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By now we've gotten pretty used to the idea of
incredibly high resolution displays in
tiny amounts of space. I mean the cell phone in your pocket probably packs in as many or possibly more
pixels than the 60 inch TV in your living room.
But the never-ending quest for higher and higher pixel densities stops for absolutely no one.
Which is why Apple has made headlines recently for sinking a ton of money into making its own
micro LEDs. But what are those? And
what's the point when current mobile display tech seems to be serving us just fine?
Well micro LEDs bear a resemblance to the organic LEDs or
OLEDs that have become popular over the
last few years.
Unlike traditional LCD screens, each pixel on an OLED based display can generate its own light.
Meaning that there is no need for a backlight that adds thickness and
can wash the image out or make its colors look uneven. The result is an accurate clear picture with very
deep blacks and contrast ratios that are marketed as
infinite. Not to mention a lower power draw which is key for battery dependent
mobile devices.
OLEDs are great, but they're kind of fatally flawed in a sense because the organic part of the
OLED
refers to carbon-based molecules that deteriorate over time. So the pixels themselves,
especially the ones displaying white, can suffer from
burn-in. As some owners of OLED screens have found if they spend lots of time playing games with static UI elements,
they're not going to be able to keep up.
They're not going to be able to keep up.
Micro LED by contrast uses inorganic materials, specifically gallium nitride, which not only lasts longer than the materials in OLED screens,
but it isn't susceptible to burn-in. Meaning that micro LED offers the benefits of OLED without the common drawbacks.
And it can be made much brighter as well while using less power for the same brightness level.
Micro LED screens,
are also more versatile in that they are easier to manufacture in whatever sizes and
shapes that you want.
Samsung notably demonstrated this at CES 2018 with a
146 inch prototype television that it calls The Wall, made up of smaller
borderless micro LED panels. So in the future, we might finally break through the 65 inch barrier.
You know, where TVs stopped getting bigger because they became
more practical to transport home from the local Best Buy.
I mean, imagine this. Instead of buying a whole new television set because of one patch of dead pixels,
you could just go swap in a new modular panel and get on with your mindless consumption.
So because of all of these benefits, micro LEDs are interesting to more than just the traditional display manufacturers.
So Apple reportedly has a team of engineers working on implementing them into its own devices.
But they'll probably be starting to get more into the technology.
Starting out small with like something like an Apple Watch, being a prime candidate for a finished product with micro LEDs a few years down the road.
A few years down the road? Hold on a minute. This sounds great! Why wait so long?
Good question. The biggest drawback right now is manufacturing complexity.
It takes a long time to put together a micro LED display, as they have to be built one
sub-pixel at a time.
Think about how many of those there would be
on a standard 4k TV.
So as is the case with a lot of cool sounding emerging technologies,
we're going to have to wait a bit before we're all walking around with micro LED gadgets in our pockets.
But since Apple, Samsung, and LG all own multiple patents relating to micro LEDs,
it appears that the giants of the tech world are serious about releasing displays with pixels that don't burn.
Assuming of course that you have money that you can burn.
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