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Displays Hardware Technology

Samsung Announces Largest-Ever OLED Display 243

Posted by timothy from the eventually-eventually dept.
kaos.geo writes "Samsung announces a 17" OLED display. The article specifies that they are using a laser to 'print' the display instead of the previous 'spraying' methods." 400 lumens isn't shabby. Update: 05/18 23:49 GMT by T : jhealy writes "Seiko Epson, on the heels and light years ahead of Samsungs announcement earlier today, have announced a 40" OLED monitor. Eat that Samsung!"
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Samsung Announces Largest-Ever OLED Display More

Samsung Announces Largest-Ever OLED Display

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  • Prices? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kid Zero ( 4866 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:23PM (#9190576) Homepage Journal
    Man... we're just getting prices on LCD's down. Now this? Egads.

    Also: Can you game with it? :)

    • yes, you can game with it. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Response time for a typical OLED pixel is... get this... 10 microseconds. That's right; microseconds. Compare that to 12 milliseconds for my (very expensive) TFT monitor.... yeah, you can play games with it ^_^

  • A 17" display, huh? Intriguing. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tuxedo Jack ( 648130 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:23PM (#9190581) Homepage
    400 lumens isn't half bad at all.

    What I'd like to know is how good the contrast is? The monitor's not worth crap if the color isn't decent.

    • Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing. (Score:5, Informative)

      by pbox ( 146337 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:31PM (#9190675) Homepage Journal
      According to OLED rumors, it is excellent (ie. better than anything we have currently) out-of-the-box. However after a year you will notice fading, and in two years it will be worse than LCD.

    • contrast is almost moot (Score:5, Informative)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:35PM (#9190713)
      What I'd like to know is how good the contrast is?

      Contrast isn't an issue, because unlike LCD panels which backlight the whole panel and rely on "hiding" the backlight for "black"(but plenty escapes anyway if the backlight is too bright). On an OLED panel, if a pixel is off, it generates absolutely no light. Theoretical contrast is then essentially infinite; zero:something is infinite. The only remaining issue is how bright "on" is, and that's been specified as 400 lumens.

      What is even better is the resolution. The specified 1600x1200; in a 17" panel, that's quite nice, as previously it was 1280x1024 tops.

      • Re:contrast is almost moot (Score:4, Informative)

        by avalys ( 221114 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:17PM (#9191093)
        The specified 1600x1200; in a 17" panel, that's quite nice, as previously it was 1280x1024 tops.

        That's funny, because there's a 1600x1200 15" panel perched on my lap right now.

        • Re:contrast is almost moot (Score:4, Insightful)

          by magefile ( 776388 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:32PM (#9191225)
          1600x1200 15" panel perched on my lap right now.

          Is it an OLED? Didn't think so. And if it is, WTF are you doing reading /.? Shouldn't you be off doing something only rich people do?
        • Yeah, and I've been trying to buy a dozen standalone 1600x1200 15" LCD monitors for almost two years now.

          Maybe if I cryogenically sleep for a few more years, computer companies will realize some people want that resolution on a DESKTOP.

          • Re:contrast is almost moot (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Would you settle for 17" LCDs that can display UXGA (1600x1200), at $369?
            http://store.yahoo.com/saveateaglestore/del 1717in1 7f.html

        • laptop market yes, desktop market no (Score:5, Informative)

          by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @09:06PM (#9191469)
          That's funny, because there's a 1600x1200 15" panel perched on my lap right now.

          And there's a 1440x960 17" on mine. Aside from the laptop market, it is extremely difficult to find anything other than the following size/resolution combos:

          • 15 inch 1024x768
          • 17 inch 1280x1024
          • 19 inch 1600x1200

          LCD panels have been out for years but this has remained a near constant, while the laptop industry has seen pixel densities skyrocket, with zero crossover to the desktop market.

          • I wish I knew what the problem was with the desktop LCD market. One can get a 14" laptop with a 1400x1050 display, but even then, that resolution is a bit hard to find. And the entire laptop that has this is as think as a 15" display panel. I'd love to have a desktop panel of any diagonal that was less than 1/4" thick and had less than 1/4" of a border on the edge. This CAN be done with an LCD panel, it almost never is for desktops.

            I guess this is kind of moot for me as I am giving up on "desktop" type

      • It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out for (Score:5, Interesting)

        by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @09:06PM (#9191470) Journal
        Since I saw the announcement on TV last night, being in japan and all, i figure i can add some comments from the footage of the actual thing.

        the 40" screen is damn thin. i mean, it must have been maybe 2cm. it was amazingly sexy in that regard.

        however, upon closer inspection of the screen (the camera-crew took the pains to zoom in onto the screen), there are alignment issues between pixel blocks of the screen and there are dead pixels. What i am guessing is that to get the 40" they created blocks of pixels at a time, and at the edges there are visible chasms maybe 30% pixel width.

        I am not sure about the dead pixel.

        anyway it's impressive but the immaturity of the technology really shows.

      • Re:contrast is almost moot (Score:5, Insightful)

        by njh ( 24312 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @09:41PM (#9191705) Homepage
        The contrast can't be infinite unless the off LEDs reflect no light either. Otherwise the contrast of printed paper would be 0 (no light emitted for either black or white).
    • I'd like to see a comparison in brightness to a decent CRT to get a feel for what "400 lumens" means. It does seem pretty good though, but this is in comparison with projectors that need to be used in the dark to get a decent sized picture.

      All devices have a limited lifetime, LCDs are limited by the flourescent sidelight bulb, CRTs and plasmas do fade over time, but the difference is that all the colors fade at a similar rate, which I think is more noticible than an overall brightness fade. I'd call it p
  • I am still waiting for the prices of LCD monitors to drop to make it worth the switch from my trusted CRT. Based on what I have seen with the progression of LCDs into the mainstream it will take at least 5 years for something like this to become affordable. By then we will have 3D displays slowly hitting the market.

    • By then you'll be saying, "I am still waiting for 3D displays to drop to make it work the switch from my trusted CRT." ;) The space savings alone were worth the $1100 for three 17" LCDs to replace three 19" CRTs, not to mention the drop in the power bill. It's also a lot more comfortable in the summer. The switch to OLED, however, will be a harder sell. Right now these guys hold up nicely for editing video and for the occasional gaming marathon (although only one is used when I'm getting pummeled at CS). In

  • Decay problems.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by VMaN ( 164134 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:24PM (#9190594) Homepage
    But are the problems of decaying OLEDs fixed now? the first ones only lasted a couple of years if I remember correctly.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • But are the problems of decaying OLEDs fixed now? the first ones only lasted a couple of years if I remember correctly.

      If they get cheap enough, and there's a reasonable recycling program, who cares? Why not consider the optical component a consumable? So long as the initial purchase price plus the cost of a few replacement optical units is less than the purchase price of competing technologies, the consumer wins.

      The only problem with this is that it potentially opens up a whole new product to the "ra

    • The parent is not interesting, I think he is being funny. At least I was under the impression that OLED's dont decay anymore than plastic carry bags(which are organic too) from your supermarket do. The organic in OLEDs is not the same as organic in organic food. It refers to the CH covalent bonds. Correct me if I am talking rubbish (Its been a long time since high school organic chemistry)

  • That might be nice... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LeBlanc_Joey ( 756213 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:25PM (#9190603)
    for laptops, if there are power savings.

  • How good is this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by coupland ( 160334 ) * <dchase@hotmailCHEETAH.com minus cat> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:27PM (#9190620) Journal

    Can anyone shed some light on exactly how noteworthy this is? What is a rough figure for expected brightness (in lumens) from an LCD? How big a deal is 400 lumens for a first-generation consumer product? Are the advantages of OLED primarily brightness and power consumption, or are there image quality advantages as well?

    Thanks in advance to any OLED gurus who feel like sharing their knowledge. This is an exciting field but a lot of us are still trying to get up to speed on it...

    • Re:How good is this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:47PM (#9190847)
      LCDs are now starting to get crazily, blindingly bright--in an attempt to jack contrast ratios up over 500:1. Contrast ratio is important, but since backlit LCDs can't display black, the darkest black isn't that dark and that's static. So the only thing left to do is crank up the bright end.

      OLEDs on the other hand can actually display black, therefore they can have a higher contrast ratio without being so bright. The net effect is that they are nicer to look at.

      Also, some would say that it's easier to make bigger OLED displays than LCD displays. I don't know about that. 1600x1200 isn't very common for desktop LCDs, but I've seen it available in laptops for years now.

      Frankly for most people it's a minor change. It's definitely a _potential_ improvement though.

    • Re:How good is this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:54PM (#9190903) Homepage
      One big advantage that I would expect OLED's to have over LCD's that no one has been talking about is refresh rate.
      Unlike LCD's, OLED's don't rely on a structural transformation of the molecules in the display to shift a pixel from one state to the next.
      This should mean that the pixels can switch from "on" to "off" much faster, hopefully fast enough for the screen to be used for gaming.

      • Re:How good is this? (Score:5, Informative)

        by anethema ( 99553 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:38PM (#9191270) Homepage
        What do you mean no one talks about it? That's one of the main advantages of OLED over LCD that everyone mentions when the OLED topic comes up is its ability to change state from on to off MUCH faster.

        Yes it will be useful for gaming. OLED delays are measured in microseconds, not milliseconds.

        Also, the contrast ratio of OLED displays are MUCH better than LCD, which are still piss-poor at best.

        LCD almost has the display angle problems licked, usually on the more expensive monitors. What's good about OLED is this isn't even an issue. Like CRT, you can turn it however you want.

        While LCD power consumption IS low...OLED is even lower than backlit LCD.

        And then there is cost. OLED screens are just printed on. With inkjet tech usually, although it's laser in this case. There is no high voltage circuitry necessary for fluorescent backlighting, no tubes, no expensive-to-produce LCD panel. Sure the initial costs of OLED might be high to justify the r&d, but the cost to produce an OLED screen is a fraction of that of LCD.

    • Re:How good is this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by aggiefalcon01 ( 730238 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:24PM (#9191151)
      Here's another advantage of OLED's: flexibility. The displacy surface can easily be bent, flexed, and straightened. Or, it can be attached to a round surface.

      Think of a device which you pull apart while the display surface unrolls out of the larger half as you're pulling it out (like older window shades). Hollywood showed us this device in the movie Red Planet. True, just the possibility of this is a long way off, but OLED's are a step in this direction.

      GearBits has a cool animation of a pen [gearbits.com] using this technology.

  • But wait... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bobhagopian ( 681765 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:27PM (#9190622)
    The article says "To date, however, problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use to mobile devices and backlights." But it does not say that these problems have been completely eliminated. I'd be wary of buying a $2000 display with a lifetime of seventeen minutes.

  • 400 Lumens? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:27PM (#9190628) Homepage Journal
    I've got a Samsung Syncmaster 172t (250cd/m2) and it's more than bright enough on the lowest setting. Maybe if you like to watch video with the sun hitting the screen this would be fine.

    For a computer monitor it's serious overkill. I can't seem to turn the brightness down enough so have to work with a light on to avoid headaches.

  • Enviromental Impact (Score:3, Funny)

    by Frigid Monkey ( 411257 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:28PM (#9190640) Homepage Journal
    Organic LEDs are luminescent plastic semiconductors with the theoretical potential to replace LCDs, CRTs and other display technologies through greater efficiency, easier production, more physical flexibility and lower cost.

    Are there any environmental changes with these monitors, personally I always make an effort to shop greener and if I could avoid purchasing a CRT in favor of something that would biodegrade nicely well WOO HOOO! I'd be making planters out of my old monitors.

    On the other hand: MONITOR MOLD

  • Inconsistent Color Lifetimes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBoffin ( 259181 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:29PM (#9190650) Homepage
    Nice as it would be to have one of these, it will be a few years before they are worth buying. One major drawback is that the green component of these screens have a shorter lifetime than the red and blue, not to mention an overall shorter lifetime than LCD's. The early LCD's were not so bad, even with a shorter lifetime, because all three colors decayed at relatively the same rate. With OLED's having a shorter lifetime for green, the color drift will be much more dramatic.
    • Can't this simply be corrected via software? Just decay the other colors as well to keep the color calibration the same.

    • Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes (Score:5, Informative)

      by stryck9 ( 670369 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:18PM (#9191099)
      Actually, it is the blue that decays the fastest. Red and green are about the same.

    • Color lifetimes not as big a problem... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Svartalf ( 2997 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @11:45PM (#9192429) Homepage
      ...as you'd think.

      As others have pointed out, it's BLUE that fades fastest. But, what everyone has missed in this discussion is that CCFL backlight lifespan, the lifetime for the backlighting used by LCD monitors isn't much better than the blue OLED material. Average lifespan for a CCFL tube is something on the order of 10-15k hours (uh, the average lifespan for the blue OLED material is 10k hours...) and the premium tubes tend to have about 30k hours of lifespan- and you're not likely to see the premium tubes in most applications.

      To put this all in perspective:

      (OLEDs)
      24 hours in a day.
      10k hours of average usable continuous runtime.
      416 days of average usable continuous runtime.
      1.14 years of average usable continuous runtime.

      (CCFL backlit LCDs)
      24 hours in a day.
      10-15k hours of average usable continuous runtime.
      416-625 days of average usable continuous runtime.
      1.14-1.71 years of average usable continuous runtime.

      The low-end is more likely than the high-end on LCDs based on my personal experience. Without cut-off, etc. your LCD panel will be effectively dying or dead within about 12-14 months, just like an OLED display panel. If the cost of an OLED display is dirt cheap, which one do you think will win out.

  • pffft (Score:4, Funny)

    by fresh27 ( 736896 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:29PM (#9190651) Homepage
    400 lumens is nothing. i have a raid array of lightbulbs thatll beat this amateur in any benchmark.

    • Re:pffft (Score:2, Funny)

      by LaBlueCow ( 768184 )
      Not to nitpick, but wouldn't an array of lightbulbs be a RAIL, not a RAID?
      On a completely off topic topic... RAIRRA... - redundant array of infinitely recursive redundant arrays of ...

    • Re:pffft (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:46PM (#9190836)
      i have a raid array of lightbulbs

      I think that would be a RAIL. :-P

      But, seriously, you bring up a good point, although inadvertently.

      Organic LED displays essentially have a little lightbulb (LED, actually) for each subpixel, so it is an "AIL" (Array of Inexpensive LEDs). But there is no redundancy. If one dies, you lose that pixel forever. LEDs have a limited lifetime, but it's far longer than the regular lightbulb that you joke about. A normal LED has a lifetime of around 100,000 hours for monochromatic chips (a bit over ten years of continuous use), but there is a Gaussian distribution around that. When you are talking about a 1600x1200 display, with 5,760,000 individiual subpixels, you're going to see some failures within a few years, guaranteed. And once they flake out, there's no realistic way to repair them.

      LCDs, by contrast, are illuminated by one or two cold-cathode tubes with a shiny surface behind the display to distribute the light evenly, which goes through the LCD panel and out to your eyes. The LCD subpixels do not die over time, but sometimes are defective originally in the LCD matrix (thus giving you dead or stuck pixels). The best cold cathode tubes used LCDs have lifetimes of around 30,000 hours of continuous use (about 3.5 years), although they can theoretically be replaced when they fail. However, this is not typically done (except under warranty) because they are not of standard designs. (You can't just go to CompUSA and pick up a replacement cold cathode tube for your LCD.)

      The real upshot of all of this is that no matter which fancy flat-panel display you get, turn it off when you aren't using it. :-)
      • Dead pixels are a concern, but you know what? TFT LCD panels suffer from dead pixels too. As do most digital cameras, even nice ones. When it's an input device like a camera the DSP can detect that there is a dead pixel and interpolate but on an output device you're stuck with it (but I find my eyes eventually learn to ignore the dead pixel). That being said, I'm really looking forward to this technology being commonplace. Wearable computing could benefit, because right now the only low-power high-cont

      • Re:pffft (Score:2, Informative)

        by capricious23 ( 447345 )
        Actually when OLEDs die, they don't simply stop working. The voltage at which they turn on begins to shift higher over time. With the right active matrix circuitry, you can compensate for this and extend the lifetime of the device.

  • Missing poins? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zinic ( 780666 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:30PM (#9190658)
    I think that people are missing the relevance of new OLED advancements. Although maybe not suited to desktop and laptop environments OLED remains an extremely elegant solution to a whole slew of other devices. MP3...PDA...etc... Think of having a pen that could double as a PDA with a nice hi res, low power, display that doesn't strain the eyes.

    • Re:Missing poins? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jnik ( 1733 )
      I'm not sure how a 17" display would be relevant to MP3 or PDA devices. Nor, on the other end, how a display small enough to fit on a pen would be of much use.

      The whole point of this announcement is BIG. BIG means CRT and LCD replacement. I can see more use for a 17" OLED in, say, one of the much-reviled net-enabled refrigerators or similar devices where a large screen and low duty cycle is required.
    • Think of having a pen that could double as a PDA with a nice hi res, low power, display that doesn't strain the eyes.

      Then think of losing that PDA, because it's the size of a PEN.

    • Think of having a pen that could double as a PDA with a nice hi res, low power, display that doesn't strain the eyes.

      I really hope you're talking about making flexible "roll up" screens using OLED technology (which could be done, theoretically). How would a display the size of a pen, no matter what the resolution, NOT strain your eyes?

    • Re:Missing poins? (Score:2, Informative)

      by DeltaSigma ( 583342 )
      You're thinking of FOLEDs [universaldisplay.com] and SOLEDs [universaldisplay.com].
      Flexible Organic LEDs, and Stacked Organic LEDs.

      FOLEDs use the nature of Organic LEDs to make a more versatile viewing surface. One that can be rolled and contorted as much as, say, a thin sheet of plastic. I do not, however, reccomend trying to bend it.

      SOLEDs use the transparency of Organic LEDs to stack red green and blue on top of each other. This gives every single pixel the entire range of color, thereby tripling the resolution for any given display surface. W

  • Competition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by manitoulinnerd ( 750941 ) <joel@brun[ ]i.xyz ['ett' in gap]> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:33PM (#9190689)
    I realize that existing LCD technology is expensive to produce but if im lucky the impending obsolescence of the LCD will drive prices down to where I can afford them. The OLED is amazing though. When you think of all of the possibilities, not just for displays. Think glowing wallpaper, hell it could even display images. Of course this is all dependent on an extreme price drop but the term "computer desk" could have quite a different meaning.

  • Epson 40" (Score:3, Informative)

    by mattlamb ( 150678 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:35PM (#9190712) Homepage
    Epson wins again... here is the cutline from a photo on the wire service.

    JAPAN EPSON TOPIX
    A model displays a prototype of Epson's new OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display in Tokyo Tuesday, May 18, 2004. The maker claims it's the world's largest (40-inch) full-color organic display. Using the printer maker's inkjet technology, the self-luminescent OLED offers high contrast, wide viewing angle, and fast response. The company is thus gearing up towards commercialization in 2007. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)
    • While the Epson is physically larger, the resolution (around 1280x1024 I think) is not as high as the Samsung (1600x1200), and Epson says they want to make a TV of it.

      The largeness of the Epson is impressive, but I'd say the resolution of the Samsung is equally so...

      Not being familar with OLED stuff, I'm not sure if they would both support similar refresh rates or not (or if that matters in the same way).

    • Re:Epson 40" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RedWizzard ( 192002 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:06PM (#9191024)
      Epson wins again...
      Seiko Epson's 40" is a prototype, with commercialization (ie production) expected in 2007. Seiko have not said what the actual production size or resolution will be. Samsung's 17" is also a prototype, but is much closer to production. Size, resolution, and other specifications are already determined and you will be able to buy it next year. the Seiko product is much more vapourous so I give this round to Samsung.

  • Not quite the largest... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Samah ( 729132 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:37PM (#9190743)
    Don't know if anyone noticed the "feedback" bit at the bottom, but there's a link to another review on the Seiko Epson 40" OLED display.

    http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/newswi re/2004/05/18/rtr1374939.html [forbes.com]

  • no surprise (Score:5, Funny)

    by moviepig.com ( 745183 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:39PM (#9190764)
    [The organic units] problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use...

    Indeed, those are long-standing problems with us organic units, too.

    (Well, production hasn't been such a problem, I guess...)

    • I'd say production is a problem. It takes 9 months to produce one unit no matter how advanced technology gets or how many resources you throw at the problem.

  • Finally a decent resolution... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by httpamphibio.us ( 579491 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:44PM (#9190811)
    1600x1200 on a 17" is more like it.

    I've always wondered why I could buy an entire laptop for less than what it would cost to buy a standalone LCD. For example, my laptop has a 1920x1200 15.4" widescreen display and I paid $950 for it. If you could find a standalone display with those specs (which you can't... or at least not the last time I checked) it would cost a couple grand.

    Let's hope this is the beginning of high quality displays with high resolutions, and keep our fingers crossed about the price. :)
    • 1600x1200 on a 17" is more like it.

      that's overkill, everything is too small, 1024 is a "good" resolution for 17", 1152 is okay too but i wouldn't use it

      if you want 1600x1200, you are looking at at least a 21" monitor
      • 1600x1200 has been looking VERY nice on my 15" Thinkpad that I purchased 2.5yrs ago. Perhaps that size is just too small for your vision, but for me, it's perfect. At 17", I think I would start seeing pixels again (something which I'd rather not happen).

      • Actually... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Junta ( 36770 )
        I have a 15" laptop at 1600x1200, and it is great. The key is that X is configured to know the DPI and the fonts are rendered with much more definition (crisper lines, smoother curves).

        3D games are another area where high resolution can lead to a smoother experience, so long as the game has little raster-font content.

        Combine this with a more and more vector based interface, and you get a lot more flexibility. High resolution small displays no longer have to mean unreadable, they can mean much higher qua
      • Good god man, you must consider a 15" 640x480 to be "good"? 1280x1024 is *lowest* I can stand using on a 17" monitor, and really prefer having 1600x1200. Some of us really need the screen real estate and have eyes that are good enough that it's not a problem. Just because you need a low res to be able to see doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. :)
      • If things get smaller when your display's dpi increases, that's a failing of your software. Resolution and physical size of displayed objects should vary completely independently.

  • Luminant Green (Score:5, Funny)

    by Digitus1337 ( 671442 ) <lk_digitus@h[ ]ail.com ['otm' in gap]> on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:49PM (#9190862) Homepage
    Active matrix organic light emitting diode displays... ARE MADE OF PEOPLE!

  • Solution to "lifetime" problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:55PM (#9190922) Journal
    Now that these things can be printed, make the screen area itself modular, and sell the modules for cheap, way less than $100. Sell the rest of the monitor (body, power supply, connectors, DVI electronics, etc) for a normal monitor price.

    Then, every 2-3 years, when most people upgrade anyway, they can pop out the now-funky-colored screen module, pop in a replacement, and get back to fragging little OLED-sharpened nazis.

  • Organic PORN! (Score:5, Funny)

    by niko9 ( 315647 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @07:58PM (#9190950)
    Oh wait, most of the geeks here already have organic material sprayd on their monitors. Never mind, false alarm!

  • nice document on OLED displays (Score:5, Informative)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:00PM (#9190968) Homepage Journal
    Doing a quick search on google I found this [ieee.org]

    Shows a lot of useful information regarding OLED screens.

  • Best personal solution. (Score:3, Informative)

    by niko9 ( 315647 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:01PM (#9190976)
    Got tired of waiting for the perfect monitor, if there will ever be such a thing, and resorted to having a CRT and and LCD on the desk. The CRT is my gaming monitor, the LCD for everything else.

  • Eat what Samsung? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Traa ( 158207 ) * on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:06PM (#9191027) Homepage Journal
    The Samsung OLED is a working prototype of a 17" computer display running at 1600x1200. Product launch will be next year.

    The Seiko Epson is only an anouncment about a 40" TV display that will be productized for 2007 (marketing speak for..."our engineers just laughed at us so we made up some numbers").

  • But this stuff is already organic (Score:3, Funny)

    by dabisa ( 595285 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:17PM (#9191086)
    Why would they even try to make a monitor out of that fake fat stuff. It was bad enoug that they put in the potato chips. If this thing over heats it will just be a big puddle on you desk.

  • Why not use a printing press? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:26PM (#9191169) Journal
    So Samsung is using a laser to print them one-by-one, and Seiko Epson is using ink jet printers ditto.

    An OLED screen is just a sheet of substrate with various inks on it.

    Why don't they just use a rotary printing press?

    Think "newspaper".

    Print screens as much as, say, 40 feet tall, by as long as you like, with the connectors for the modular electronics occurring periodically.

    At, say, 50 MPH. Until that enormous roll of substrate is exhausted - then thread in another.

    On their way out of the press just slit them into strips (i.e. five 8-foot strips for wallpaper), chop them into convenient lengths, and stack them up into bales.

    Print the LEDs right up to the cut lines so you can tile a large surface if you want. Or leave a margin for making connections to a one-sided screen print job. (You might even be able to fold the edge over to get the connector onto the back and thus get even one-sided screens to butt together for tiling.)

    (Of course you'd have to use different masters for some screen sizes, so the cut lines would occur at convenient places.)

    Drop a sheet into a "monitor" picture-frame, with the electronics connecting via contact fingers. Or mount driver chips on the back (to the printed power and signal wiring) if you want to paste 'em up on a wall - and apply power and signal under the baseboard.

    You should be able to manufacture replacable sheets for a monitor for a couple bucks. The drive electronics is nothing special. Maybe $25 manufacturing cost for a wall-mount high-res HDTV monitor.

    Sell it for a hundred or two, and replacement screens for twenty, and I'd buy several (and a stack of spare screens) even if I'd have to replace the screen a couple times a year. B-)

    • Re:Why not use a printing press? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ateryx ( 682778 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @09:18PM (#9191561)
      Why don't they just use a rotary printing press?


      Unfortunately I believe its a touch more complicated. PC Mag notes [pcmag.com] because of the sensitivity of the materials in the process "this calls for a more complex fabrication process. Also, any exposure to air or moisture destroys OLEDs, so the materials must be perfectly sealed."

      Applied Films I think explains [appliedfilms.com] the problem best:

      The deposition of the organic layers itself is critical too, because of the sensitivity of the material (e.g., high temperature, incorporation of dust and dirt). The high price of the coating material also makes high material utilization a priority.


      Not that it matters but IAMICE (majoring in chemical engineering)

  • Power Consumption? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LionMage ( 318500 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @08:41PM (#9191303) Homepage
    The Samsung press release states:
    It will consume no more power than a 15" display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said.
    But what kind of a 15" display are they comparing against? A 15" LCD display? Hopefully they're not comparing against a 15" CRT display!

    Ideally, OLED displays should be significantly less power-hungry than LCD displays by virtue of not requiring a backlight.

    Personally, I'm looking forward to bypassing the LCD and plasma "revolution," and going straight from CRT to OLED technology for the displays in my home. Considering the heat put out by plasma televisions, and the fact that I live in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona, my air conditioning system will thank me for the transition. And it'll be nice to have a display with a small desktop footprint for my G5 which is also adequate for gaming (and if the color gamut is good, it'll be adequate for Photoshop work too).

  • Display with no edge trim? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by j1m+5n0w ( 749199 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @09:00PM (#9191418) Homepage Journal

    I'd be interested in panel displays with no trim on the side so they could be placed adjacent to each other for a larger screen. Does anyone know if that's possible with current technology, or if anyone makes that now? (Okay, okay, what I really want is something I can roll up like a poster, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.)

    -jim

  • Using OLED display now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ctrif ( 219493 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @09:59PM (#9191829)
    I'm using an OLED display now on my Kodak LS633 camera [kodak.com]

    The display is amazing. The camera turns heads as people ask about the large bright screen and the vibrant colours. I can hold it at virtually any angle or up high over a crowd and still see what I'm shooting.

    I don't understand why Kodak doesn't release more cameras with the same display. I think the LS633 was only available in Australia?

    Can't wait for TV size screens :)

  • 40" is great and all, but while Epson plans to have their OLED out in 2007 (according to the linked article), Samsung is claiming we'll see their OLED next YEAR. 2005. Two years ahead of Epson.

    Now, if Samsung can have a 17" OLED on the market by 2005, I'm sure by 2007 they'll have refined the technology enough to make a 40" OLED, and a better one than epson at that. Samson has the head start here, not Epson. Epson is just trying to steal some of Samsung's thunder by announcing a far-off technology to compe

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