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Sony Begins OLED Mass Production

Posted by timothy on from the not-a-moment-too-soon dept.

Dodger73 writes "According to their press release at sony.net, Sony beings mass production of full color OLED displays at 3.8" size for their Clie PEG-VZ90 'Personal Entertainment Handheld.' The press release claims, that their 'Super Top Emission' technology reaches 150cd/m^2; at the familiar 1000:1 contrast ratio. Not quite the 19" display I'd like for my computer at home, but definitely a step in the right direction."

9 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. For those of you who don't yet know... by JamesD_UK · · Score: 5, Informative

    OLED = Organic Light-Emitting Diode

    1. Re:For those of you who don't yet know... by saha · · Score: 3, Informative

      CRTs also have other advantages, of higher viewing angle than LCDs and higher color gamut and larger dynamic range. I still prefer using a LaCie Electron Blue CRT to do my Photoshop work. Most video cards RAMDACs are limited to 8-bit (exceptions I can think of are SGI Onyx IR and Tezro systems and other specialized gfx cards), CRTs could easily do 10-bit, 12-bit color per pixel. If you're in the print and publishing industry you'll still want to use a CRT unless the 21" CRT hulk is crowding your workspace, or a radiologist who needs 10-bit or greater grayscale to discern which legions in the x-ray have a tumor. I don't want my radiologist looking at no 8-bit (256 shade) video card and monitor for my X-rays. I haven't seen any specs on what the OLEDs can do. All that stated is that its comparable, which is vague and ambiguous to me.

  2. Power consumption.... by imsabbel · · Score: 5, Informative

    should be quite a bit lower than lcds. The diods are far less efficient than the lcd backlights, BUT:
    -You dont need polarizers and color filters (those absorb >2/3 of the light in a lcd)
    -Dark pixels are just not powered/lower powered (if the typical brightness level is low, this is another factor of 2-4).
    So the organic leds only need 10% of the effience of normal ones to break even, which should be very archiveable.

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  3. lifetime of display? by mshultz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Has any progress been made regarding the life of these displays? Last I heard, the longest these things would last was about a year or two before going too dim to be useful.

    Unless Sony is figuring that the early adopters will be people who tend to buy new PDA's quite frequently anyway, and will therefore be willing to get rid of this one once the next generation comes out the following year...

  4. Re:Took Longer Then I expected by Blitzenn · · Score: 3, Informative

    Production cost is one factor. It is still more expensive to manufacture these things. There are articles out there that claim otherwise, but they are simply wrong. Here is an Independent analysis of manufacturer who happens to make OLEDS. It is a good synopsis of what the real problem is there.

    The other problem is that the operation life span of an OLED display is much shorter than other comparable display technologies. The link here is a really good PDF on OLED, what it really is and what advantagious and it's problems. (apologize of my spelling errors, I was too lazy to go back and correct them.)

  5. For those of you that only beleive Wikipedia... by 't+is+DjiM · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wikipedia-link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED Wikipedia states that the main advantage is that (apart from the contrast ratio and the response times) it doesn't need back-lighting and thus has a lower power-consumption. Will this also be true for very large OLED displays? I can imagine that, since every single pixel has to light up by itself, it can be more efficient to use a backlight. Anyone has an idea about the power consumption per pixel for OLEDs and TFT/LCD?

    --
    --Use ant to make .war
  6. Re:failure rate is still high by Blitzenn · · Score: 5, Informative

    NO real progress has been made in that area. The color failure rate is still pretty high. the typical failure is a pixel getting 'stuck' in the on or off position. Being that the display is more expensive to make than other available technologies, they probably won't be replaceable and will make the units, escentially, throw aways or disposables.

    See my other comment for details and supporting links.

  7. Re:OLED is described in article by phobos13013 · · Score: 4, Informative

    perhaps one day we will have an organic computer!

    hate to burst your bubble but just because they are made out of 'organic' materials doesnt mean they are natural. All it means is that instead of oil based acrylics, and metal laden materials, they are using carbon-based materials that have fast-transfer dendric properties. These materials are about as natural as DDT. They are still really cool devices tho and have a great contribution to technology, just dont go around thinking its like an extenstion of the human body or about to go reproducing on its own now...

    --
    ...and it should be known by now
  8. Oh AND if you have an Analog system thru and thru- by purduephotog · · Score: 3, Informative

    you can get as high as 14 bit colour.

    Of course that means you need specialized EVERYTHING for displaying a photo, down to how the image is scanned (high end scanners can do *real* 12 and 14 bit imaging... don't believe that 16bit crap- it's usually 'marketing bits' for the last couple.

    So if you have a dedicated viewing system that can display an image appropriately at the bit depth (which is a bit of an oxymoron when you're talking about analog systems) you've got an easy 13 bit display.

    And want to know something really interesting about that? The image looks lifelike. As in, you could almost reach in and touch it.

    8 bit really sucks.