Lower power consumption
4. Perfect for smartphones
Hopefully we will see this product in the digital signage market in the next few years. Have a look at this video to get a better idea about the technology: