Making consumer OLED screens hasn't been easy. Sure, pocketable gadgets like the upcoming Zune HD have had them for a couple years now, but so far Sony has been the only company to get a screen on the market with a size in the double digits.
A seven-layer screen—-as thin as a credit card—-will be better-looking and more efficient than LCD and plasma
By Darren MurphPosted 03.26.2009 at 3:01 pm14 Comments
Q: What is OLED?
A: OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, is a display technology using man-made, carbon-based molecules that emit light when charged with electricity.
Q: How thick are OLEDs?
A: The latest prototypes are as thin as a credit card (0.3 millimeter), because OLED pixels produce their own light, with nothing behind the screen. LCDs need a fluorescent or LED lamp to illuminate the pixels, and plasmas need compartments of electrically charged gas.
Samsung is Korea's largest single corporation, and they have one of the largest booths here at CES. Aside from a bevy of new TVs and a ton of Wi-Max Asia-only mobile phones, Samsung packed in a few other interesting tidbits. Here are a handful that caught our eye.
By Sean CaptainPosted 01.06.2008 at 2:00 pm0 Comments
A body-image crisis for televisions
Think a flat-panel LCD or plasma set is slender? Think again. Its time to replace your 4-inch-thick porker with a new model measuring under a deuce.
Following on Hitachi, which introduced 1.5-inch panels in the fall, JVC is introducing its own waifs here at CES. JVC also gets down to 1.5 inches (at its skinniest part, bulging to 2.9 inches in the center). JVC launched two screen sizes: slim 42 and 46 inches (pricing not set).
Triming the sets involved some radical re-working of their innards, as we describe in an article from our upcoming February issue. But now that its been done, expect other companies to follow. (Actually, you can expect another announcement in a few hours.)
By Sean CaptainPosted 10.02.2007 at 3:21 pm0 Comments
Companies compete for the thinnest screens
At the CEATEC show near Tokyo—as at other tech shows lately—flat panel TVs are the stars. And like so many of the Hollywood stars, the sets here are unnervingly skinny.
Several companies are pushing the thinness of their LCD panels. But a few are going to the extreme. LCD giant Sharp was showing off a mysterious prototype—first displayed in August—that measures fifty-two inches diagonally but just 0.79 inches thick. (That’s slimmer than many pocket cameras.) How did Sharp do it? They won’t say. But they do admit the big secret is in the backlight that illuminates the LCD panel from behind.
Hitachi had a similar story. It debuted its own anorexic LCDs – these measuring 32 inches diagonally and a waifish .75 inches thick. Hitachi also declined to name the secret sauce. But unlike Sharp, it did say when the sets will be for sale: 2009 in both Japan and the US.
Despite Sharp’s and Hitachi’s reticence, the technology behind the sets is no mystery, according to analyst Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group. He’s pretty sure the sets use ultra-small "nano" or "pico" light-emitting diodes for the backlight. LEDs have appeared in high-end sets from Sony, Samsung, and LG, that aren’t any skinnier than sets with fluorescent backlights. But new LEDs are extremely thin.
Sony, on the other hand, was happy to talk about how its wafer-thin sets work. After a lot of talk and prototype demonstrations, it finally introduced the XEL-1, the world’s first TV using organic light-emitting diodes. Unlike LCDs, OLED TVs don’t need a light behind the panel, because panel itself is made of fluorescent organic materials. That allows OLEDs to far out-do even the skinniest LCDs. Sony’s set measures a hard-to-believe 0.12 inches thick. However, it’s also only 11 inches on the diagonal. One measurement is quite big, though: A price of 200,000 Yen ($1,726) when it goes on sale this December in Japan.—Sean Captain
In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.
