Aperture grille

An aperture grille is one of two major technologies used to manufacture color cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer displays; the other is the shadow mask.

The fine wires allow for a finer dot pitch as they can be spaced much closer together than the perforations of a shadow mask, and there need be no gap between adjacent horizontal pixels.

The first patented aperture grille televisions were manufactured by Sony in the late 1960s under the Trinitron brand name, which the company carried over to its line of CRT computer monitors.

Subsequent designs, whether licensed from Sony or manufactured after the patent's expiration, tend to use the -tron suffix, such as Mitsubishi's Diamondtron and ViewSonic's SonicTron.

Aperture grilles are not as mechanically stable as shadow or slot masks; a tap can cause the image to briefly become distorted, even with damping/support wires.