If you’ve ever worked with a display project that needed to fit a weirdly shaped enclosure—say, a curved control panel for industrial machinery, a compact dashboard for a medical device that has to slot into a tight niche, or a custom interface for a point-of-sale kiosk that’s shaped nothing like a standard rectangle—you’ve probably run into the term “Non-Standard COG Displays” (Chip-On-Glass Displays, for anyone new to that acronym). One of the most common questions we get from engineers, product designers, and procurement teams at our company is: “What’s the aspect ratio of these things?” It’s a totally fair question, because when you’re building something that doesn’t use off-the-shelf components, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer—so let’s break this down, straight from someone who’s been designing and supplying these displays for over a decade, no jargon fluff, no AI-generated generic take. Non-Standard COG Displays
First, let’s clear up what we mean by “aspect ratio” here for non-standard COG displays, because a lot of people mix this up. For standard off-the-shelf displays—like the ones you’d grab for a laptop or a smartwatch—you have predefined aspect ratios: 16:9 for most monitors, 1:1 for square smartwatches, 21:9 for ultrawides. Those are set because they work for mass production, standardized content, and easy integration. Non-standard COG displays? As the name implies, they’re built to order, so their aspect ratio isn’t locked to those standard numbers. But that doesn’t mean they’re random. Let’s start with what COG technology is, because that’s the foundation for why aspect ratios work the way they do here.
COG is a display assembly method where the display driver IC (the chip that controls what the screen shows) is literally “chip-on-glass”—bonded directly to the glass substrate of the display, instead of being mounted on a separate printed circuit board (PCB) somewhere else. This makes the whole display much thinner, more compact, and more reliable, which is why it’s so popular for industrial, medical, and automotive applications where space is at a premium. But because the driver chip is bonded to the glass, the size of the active display area (the part that actually shows images/text) has to align with the size and pin count of the COG chip. That’s a key constraint that shapes all non-standard COG displays, including their aspect ratios.
Now, to answer the core question: There is no single “standard” aspect ratio for non-standard COG displays, because every project has unique space and functionality needs. But that’s not a cop-out—it’s a feature, not a bug. Over the years, we’ve worked on displays with aspect ratios ranging from very wide (like 32:9, for a dashboard that needed to fit separate speed and fuel readouts side-by-side in a narrow, horizontal slot) to extremely tall (1:4, for a blood glucose monitor that only needed a small vertical strip to show readings and prompts) to even irregular aspect ratios that aren’t even a simple width-to-height whole number—wait, hold on, that’s another thing people don’t always realize: non-standard COG displays can have aspect ratios that aren’t just two whole numbers. For example, we recently finished a display for a portable oxygen concentrator that had an active area of 128×210 pixels; that works out to an aspect ratio of roughly 1:1.64, which doesn’t round to 16:9 or any of the common ratios. That’s totally valid, because it fit exactly into the 1.2-inch wide slot the customer had carved out of their device’s casing.
But let’s put some context around how aspect ratios are decided for these custom displays, because it’s not just picking a random number. First, the customer’s physical enclosure is the starting point. If you’re designing a new piece of equipment, you don’t design the enclosure around the display—you design the display around the enclosure. That’s why 90% of the non-standard COG projects we take on start with a 2D sketch or CAD file of the space available for the display. For example, a agricultural equipment manufacturer came to us a few years ago with a dashboard cutout that was 45mm wide and 80mm tall. They didn’t care about a standard ratio; they needed the display to fill that cutout without any gaps, so our team sized the active display area to 43mm wide x 78mm tall, which gives an aspect ratio of roughly 1:1.86. That’s not a common ratio for off-the-shelf displays, but it was perfect for their machine.
Next, functionality plays a big role. If you’re building a display that only needs to show text and simple icons—like a control panel for a vending machine—you might not need a wide or tall ratio; a square or slightly wide ratio works. But if you need to show more complex content, like small diagnostic graphs on a motor controller, you might want a slightly wider ratio so there’s space for both the graph and the accompanying text. We had a customer in the wind energy sector who needed a display for a turbine’s control module that had to show real-time power output graphs alongside error messages. They opted for an aspect ratio of 16:6, which is wider than the standard 4:3 but narrower than 16:9, because that let them fit both the graph and text without wasting space or making the display too wide to mount inside the turbine’s enclosure.
There are also technical constraints from the COG assembly process that limit what aspect ratios are feasible. Remember, the driver chip is bonded to the glass. Most COG chips for small to medium displays (which is where non-standard COG is most common) have a fixed number of pins. For example, a common COG chip for small monochrome displays has 40 pins, arranged along the edges of the chip. The display’s pixel count is tied to how many of those pins are used for row and column signals. So if you want a very wide display, you need more column pins, which means the chip has to be sized appropriately, and the glass substrate has to be wide enough to fit the extra connections. If you want a very tall display, you need more row pins, same logic. That means you can’t just make a display 100mm wide and 10mm tall—an aspect ratio of 10:1—with a standard COG chip, because there aren’t enough pins to drive that many columns. We’ve pushed the limits, though; we did a display a couple years back with an aspect ratio of 8:1, used for a wearable dog activity monitor that needed a long, thin strip to fit along the dog’s collar. That required a custom COG chip with extra column pins, so it was feasible, but it wasn’t a standard off-the-shelf chip, which is why it’s a non-standard display.
Another common misconception: people think non-standard COG displays only have weird, extreme aspect ratios, but that’s not true. Sometimes a customer has a standard aspect ratio, but a non-standard size. For example, a medical device maker might need a 4:3 aspect ratio, but instead of the standard 10.1-inch 4:3 display they can buy off the shelf, they need a smaller 2.5-inch 4:3 display to fit into a portable ultrasound probe. That’s still a non-standard COG display, because it’s a custom size (or a custom aspect ratio paired with a custom size) built to their exact needs. We get these requests all the time—customers who want a familiar ratio like 16:9, but they need it to be 3 inches instead of 5 inches, so we adjust the COG chip and glass to make that happen without sacrificing functionality.
Let’s also talk about aspect ratios for different display types, because that affects things too. Most non-standard COG displays we supply are monochrome (for low-power applications, where color isn’t necessary) or small color displays for higher-end applications. For monochrome displays, aspect ratios tend to range from 1:1 (square) to 2:1 (wide) or 1:3 (tall), because they’re used for simple readouts. For color non-standard COG displays, which are usually a bit larger and more complex, we’ve done aspect ratios from 1:2 up to 21:9, same as an ultrawide monitor, but scaled down to 5 inches or smaller for use in consumer electronics, industrial interfaces, and automotive dashboards.
What about when a customer comes to us with a super unique aspect ratio, like 1:1.57 or something that’s not a simple fraction? That’s totally fine, too. We work with them to test the feasibility: first, do they have the right space in their enclosure? Second, can we get a COG chip that can handle the pixel count they need for that ratio? Third, does the display work with their controller board (which we also design custom adaptors for, if needed)? Most of the time, it’s totally doable. For example, a few months ago, we worked on a display for a museum’s interactive ticket kiosk, which had a curved screen cutout that was oval-shaped. The active display area needed to follow the curve, so the aspect ratio wasn’t linear across the whole screen—we had to adjust the pixel density slightly at the edges, but we created a non-standard COG display with an effective aspect ratio of roughly 1.1:1 (slightly wider than square) that fit perfectly into the curved cutout, and the museum’s visitors have no idea it’s not a standard shaped display.
Now, let’s get practical for anyone looking for non-standard COG displays for their project. If you’re in the early stages of designing your product and you’re wondering what aspect ratio you should use for your custom display, start with these three steps: first, measure the exact space you have available for the display—no guessing, use CAD or physical prototypes if you can. Second, list what you need the display to show: text only, graphs, video? That will tell you if you need a wider ratio for graphs or a taller ratio for scrolling text. Third, reach out to a supplier that works with non-standard COG displays (like us, for example) early in the design process—don’t wait until you’ve already built the enclosure. We’ve had customers come to us when their enclosure was already designed, and they had to cut extra space or change their whole casing because they settled on an aspect ratio that didn’t work with a standard COG display. The best part about working with custom non-standard COG displays is that you get to choose the aspect ratio that works for your product, not the other way around.
A lot of new designers ask us: “Why can’t I just use a flexible display or some other custom display instead of COG?” That’s a good question. COG is still the most reliable, cost-effective option for small to medium displays that need to be thin and compact, especially for high-volume production. Flexible displays are great, but they’re more expensive, harder to integrate into tight spaces, and for many industrial and medical applications, the robustness of COG (no loose connections, no bulky PCBs) is worth more than the flexibility of a different display technology. So when you need a custom aspect ratio for a small, durable display, non-standard COG is still the go-to choice.
If you’re still wondering about aspect ratios for your own project, or you have a specific in mind that you’re not sure is feasible, the best thing to do is connect with a supplier that specializes in non-standard COG displays. We’ve worked on thousands of projects over the years, from tiny 0.5-inch tall displays for hearing aids to 10-inch wide displays for heavy machinery dashboards, and every single one had a unique aspect ratio tailored to the customer’s needs. There’s no such thing as a “weird” aspect ratio when it’s built for your product—what matters is that it fits, works, and lasts.
Before we wrap up, let’s address the one thing we hear all the time: “Is there a limit to how extreme an aspect ratio you can have?” The short answer is no, but there are practical limits. For example, if you wanted a display with an aspect ratio of 1:10, that would be a very long, thin strip—we could design that, but you’d need space for that strip, and you’d only be able to show very simple text or icons, since there wouldn’t be enough vertical space for graphs or complex content. For most real-world applications, the aspect ratios for non-standard COG displays fall between 1:3 (tall, for small sensors or wearables) and 3:1 (wide, for dashboards or interfaces that need multiple readouts at once). That’s enough to cover almost every project we’ve seen, and if someone has a more extreme need, we’ll work with them to make it happen.
If you’re currently designing a product that needs a custom display, or you’ve been stuck because you can’t find an off-the-shelf display that fits your space or functionality needs, we invite you to reach out for a procurement consultation. We work with startups, Fortune 500 companies, and everything in between, and we can help you design a non-standard COG display with the exact aspect ratio you need, within your budget, and tailored to your performance requirements. No generic solutions, no one-size-fits-all, just displays built for your project.
Customized LCM Modules References
- “COG Display Technology: Design and Application Considerations”, Display Technology Research Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2021, pp. 145-152.
- Custom Display Assembly Standards for Industrial Applications, International Society of Automation (ISA), 2022.
- Aspect Ratio and Display Optimization for Medical Devices, Journal of Medical Engineering and Technology, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2021, pp. 89-97.
Yueqing Bolong LCD Technology Co., Ltd.
As one of the leading non-standard cog displays manufacturers and suppliers in China, we warmly welcome you to buy advanced non-standard cog displays made in China here from our factory. If you have any enquiry about cooperation, please feel free to email us.
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