‘Very Green,’ Large-Screen OLED TVs ‘On the Horizon,’ Samsung Says

High-volume production of small-screen OLEDs has been viable since late 2008, with yields now higher than 90 percent, Berkeley said. “All of the technologies are falling into place to enable OLED TV, and that’s exciting news, because I remember the days when we were trying to make LCD TVs possible, and now we're going through the same thing, about seven years later.” OLEDs combine the best of both plasma and LCD worlds in that they're “self-emissive, they're active-matrix and they're very green,” Berkeley said. “For all of these reasons, we say that OLEDs are the next big thing for TV."

Citing Universal Display Corp. data, Berkeley said it’s possible a 40-inch phosphorescent-based prototype OLED TV that consumed 40 watts last year “could be down to around 10 watts in about four or five years,” he said. “This is a very significant capability when we talk in terms of green. They're also thinner, so you can fit more of them on a truck and also save transportation costs. For all the power that’s being consumed by these ever-increasing sizes of sets, this is a significant development. The power numbers are going to be higher if you're talking about a 55-inch OLED TV, but this is something to watch."

There are “scale-up requirements” for making large-screen OLED TVs in acceptable yields and “various technologies need to be developed in order to make this possible,” Berkeley said. A big hurdle is making backplanes that will make OLED TVs work, he said. Backplanes hold the active-matrix switches that turn the display’s individual pixels on and off, he said. “They're harder to do” than for LCD TVs because they require “higher-mobility” substrates and “tighter-threshold voltage control,” since, unlike an LCD TV, it’s the amount of current that runs through an OLED TV pixel that determines how bright it should be, he said.

"You cannot just take an LCD backplane, flip a switch one day and suddenly it’s working for OLED,” he said. But the “good news” is that SMD already has perfected OLED-optimized backplanes in a Gen 4 size for mobile phones and portable devices, he said. “So it’s not a matter of proving whether or not this can be done. The real question is what does it take” to go to a larger Gen 7 or Gen 8 sheet for large-screen OLED TV, he said. “That’s what we're working on right now.” SMD is “well along in this process” of fabricating the higher-mobility substrates using laser methods, he said. “I'm very excited to see the progress we are making.”

Another hurdle is the “color patterning” process that needs to be upscaled for larger-screen OLED TVs, Berkeley said. In color patterning, the shadow mask that’s used to deposit the right amount of phosphor on the screen in small-screen OLED applications runs into problems with larger OLED TV screens, he said. “With larger sizes, masks can sag,” and “usage efficiencies” of materials can founder, requiring frequent cleaning of factory equipment and the recycling of materials that otherwise would be lost in production, he said. “So we have to find a better process to address these issues, and I'm happy to report that we have found such a process that will much more cost-effectively and efficiently and rapidly evaporate material onto larger-size OLED screens.” Berkeley said he can’t discuss further details of the breakthrough, but “we're very excited about it.”

DisplaySearch Conference Notebook …

DisplaySearch thinks global 3D TV shipments will grow to 64 million units in 2018, but will become only the second largest consumer 3D product category behind mobile phones, a 71-million-unit market, Jennifer Colegrove, director of display technologies, told the conference Wednesday. DisplaySearch thinks 1.2 million 3D TV sets and 465,000 3D mobile phones will be shipped this year, she said. 3D TV panels will be a $17 billion business in 2018, making it the top 3D panel application, she said. 3D TV panel units will comprise only 0.6 percent of the global TV panel business this year, but will grow to 20.6 percent in 2018, she said.

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Nvidia will announce a major design win with Panasonic in the next few weeks for its 3D Vision technology, Marketing Manager Rambo Jacoby said Wednesday. Panasonic couldn’t be reached for comment by our Wednesday deadline. Nvidia thinks the industry will ship its millionth 3D PC by mid-2011, Jacoby said. 3D-capable PC monitor panels can be sold today for only $25 to $50 more per unit than standard PC panels, he said. Consumers already have shown they're willing to pay premiums up to $200 for a 3D-capable PC display, he said. But despite the demand, the market is limited because there are too few vendors supplying 3D-capable PC panels, he said. “Nvidia wants to get more panel makers developing 3D panels to meet demand,” Jacoby said. The highest demand will be for 15-inch 3D notebook displays sporting 1366x780 resolution, but there’s also “strong desire” for 17-inch 1080p displays, he said.

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Glasses-free, auto-stereoscopic 3D displays have a big future in digital signage, said Tom Zerega, CEO at New York-based Magnetic 3D, which markets them for malls, hotels, airports and other commercial installations. “With the advent of high-definition displays and fast graphics processors and the aid of strategically placed barriers or lenses in front of the display, the interlacing is done at the screen level, thus negating the need for glasses,” Zerega said. “The screen is wearing the glasses so the viewer doesn’t have to.”

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Consumers are buying flat-panel TVs in droves despite the down economy and high unemployment because the TV’s role in the home has changed dramatically, said Scott Birnbaum, vice president of the Samsung LCD business at Samsung SSI, in remarks prepared for delivery late Wednesday at the conference. TVs have been transformed to thin, energy-efficient wall hangings that look like enhanced “windows to the world,” he said. “Consumers are no longer satisfied with a decent picture and a good warranty,” Birnbaum said. “Today, they are looking at TVs as chic liquid-crystal wall displays, Energy-Star-rated pieces of living art, and providers of crystal clear, movie-like viewing experiences.”