ShareThisWe are about to see a sea change in visual displays, with the first significant products trickling out this fall.
You may have heard the term "OLED," organic light-emitting diode. While it might sound like something you'd find at Whole Foods, it is actually a technology in which the light from a display screen comes from a layer of organic compounds.
OLED displays have several advantages over the LCD displays currently used in many computers and televisions.
OLEDs do not need a backlight, as do LCDs. This means a much lower power requirement and subsequently longer battery life for a device that has such a screen. It also means OLED screens can be thinner -- we'll get to the significance of that later.
Basically (and this is very basic) an OLED screen is made by depositing layers of conductive organic molecules on a substrate. When a small electric current is applied, the molecules emit light.
Sony and Samsung have been the leaders in the limited number of products with OLED screens on the market. Sony's CLIÉ PEG-VZ90 in 2004 was the first consumer device to have one. Unfortunately it was a Personal Digital Assistant, and they were driven out of the market by smartphones. Current products include the Sony Walkman X and the Samsung Impression smartphone.
In 2007, Sony became the first company to announce an OLED television for commercial sale. The XEL-1 11-inch OLED Digital Television sells for $2,499.99.
Which brings us to a main reason OLEDs have not seized the market -- they are expensive. It also is early in the process of making television-sized screens. Last year Samsung showed an experimental 40-inch HDTV with an OLED screen, and said that was the biggest it was possible to make. But like LCDs, OLEDs will break through that barrier.
Two products coming out this fall could help boost demand for OLED screens. Microsoft has announced that its Zune HD portable media player will have a 3.3-inch OLED multitouch screen. The Nikon Coolpix S70 camera, launching in September, has a 3.5-inch OLED touchscreen that covers the entire back of the camera
If these devices and others catch on, demand for OLED screens will grow. And as more of them are made, they will begin to get cheaper.
In 2008, Samsung showcased the world's thinnest OLED display, the first to be bendable. It is thinner than paper and a Samsung staff member said it was possible to make the panel even thinner.
This is possible in part because of the way OLED screens are made. OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate material using an inkjet printer or even screen printing technologies. This theoretically should make them ultimately cheaper to produce than other screens and allow large flexible screens.
Think of the possibilities. A room could be lit by its wallpaper. Large screens with video images could be plastered on the sides of buildings. Can you say "Blade Runner"?
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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