What are OLED Displays?

Organic Light Emitting Diodes are the new generation LEDs that are made up of organic compounds. Organic compounds are printed on to suitable surfaces in rows & columns and when electricity is passed through it, they emit light energy. This property of OLEDs are used in OLED displays. Since OLED displays can produce better picture and uses lower energy, this technology is promising to be the sustaining display technology of the future.

What are the advantages of OLEDs? 

- No Backlight
LCDs displays require a back light(A Background Light) to efficiently produce colours. Hence the important portion of supplied energy are used for backlight. OLEDs don’t need backlights and hence the power usage is substantially lower compared to LCDs.

- Black is Real Black
As the result of backlights, LCDs could not produce perfect black and it has somewhat affected viewing pleasure. In OLEDs, when there its black, each pixel is turned off and as a result, you will see true black. This also reduces energy usage.

- High Contrast Ratio
Contrast ratio is the ratio of the luminosity of the brightest colour (white) to black. As OLEDs can produce true black, they have contrast ratio about 1 million : 1. Higher the contrast ratio means, better, richer images.

- Accurate Colour Reproduction
Because of lack of intervention of back lights, each pixel on OLED displays can produce accurate colours. It is also observed that OLED displays produces equal quality images even at a viewing angle of 90 degrees. LCDs cannot show accurate colour beyond certain angle.

- Easy to Produce & Can Create Flexible Displays
As organic semiconductor compounds can be printed on special surfaces, the technology can produce flexible sheet like displays based on OLEDs. Hence the technology can be used on various new kind of products.

- Faster Response Time
OLEDs have response time in 0.01ms compared to 8-12ms in LCDs. This means you don’t see corrupt images when you watch fast moving sports or movies.

What are the OLED display disadvantages? 

- Limited Life Time of Organic Compounds 

The organic semi conductor compounds may decay and hence the life of the display is around 5000 hours compared to 60000 hrs of LCDs. Researches are being conducted and newer organic compounds can live upto 80000 hrs. Hence in future, it is quite possible to see OLED displays that has more life than LCDs.

 - Water Can be A Problem

Being organic means the moisture can accelerate decay process. Hence OLED displays need to be sealed well to prevent any moisture intervention.

- Patent Belongs to Eastman Kodak Company

The OLED technology patent belongs to Kodak company. This means every OLED display manufacture has to buy a license to use this technology. Fortunately patent’s don’t last for several years. Hence when the time period of patent is over, manufactures can produce as many OLED devices they wish.

Recent Developments 

Sony Electronics has recently produced a high resolution small screen OLED display. They expect to start selling these displays from December 2007. More about this display in later posts.