Timing controller board

The timing controller board, or T-con, is the go-between linking the TV's computer and its screen. The main board sends it finished video frames, and the T-con turns each frame into the exact signals and timing the LCD panel needs to draw it.

It is a simple-looking board. On a printed circuit board sit the timing controller chip and its memory, both integrated circuits, plus ceramic capacitors that steady the power and resistors that set voltages. Connectors take the cable from the main board and the flat cables out to the panel. As on other boards, the parts are placed by machine and fixed with solder melted in a reflow oven.

An LCD is drawn one row at a time. For each row, the T-con tells the panel's driver chips which row to switch on and what voltage every pixel in it should get, then moves to the next. A 4K panel has 2,160 rows, so at 60 frames a second each row gets less than 8 millionths of a second. In many newer TVs, the T-con chip has moved onto the main board or the panel itself.