It's not seven segment, but Underware did some interesting stuff recently.

I can hook you up with some clever 6-segment designs, if infinitesimal power savings appeal to you.

infinitesimal power savings interest me greatly! I would be interested to see the approach for 6 segment...

A friend of mine designed a few variations on a concept that eliminates the middle segment (and requires a small zero).
Contact him to ask about it: kturtle (ατ) houston.rr.com

I also have one of my own that legibly eliminates the bottom segment and can use the same coding as a normal display:

You might find some interesting examples here -- I did a search for "LCD" on MyFonts:

http://www.myfonts.com/search?search%5Btext%5D=lcd

I also have one of my own that legibly eliminates the bottom segment and can use the same coding as a normal display

Thanks cerulean - i like your approach in eliminating the bottom segment - esp. given it can be retrofit around an existing display architechture - which is of particular concern for this project as developing a new display layout with diferent segments, you need to re-program the IC chip and i think need to produce some ungodly amount like 100k units to make it worthwhile for the factory... so if we could go with an existing IC chip and just re-design the font.. that's a little easier to swallow.

Certainly some good food for thought.. i wonder if a fairly geometric typeface like DIN could be modified to become a 'somewhat-respectable number-of-segments' display.. Here's an example that's heavy on the segments..