One of the major drawbacks for choosing UMPC device - is it’s power requirements. 2-3 hours of battery life just aren’t enough for ultra mobile device. And the biggest power drain - anywhere from 30 to 65% of the total power consumption comes from the LCD screen.

Today Samsung has got some good news for us. Korean vendor announced that it has developed first amorphous silicon (a-Si) 7″ single chip WVGA (800×480) TFT-LCD. While uses for this screen does not specifically mention UMPC, WVGA screens of the same size and resolution are actually used in all UMPC devices launched so far.

Samsung is touting simplified integration and manufacturing advantages that could lead toward thinner and simpler mobile devices with a number of controller circuits integrated into one chip. And we certainly won’t mind slimmer and nicer devices.

However there’s another key advantage to the single chip design - reduced power consumption. Samsung’s new prototype 7″ screen consumes only 300 mW of power which is significantly less then similar traditional LCD’s. And any reduction in the power consumption of LCD screen can lead to disproportional increase of the batter life of a UMPC device, which is certainly great news for consumers.

Unfortunately this is just a prototype device and it could take several years for it to be produced in mass market quantities. However with the increasing demand for highly portable devices and power efficient components,  we can expect the commercial implementations of this technology sooner rather then later.