Forensic Report: LCD monitors
===============

| Identity of the reporting agency | MDEF |
|----------------------------------------|--------------------------------|
| Case identifier | two LCD monitors (DELL 2015 and Philips 2007) |
| Identity of the submitter | Fab Lab |
| Date of receipt | 08/11/2022 |
| Date of report | 09/11/2022 |
| Identity and signature of the examiner | claudia, myrto, amanda, stella |

## Examination

# DELL
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-24-monitor-u2414h/apd/860-bbcg/monitors-monitor-accessories#techspecs_section

**Serial number:** S/N : CN-09TG46-74261-572-6MNL
**Brand:** DELL
**Model:** U2414Hb
**Colour:** black
**Made in:** china

# Philips
https://www.philips.com.hk/en/c-p/190B7CS_00/lcd-monitor

**Serial number:** AU6A0712006042
**Brand:** Philips
**Model:** 190B7CS/00
**Colour:** grey
**Made in:** china

## Forensic Questions

**What does it do?**

Two screens to translate visualize digital data.
A tool to help the user o interact with the computer.
A visual interface with a computer.

**How does it work?**

It needs its own powersource. Also it needs to be connected to a computer, this is possible via various connections:

DVI = digital visual interface (a video display, it is used to connect a video source such as a video display controller to a display device such as a computer monitor) (**Philips**)

VGA = video graphics array connector (Video Graphics Array connector is a standard connector used for computer video output) (**Philips**)

*These connectors have been replaced by e.g. HDMI connections nowadays.*


USB 3.0 HUB

2 x HDMI

DisplayPort output

DisplayPort

Mini DisplayPort

USB 3.0 upstream

4 x USB 3.0 downstream

Audio line-out


**How it's built?**

In the **Dell**, the control boards are manufactured by a robot whereas the powerboard is probably assembled by hand.

The screen is made from at least six layers of materials - *how does a screen works?*


The **Dell** monitor has a LED strip inside whereas the other one has actual fluorescent/ incendescent light inside.

Strip vs. lamps

Then there are speakers

**Why it failed, or it wasn't used anymore?**

because they are OLD.... the resolution is outdated, the connectors are outdated, we have been shifting to wider monitors and screens. The Phillips monitor used VGA and DVI connectors which are older and not campatible with most new computers that use HDMI and USB.

## digging deeper

Some chips found in the boards:

| Location Found | Part Number | Description | Manufacturer |
| :--------- | :------------ | :--------------------------- | :-------|
| Phillips Control Board |NT68663MEFG-64 | IC Chips - integrated flat panel display controller |NQVATEK|
|Phillips Control Board|24CO2WP|IC Chips - 2K bits I2C bus| STMICROELECTRONICS |
|Phillips Control Board|AT24C16AN-SU27|2-Wire Serial EEPROM|ATMEL|
| Dell Control Board |TUSB8040A1| IC Chips - Four-port USB 3.2 x1 gen1 hub | Texas Instruments |
|Dell Control Board| TSUMOP387MT9-3 | IC Chips - Multimedia Chip | Mstar semiconductor |
| Dell Control Board |STDP4320 | IC Chips - DisplayPort 1.2a splitter | MegaChips Technology America Corporation |
|Dell Control Board|PI3VDP12412| HDMI 1.4b 1:2 Splitter|Pericom Semiconductor|
|Dell Control Board|APA2171|Stereo, Differential Input Cap-Free Line Driver|Anpec Electronics Corporation|
|Dell Control Board|MX25L4006E|4M-BIT CMOS SERIAL FLASH|Macronix Internationl|

## Steps taken


We managed to disassemble both monitors. We used multiple screwdrivers (since there were different kinds and sizes of screws) and some times when different parts where joined by glue we just used our brutal strength. (We found it is hard to disassemble the whole thing without damaging it and cracked one of the glass components of the screen...).
We also wondered how all the components could be reused and we checked some case studies of clothing and art made out of electronic components.


## Results

**How many motors did we find inside?**
None

**Does it contain a computer or microcontroller?**
They both contain chips.

**Did you found any sensors?**
We didn't find actual sensors but we found buttons for the usability.

**Backlight testing**

We decided to test some of the lighting commponents with a power supply to see if we could get them to work. We tested all four flourscent bulbs from the Phillips monitors and were unable to get the lights to work. We discovered that all of the individual LEDs from the Dell monitor were working at around 3 volts each. We were unable to determine the correct voltage to get the entire strip to work together.


## Opinions
Some of us have explored the inside a computers before but some others didn't and didn't expect to find these amount of components.

What surprised you?
- The screen layers! pappaaaaaa
- that there are no sensors
- that many parts had to be broken to open up. So to fix a deeper part one would then need to also fix the parts that broke in the process

we wonder:
how would a touchscreen look like in its insides?

## More images
DELL

Philips

We developed our research in 4 levels:
- Political / ethical
- Technical / analytical
- Material resources
- After life

## Conclusions: What lives in our tech?

When undoing the two monitors, we came across various circuit boards. Both monitors contained each a power-circuit-board and a control-circuit-board. Furthermore, the DELL monitor has internal speakers and a plug to attach headphones. For these functions, another we detected another circuit board.

What is a circuit board?
A PCB (printed circuit board) exist of silicon (semi-conductive), copper (conductive), metals, resins, plastics, and fiberglass (structural insulator). It is „a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich structure of conductive and insulating layers: each of the conductive layers is designed with an artwork pattern of traces, planes and other features (similar to wires on a flat surface) etched from one or more sheet layers of copper laminated onto and/or between sheet layers of a non-conductive substrate” (wiki).

On the PCB, there are traces of copper that connect the electronic components and directs the electric flow. Copper has exceptional electrical and thermal characteristics necessary for signal transmission and heat dissipation.

The main processor of any computing device is a chip that is located on a circuit board. It is called central processing unit, CPU if it is a multipurpose device. For more specified devices, there are more specified processing units. For example, graphic processing units or sound processing units… It might be that our DELL and Philips monitors have more specified chips as they are enabling graphical interaction between the user and the computer.

One famous example of a multipurpose, a CPU-chip is the ARM-chip designed by the arm-architecture. Manufacturing these chips includes two parts: the (virtual) design of the chips and the (physical) manufacturing of the chips.

ARM-architecture designs software to compose the potential functions of a CPU. They design the logical architecture how possibly composing various functions and their execution. So, they sell architectural blocks of instructions that are composable for multiple purposes, that enable various functions to be executed (CPUs).
Other companies produce the architectural blocks of instructions for specified functions like graphics and sounds.

Samsung, Motorola, TSMC, and Intel are manufacturing the chips. They buy the logic-architecture from ARM and construct, according to the needs of their (new) devices, the logical architecture of what functions the software will be able to execute at the end. So, they fix a set of instructions that they composed out of the logical blocks from ARM. This goes till a finished image, finetuned till its details before it goes then into physical manufacturing. The physical manufacturing includes imprinting the composed software onto silicon, combining it with copper and metals (to be conductive) and capturing in a protection of plastic. Here, Samsung, Motorola, TSMC, and Intel depend on very few companies that produce silicon wafers, as for example Mitsubishi. Silicon conducts electricity only under certain conditions; therefore, it is a semiconductor. In its pure form it’s an insulator. The software is printed onto that silicon with specific printers that are produces solely by the Dutch company ASML.


Then, the manufacturers of Samsung, Motorola, and Intel are wiring with copper the components and protect everything in a plastic cover. The chip is ready.

Apple buys this chip and uses it no its circuit boards (PCBs) as processor for the functions that should be executed.

*Global idea of the working of a PCBs:*
Apple buys a CPU-chip from Samsung, Motorola, TSMC, or Intel to integrate into their PCB. Samsung, Motorola, TSMC, and Intel used printers from ASML to print the software architecture from ARM onto the silicon wafers from Mitsubishi. The PCB will be the computing for of the apple-device the consumer buys on the market.

*Local idea of a DELL monitor's (2015) PCB:*
DELL bought a CPU-chip from Mstar (Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company). Mstar was bought in 2012 of MediaTek. Mstar designed the CPU-architecture and had semiconductor foundary manufactured the chip. Since MediaTek outsourced their chip production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), we assume that the Mstar chip for this DELL monitor also was manufactured by TSMC. TSMC gets their silicon wafers from various companies and we cannot tell from which the silicon used in the DELL-monitor-CPU excactly comes from. However, there are six possible companies: Taiwan’s Formosa SUMCO Technology Corporation, Taiwan‘s GlobalWafers, Japan‘s Shin-Etsu Handotai, Germany‘s Siltronic AG, Singapore‘s Soitec Microelectronics, and Japan’s SUMCO Corporation. Mstar thus prints their software-architecture onto the silicon wafers and builds a plastic protection around it. The CPU-chip was then integrated into the PCB and serves as the computing device of the DELL-monitor we deconstructed here.


## Recycle PCB?
Let’s start by saying the e-waste in one of the fastest growing type of waste in the planet and let’s say also that PCB boards are not designed to last forever. It is hard to find information about programmed obsolescence in pcbs, but just the fact that they’re custom produced won’t make them being reusable for another product. Basically there’s no standard size in order to make them flexible to different productions.
Eventually, when we throw away any kind of electronic device we produce e-waste. They get dissembled in each different components but what happens to the pcbs?

Recycling PCB, how does it work?
It’s possible to recycle some of the components of the board, but not the entire thing. Also, the recycling part applies the most to the copper because of its valuable.

What can I recycle?
- The copper, it will retain enough purity to get reused. 

- FR-4, (FR FLAME RETARDANT EPOXY RESIN, 4 FYBER GLASS) so basically the FR-4 is FR4 is the base material made from a flame retardant epoxy resin and glass fabric composite. This material is more complicated to recycle cause the fiber glass degrades easily overtime, so it cannot be recycled but downcycled which means can be used for less requiring functions.

How can I recycle it?
3 methods

- Thermal recovering: I heat the PCB to a high temperature that will burn the FR-4 but I will save the copper. Cons: it releases lead and dioxin (harmful gases).
- Chemical Recovering: again used to recover the metal by using a bed of acid that again destroys the board. Cons: we end up with a lot of waste water.
- Physical Recovering: shredding, smashing, breaking and separating the components. Cons: it’s dangerous for the people who do it because cause they’re exposed to dust, metals and glass particles in the air.

DIY Projects is a fun way to re purpose PCB. We can all become “environmental artists!”

Some case studies:

- Fashion: Raquel Buj, NIDOS in Madrid Fashion Show. Contemporary and sustainable fashion https://www.neo2.com/buj-studio-nidos-madrid-fashion-week/

- Furniture: Binary Chair by BRC Design https://brcdesigns.com

- Jewelry:  precious metals from discarded technology, so called "salvaged gold" https://lylies.com

## LCD
LCD: Liquid Screen Monitors


Source:
https://www.techspot.com/article/2322-display-tech-compared/

- Light can be polarized
- Liquid crystals can transmit and change polarized light
- The structure of liquid crystals can be changed by electric current
- There are transparent substances that can conduct electricity

**How does LCD work?**
LCD monitors cannot illuminate themselves, so they require a light source: the backlight. This backlight is most frequently made of the well-known LEDs which stand for light-emitting diodes. Sourced from the backlight, light is moved through the back polarizer and back substrate, into the liquid crystals. Now, the light waves can behave in a variety of ways. Electrodes are the controlling factors of the liquid crystal behavior, and thus also the light behavior. By conducting or not conducting a current into the crystal layer, the light may or may not be able to pass through the liquid crystals in a manner that will allow passage through the polarizer. The liquid crystal layer’s purpose remains the same: to polarize the light so that the polarized light passes through to the surface of the display. LCD displays work by using individual pixels to display visuals, moving or stationary. Each pixel will display a color mixed by the RGB color filter with each color’s filter associated with one of the pixel’s sub-pixels. The sub-pixels are where the degree of light is determined, thus affecting the degree of prominence of its respective color.

**LCD history**
The phenomenon was discovered largely by accident by Austrian botanist Friedrich Richard Reinitzer, who had extracted cholesterol from carrots, and through experimentation found it had some rather bizarre properties. Essentially the cholesterol had two melting points, a state between solid and liquid, which became known as liquid crystal. He also found that when it was cooled at specific temperatures it would change colors. Twenty-three years later, Charles Mauguin was the first to begin placing thin layers of liquid crystals between plates, an idea that would later found the structural concept of LCDs. It was also discovered in 1962 that these liquid crystal structures have electro-optical effects that can be controlled through an applied voltage.

**Why are they called “liquid crystals''?**
We learned in school that there are three common states of matter: solid, liquid or gaseous. Solids act the way they do because their molecules always maintain their orientation and stay in the same position with respect to one another. The molecules in liquids are just the opposite: They can change their orientation and move anywhere in the liquid. But there are some substances that can exist in an odd state that is sort of like a liquid and sort of like a solid. When they are in this state, their molecules tend to maintain their orientation, like the molecules in a solid, but also move around to different positions, like the molecules in a liquid. This means that liquid crystals are neither a solid nor a liquid. That's how they ended up with their seemingly contradictory name.

Source: https://www.orientdisplay.com/knowledge-base/lcd-basics/how-liquid-crystal-displays-work/

**Color LCD**
An LCD that can show colors must have three subpixels with red, green and blue color filters to create each color pixel. Through the careful control and variation of the voltage applied, the intensity of each subpixel can range over 256 shades. Combining the subpixels produces a possible palette of 16.8 million colors (256 shades of red x 256 shades of green x 256 shades of blue), as shown below. These color displays take an enormous number of transistors. For example, a typical laptop computer supports resolutions up to 1,024x768. If we multiply 1,024 columns by 768 rows by 3 subpixels, we get 2,359,296 transistors etched onto the glass! If there is a problem with any of these transistors, it creates a "bad pixel" on the display. Most active matrix displays have a few bad pixels scattered across the screen.

**Identifying layers**
By opening up both our screen monitors we could easily identify and compare some of the above layers.
- One main difference we could see was the backlight: the older Philips model had an “el wire” (electroluminescent wire) while the newer Dell model had a LED strip.
- The screen’s shapes are different: the old one has more of a squared shape whereas the new one is wide / landscape orientated. When screens were CRTs (cathode-ray tube) it was easier to manufacture screens with a 1-1 ratio. We always knew that wider is preferable to look at, hence cinema screens (people see more left to right than they do up and down). So higher ratio rectangular screens for computers started with the move to LEDs.
Source: https://qr.ae/pvB6xx
- The main layers were similar:
polarizers, reflector sheet, light guide plate, diffuser sheet and the glass.


Unfortunately we realized that the ‘coolest part’ with all the TFTs (tranzistors) and the color filters are inside the last layer which we could not open furthermore.

Almost Useful Ghost Machine
===============

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vRXRer_4LkwNSSRSiP6Ro8_FdwRp9BHXNzIQmxz3BfKbHeDDZMHWxm6gaH_CFEr-JNS2SFxAeDB-icy/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000" frameborder="0" width="960" height="569" allowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" webkitallowfullscreen="true"></iframe>

# Code

/* The code reads analog input from the LDR sensor determines if the amount of light changes. 
If the ambient light sensed is below the threshold it will turn off the lights 
and make the sounds from the “ghost” passing over. 
 

 This is using the example Arduino smoothing code. 
 http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Smoothing
  **
  Reads repeatedly from an analog input, calculating a running average and
  printing it to the computer. Keeps ten readings in an array and continually
  averages them.
  **

  created 16 Nov 2022
  by Amanda Jarvis  <https://github.com/agjarv>
  
  
*/

// Define the number of samples to keep track of. The higher the number, the
// more the readings will be smoothed, but the slower the output will respond to
// the input. Using a constant rather than a normal variable lets us use this
// value to determine the size of the readings array.
const int numReadings = 50;

int readings[numReadings];      // the readings from the analog input
int readIndex = 0;              // the index of the current reading
int total = 0;                  // the running total
int average = 0;                // the average

int LDRsensor = A0;       // define analog pin A0. (input/sensor)
int led0 = 12; // define pin 12 for led (output)
int led1 = 11;
int led2 = 10;
int led3 = 9;
int led4 = A1;
int led5 = A2;
int piezoPin = 3;

void setup() {
  // initialize serial communication with computer:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(LDRsensor,INPUT); // sets analog pin A0 as input.
  pinMode(led0,OUTPUT); //sets pin 13 as output.
  pinMode(led1,OUTPUT); 
  pinMode(led2,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led3,OUTPUT); 
  pinMode(led4,OUTPUT); 
  pinMode(led5,OUTPUT);
  // initialize all the readings to 0:
  for (int thisReading = 0; thisReading < numReadings; thisReading++) {
    readings[thisReading] = 0;
  }
}

void loop() {
  // subtract the last reading:
  total = total - readings[readIndex];
  // read from the sensor:
  readings[readIndex] = analogRead(LDRsensor);
  // add the reading to the total:
  total = total + readings[readIndex];
  // advance to the next position in the array:
  readIndex = readIndex + 1;

  // if we're at the end of the array...
  if (readIndex >= numReadings) {
    // ...wrap around to the beginning:
    readIndex = 0;
  }

  // calculate the average:
  average = total / numReadings;
  //long brightness = map(average, -650, -400, 0, 255);
  if(average > 420) //condition
  {
    analogWrite(led0,255); //turns LED on.
    analogWrite(led1,255); //turns LED on.
    analogWrite(led2,255); //turns LED on.
    analogWrite(led3,255); //turns LED on.
    analogWrite(led4,255); //turns LED on.
    analogWrite(led5,255); //turns LED on.
    noTone(piezoPin);
  }
  else
  {
    analogWrite(led0,0); //maps led to to brightness average
    analogWrite(led1,0);
    analogWrite(led2,0);
    analogWrite(led3,0);
    analogWrite(led4,0);
    analogWrite(led5,0);
    tone(piezoPin, average); //sets frequency of the tone to sensor average
  }
  // send it to the computer as ASCII digits
  Serial.println(average);
  delay(10);        // delay in between reads for stability
}

# Video
<div style="padding:75% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/773159561?h=aa561b4bad&amp;badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" title="ghost machine.mp4"></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>