Sony Begins OLED Mass Production 193
Dodger73 writes "According to their press release at sony.net, Sony beings mass production of full color OLED displays at 3.8" size for their Clie PEG-VZ90 'Personal Entertainment Handheld.' The press release claims, that their 'Super Top Emission' technology reaches 150cd/m^2; at the familiar 1000:1 contrast ratio.
Not quite the 19" display I'd like for my computer at home, but definitely a step in the right direction."
2nd september, Opto OLED's (Score:5, Interesting)
"The company said that the panel has the highest resolution among all current OLED panels"
Perhaps OLEDs will lead to 300dpi displays, or at least 160dpi. ~72 just don't cut it.
OLED power consumption (Score:5, Interesting)
Otherwise, the sharper contrast/light quality is nice, but no thank you.
It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if we can only get the price down enough to make such trivial applications a reality.
Clie? (Score:4, Interesting)
PSP bound? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OLED power consumption (Score:2, Interesting)
Didn't Kodak introduce an OLED display ? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm glad to see Sony utilizing this technology. Now I just have to wait for the eventual OLED gameboy
Took Longer Then I expected (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems I've been hearing about this technology for years. Does anyone know what Technical road blocks may have been keeping it from entering full blown industrial production for so long? Or maybe this is just the normal gestation period of a new technology?
Re:OLED power consumption (Score:3, Interesting)
Response time (Score:3, Interesting)
Working temperatures? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, if they came in the right size I'd put them in my KARR (yes the one from Knight Rider) once it's finished.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your best customers aren't necessarily the ones with the most money, or even the ones with the greatest need. They're the ones who are willing to pay the most money for things you're good at. Looked at this way, in Japan, there are tons of people who will pay top dollar for sophisticated, cutting edge technology in a small package. In the US, being a gadget freak makes you a -- freak. Look at the phones people use! Look at the networks! The height of technological sophistication among well heeled US executives is a Blackberry, nothing against RIM or anything, it's a nice device, but nothing very astounding.
So, the size of the early adopter market in the US is actually much smaller. Sony can have a pretty sure hit in Japan among the early adopters without the extra investment in marketing and production that seriously targetting the pragmatist segment would require. Once the kinks are worked out and the production costs are trimmed, then they can consider introducing something for the pragmatists at a lower cost, or more likely licensing their technology to somebody geared up for that particular headache.
I really wish I'd learned that lesson in software marketing.
Re:150 cd/m2 is pretty dim (Score:3, Interesting)
(...)
So that was 5 years ago."
I hate to point out that five years ago it was 1999 and we did not have Windows 2000 - let alone XP.
Also, the good quality of a high-end, probably insanely expensive TFT does not mean much about the stuff we have to use in our lives - for example, the TFT in my Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook has very sucky viewing angles.
CRTs DO do 10 bit colour! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course you need a good probe to know read the CRT- and that means something like the SLS9400, which retailed around 5K at last recall. And you can't ever shut the monitor off, it has to be on ALL the time.
And of course you need a specialized interface for Windows, because windows simply chokes on anything other than 8 bit. Certain cards, like the Dome boards (10 bit BW) are great. Others actually have internal 10 bit ramdacs but don't allow driver access to them. Such a pity.
The underlying subsystem is broken for windows which will limit everyone to 8 bits for years to come.
Never mind that CRT manufactures are calling daily to say they're discontinuing this model, that model... sigh.
(and you need 8 bit to 10 bit internal to avoid banding/quantitizaiton errors after calibrating...)
AMOLED's suffer from terrible burn-in (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at the last SID convention, talking to one of the experts on this stuff from IBM, and I ignorantly commented on how I was looking forward to OLED displays because of the contrast ratio. He explained to me that OLED displays suffer from burn-in worse than any CRT.
Until the recent past, the lifetime of OLED displays has been measured in months. Apparently, what happens is that for each pixel, the junction between the electrodes and the organic diode decays over time (relative to the amount of charge that has gone through it), increasing resistance. At first, this just dims the LED, until the resistance gets so high that you can't meet threshold voltage for the diode, and it stops working entirely.
As I'm sure you can imagine, medical displays can't afford to have any non-uniformity. But given that medical images are non-uniform by nature, non-uniform burn-in will occur, making the xray or MRI image look different, depending on its placement on the screen. The point is that I'm sure you won't appreciate having your monitor suffer non-uniform burn-in, even IF what you're displaying can't affect someone's health.
(The advantage with LCD's is that the liquid crystal doesn't decay, and the only things that do break down are the fluorescent back-lights, and that decay is relatively uniform.)
As I'm sure is the case with everyone else, I look forward to the day when OLED decay is practically non-existant. The problem is that the progress is incredibly slow. LCD's been around for a LONG time, yet it's still far from perfect. OLED will require just as much time to get as good, which means it'll be decades before it catches up. Meanwhile, LCD's will continue to get better.
Re:For those of you who don't yet know... (Score:2, Interesting)
A good CRT still produces the best image quality, and can be had for about the same price as an LCD of equivalent dimensions. The image quality of a low end CRT does not even compare with an LCD, although they are much cheaper.
The glare is less on an LCD because it produces more light, and is therefore not affected as much by ambient light sources. Most good CRTs do have a fairly effective anti-glare coating, although they are not perfect. A polarizing screen filter will eliminate glare almost completely (although my personal solution is to keep the lights off.)
The OLEDs are better than anything currently on the market. They beat LCDs and CRTs in every way that matters. The image quality is excellent, and they can be run at low brightness levels without sacrificing image quality. Kodak (who owns the patents on most of the OLED technology) really made a breakthrough in display technology with these. I look forward to getting one to replace my (fairly new) CRT.
I thought Sony wasn't making OLEDs this year... (Score:2, Interesting)