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OLED Displays Technology Primer and Forecasting
HawKe writes "OLEDs are back in the news and Audioholics reports on what makes the technology so special as well as who leads the pack in currently shipping products, vaporware, and displays that are on the horizon. The crux of the matter is whether or not OLEDs, the "eco-friendly" choice, can outpace current LCD and plasma display advances. In order to enter and dominate the home theater and computer display markets, they must not only establish themselves, but also beat the leaders in price and performance."
These are MUCH brighter than LCDs, too, if I recall correctly.
The article says they've got a 15" prototype.
Maybe we'll finally get a notebook display that you can read in sunlight?
I believe there are also some major environmental displosal issues to contend with, besides the actually technical issues. Something about the inking process (for the inkjet like system.) is relatively bad at the moment.
Give that part about three more years. Physics guys upstairs are actually working on a similar problem now with some deposition machines.
As you mention, the main selling point will be for integration with other circuits. This is really the next step to making wearable advertising.
-=fshalor
An old article on OLED's in Scientific American made me a huge fan years ago... the potential for these things is amazing. Because the base is a polymer, which can be transparent, all sorts of sci-fi style possibilities open up, laptop screens that can be rolled up are just the beginning... HUDs in cars could become standard offering by sticking an OLED screen on the windscreen... office windows coated with an OLED screen would look like normal windows but could double as a TV or computer screen at the flick of a switch.... same for home TVs. Because pixels can be transparent, the RGB layers of a display can be sandwiched on top of each other, meaning that an OLED display will have individual pixels which have their own unique colour- as opposed to current technologies where RGB pixels are arrayed next to each other and rely on the eye to merge separate red, green and blue dots into a "colour". For this reason, OLED displays should be significantly sharper. Yes, a window that doubles as a TV is a long way off but the articles show that the technology isn't just science fiction... it's getting closer every day. One day we'll have windows with DVI inputs :)
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
This press release doesn't really have much new information in it. OLEDs have been around for several years now. And the article talks about printing the monitor on the same glass as a current LCD monitor. One of the real potential benefits of OLED is the ability to print them on a flexible plastic film. Check out this Scientific American article from back in February.
Imagine if you needed a new monitor. So you go out and buy a new OLED display. After use it eventually starts to fail (after your 42 day marathon CS session, or your 2 years of only checking your e-mail, or whatever). Instead of going out and buying a whole new display ($$$), you don't.
You open a little panel on the top (or side) of the screen and pull out the OLED pannel not unlike pulling a film plate out of a camera. You go down to the local computer store and buy a new OLED pannel (not display) for a little bit of money ($), stick it in your display, and you're all set.
Now because they cost less to manufacture, they cost less at the start, and the "refills" are cheap (unlike LCD panels which cost a fortune). Now only that, but because electronics can be integrated onto the panel, the new one you buy might all of a sudden offer you a higher refresh rate, more colors, higher resolution, lower power consumption, or some other feature that has been cooked up or improved since you bought your panel.
I would buy that. It seems perfectly reasonable to me. By leaving things in the case of the display (power supply, connectors, speakers, USB hubs, anything else you want to put in there; maybe driver circuitry) when you buy a new panel to put in your display things are cheap. When your LCD or CRT dies, you not only have to buy a new tube, you have to re-buy all the electronics around it because you can't (easily) get a new tube to fix your monitor. Same with LCDs. So in the long run it would be cheaper. Instead of paying $300 every 3 or 4 years (let's just assume that), you pay $150, then $25 every year. Eight years out you've spent $325 ($25 * 7 + $150), instead of the $600 you'd spend normally. The difference is that each year you get little incremental upgrades. And if the displays are even cheaper than that (maybe $100 to start, or the "refills" are $15) things look even better, don't they.
And if the display manufactures got together and set a standard for how the panels interface to the display and such so they all took the same refills, the competition would be FANTASTIC for the consumer in price and quantity. And before you say "they won't do that, just like printer ink doesn't do that", don't forget that a company like Dell (or Dell + others) could force it on them. If that happened, it would be such a great day for the consumer.
It could work. Maybe things will go my way (we'll see), or maybe the things will be improved in lifespan to where it's like a normal LCD. Either way it's competition for LCDs which means that consumers can benefit even if they never replace LCDs totally.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
- "I'm afraid they won't be able to increase the life time for OLEDs much."
What is your basis for this statement? There's no physical law which states that the life may not be extended; it's simply a materials science issue. I am quite certain that the current lifetime of the OLEDS (particularly blue, I understand) will be extended sufficiently that lifetime of the OLED becomes largely irrelevant. As OLEDs gain popularity, increasing amounts of engineering will be devoted to improving the yields and performance, much like LCD & Plasma technologies.I've been following OLED's progress for years and I'm glad they're finally getting somewhat competitive. It's a cool technology.
For a television, however, there's another really cool technology I'm waiting for to become commercially available (to the consumer: Grating Light Valve based projection TVs.
Red, Green, and Blue diode lasers (RGB) + a Microelectromechanical (MEM) diffraction ribbon = very bright, detailed, lifelike image. I've heard anecdotally about people who became disoriented because the image looked 'too lifelike.'
Informaion about GLV display technology.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
The basis is experience with other stuff. Life of a product may be extended 300-500%, sometimes 1000%, but rarely more. If the design isn't long-lived up front, it won't get extra-long-lived through development. There's been a considerable amount of research on OLED lifetime done already, and they got to the pathetic 1000h until now. There's certain level after every next percent gained gets very expensive and further research just doesn't pay. You just need to change the complete technology. (just think developing vacuum tubes as mainstream product further instead of replacing them with transistors)
So, I expect they will get to 5000h, with a lot of luck luck to 10-20.000, that's still not very much. Plus the research doesn't really pay - build a TV that lasts 10 years in perfect condition and the customer won't buy another TV from you in next 10 years.
On the other hand, reducing the cost to less than 1% the original (note: cost, not price) is quite common.
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