OLED: Next generation display and TV technology

UDC has been awarded a 750K$ contract from the US Air Force, to work on a non-glass, ejection-safe, flexible OLED display prototype for prospective use by pilots in tactical cockpit settings.

The idea is to provide pilots with a replacement for printed maps and checklists typically held on their knees. The pilots will be able to 'wrap' the OLED around a cylinder for easy storage during flight.

UDC are working on their flexible OLED together with L3 and LG Display, and have already shown some wearable (bracelet) prototypes before. The displays are energy efficient, offer full-color video rate and have wireless communications capabilities.

UDC, LG and L3 will deliver four prototypes based on a bright 6” diagonal, full-color, low power consumption PHOLED display on flexible metal foil. These displays will then be wrapped around cylinders containing power supplies and wireless communications electronics.

Junji Kido, a professor from the Yamagata University in Japan has formed a new company, called Organic Lighting, to work on white OLEDs. The company's capital is only about 130,000$ currently, and it was setup in the Yamagata Universit'yes Venture Business Laboratory.

Organic Lighting plans to have equipment on the market by the beginning of 2010. It will not have its own factory. They also have plans for OLED emergency lights for public places. They hope to reach several tens of millions of US$ in revenue by 2014. 

Professor Junji Kido is the inventor of the first white OLED.

Via iStockAnalyst

Samsung has officially announced the SCH-W760, as reported/leaked in May. The phone is able to record infra-red video (Samsung calls it Infrared Video Telephony - IRVT), has a 2.8" WQVGA AMOLED, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 3Mp camera and a microSD slot.

Via SamsungHub

AnalogicTech says it will start making drivers for small AMOLEDs. They claim that they have an innovative power supply waiting in the wings. "An AMOLED needs a positive supply and a negative supply. These need a positive boost converter and a negative boost converter," CEO Richard Williams said. "That's two coils but we are privately sampling a PSU that independently regulates the plus and minus rails from a single coil with a measured efficiency comparable with dual converters."

Gamma correction - this time to compensate for the different characteristics of red, green and blue OLED materials, is another target. 

Via ElectronicsWeekly

Metku.net has posted a comprehensive review of a couple of OLED modules (including a touch one) from 4D Systems. They like the panels, think they are very easy to use, but also notes that these are not the cheapest modules, of course, being OLED.

4D systems OLED touch panel

Metku tested two modules - a 0.96" OLED (µOLED-96-G1), and a 2.4" with Touch (µOLED-32024-P1T), and provide a lot of photos, code example, videos and explanations. 

4D Systems has announced a new serial graphic controller designed for their µOLED and µLCD display panel. The controller provides a simple, flexible and effective, low-cost graphics user interface solution for rapid application development and time-to-market.

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