OLED-TV Display/Monitor Technology News

Organic-Displays are the latest and most promising buzzwords in display technology.
OLED ("Organic light emitting diodes") displays are considered as the screens of the future. Thin organic layers serve these displays as a source of light, which offers significant advantages in relation to conventional technologies:

* brighter and more brilliant picture
* unlimited viewing angle
* low power consumption
* economic production
* fast "response time"

OLED-display.net talked with Prof. Dr. Karl Leo one of the leading OLED researcher about the future of the OLED Technology.

Mr. Prof. Dr. Karl Leo, as introduction perhaps you can give us a short overview about the area of business activity of the IAAP institute (Institute for applied photo physics).

The institute have 70 employees, shared to 2 professors, Prof Lukas Eng an myself. My working group is exclusively engaged in organic semi-conductors.

Which task and duties do you have in the IAPP Institute?
I'm the director of the institute and lead the operations concerning the organic semi-conductor. In my additional business I am still an alternate director of the institute at the Fraunhofer-institute for photonic microsystems which works with organic semi-conductor applications.

At the beginning of 2006, the IAPP institute has reached a milestone. The IAAP has announced a new record value for the lifetime of organic light emitting diode.
Finally it shows the fact that organic components can almost exist "forever" with the right materials and structures which I had disputed few years ago. By the way, Novaled AG has obsolete us in the meantime by the lifetime of red OLED!

There will produce 2 – 2.6 inch in AM-OLED in the year 2007. Can the AMOLEDS compete against LCD technology?
Up to now, the introduction on the market of AM-OLED displays is very hard. I think for many applications it's clear that OLED-displays are the best solution.

At the CES 2007 we saw some impressive examples of AMOLEDs from Samsung-SDI and LG

In order to impact the TV market, AMOLED TVs must be competitively priced with identically sized AMLCD and PDP TVs. In addition, certain milestones must be achieved, such as 40.000 hours of lifetime, a color gamut exceeding 80% of the NTSC standard, a peak luminance higher than 400 nits, a darkroom contrast ratio higher than 5000:1, and no image burn-in after a least 10 days of continous operation.

This issues that must be resolved include the attainment of a TFT threshold-voltage change of less than 0,2 V for the lifetime of the display, the elimination of fine mura, and a brightness uniformity of more than 80%.

To be cost-competitive, AMOLEDS must maintain a production yield comparable to that of AMLCDs, and the TFT backplane should be produced by using a process consisting of four or five photo-masking steps.

With the current pace of innovation and technological development, we anticipate that large-sized AMOLED Tvs will enter the market in about 2-4 years and dominate the TV market in the near future.

Sony is demonstrating two slim TVs that incorporate OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology at CES 2007 in Las Vegas .

The 11- and 27-inch TVs are about 3mm and less than 10mm thin, respectively, according to a company press release. The 27-inch model features a full high-definition (HD) panel while the 11-inch TV is designed with a wide-SVGA panel.

The resolution of the 27-inch OLED TV is 1920x1080, the contrast ratio is greater than 1,000,000:1, brightness : all white 200cd/m2, peak greater than 600cd/m2. Colors - 10 bit RGB.

11" - The resolution is 1024x600, the other technical data like the 27-inch OLED

Sony sees the chance to bring OLED Tv on the market in 2007.

OLED's had the potential to break into many areas (displays, flexible displays, lighting, transparent displays and so on). Which sector is the most important for you and your institute?

We concentrate increasingly on OLED - lighting and organic solar cells. For the first one I will await a large market. Organic solar cells are still far away from the interesting markets, however they have a large potential.

In which area do you expect the breakthrough in the next years?
I think that at least smaller AM-OLED Displays for example at mobile phones will arrive very well at the market. Furthermore I will expect a very good development for OLED-shields and special OLED- lighting practice.
OLED-TV from Sony at CES 2007