Nano-LED, mini-LED, Billy Jean.
There's a veritable plethora of display types out there with names just like those, at least some of them.
Unfortunately, there's a new one to keep track of called Micro OLED, not to be confused with Micro-LED.
And it's been stealing headlines recently because it's the technology featured
in Apple's new Vision Pro VR headset.
That's not what they would call it, but they're not here right now. The main difference between Micro OLED
and the traditional OLED that might be powering your TV is that as the name suggests,
the Micro OLED pixels are much smaller.
Think iMac versus iPod, shuffle.
Apple is promising beyond 4K resolution for each eye in its new headset.
And considering most full-sized OLED TVs are a lower resolution,
you need some serious pixel density. Micro OLED pulls this off by using silicon wafers
as a substrate, as opposed to the glass substrate found in your typical OLED TV.
That's because silicon has special chemical properties that allow for smaller pixels,
one of the most important being that electrons move more quickly and easily through it.
In fact, Apple is saying that the space that one pixel takes up on the iPhone
fits 64 pixels on a Micro OLED display.
Of course, OLED has long been notorious for being dimmer than other display technologies,
despite its sometimes jaw-dropping levels of contrast.
But the current word on the street in the display industry is that Apple is using Sony Micro OLED displays
that feature two white OLED layers. The light from these white OLEDs
are past-room microlenses to focus it and make it brighter.
But you didn't hear it from me.
These innovations mean that Micro OLED will probably show up in millions of individual devices
over the next few years. But despite these advancements,
there are some good reasons to think Micro OLED won't be the next big thing in display tech.
You'll get to experience at home. While Micro OLED has big advantages
when used for very small displays, when it comes to larger panels,
it unfortunately has some glaring weaknesses. While you might expect that a display tech
designed with VR headsets in mind would deliver the highest quality possible,
Micro OLED is actually less efficient than a typical OLED display you'd find in a smartphone.
You see Micro OLEDs work using white light that gets sent through a color filter
to form the images that you see. Instead of the traditional OLED smartphone method
of just having RGB LEDs that don't require a filter at all.
Which means that regular OLEDs get brighter for the same energy consumption,
so you don't need as much power to reach the same color gamut,
as higher brightness means a larger number of colors can be produced.
And while Samsung is working on a form of Micro OLED that should be much more energy efficient
because it uses red, blue, and green pixels that light up directly without needing a white backlight,
that piece of tech needs a bit more time in the old slow cooker before it's ready for prime time.
But what if we're not worried about power efficiency because we wanna make a Micro OLED TV
that plugs into the wall, for example. Well, Micro OLED still doesn't make that much sense
for larger displays. And a big reason is that current silicon wafers
max out around 12 inches in diameter. Meaning to make a display bigger than that,
you'd have to attach multiple wafers together. And if you think assembling Ikea furniture
is a bit laborious, just try doing this, okay.
But even if you could easily do this because you wanna take advantage
of Micro OLED's greater pixel density and make TVs that offer higher resolutions,
you'll soon run into the problem of diminishing returns
in terms of how many pixels you need to make a TV appear lifelike.
You only need to be sitting a little over four feet away from a 65 inch 4K TV powered by traditional OLEDs
for your eyes to be unable to discern individual pixels.
Meaning a Micro OLED screen in such a large format
wouldn't really offer many advantages. Now throw in the fact that Micro OLED
is going to be at a price premium for years to come due to its limited applications.
And I would pretty much only expect to see it in devices like the aforementioned VR headset
or other limited use cases, such as camera viewfinders
or heads up displays for the military. But if you are in the market for a headset,
Micro OLED should deliver an experience beyond current LCD tech.
Just be prepared to pay the Apple tax that I'm sure all of you are used to by now.
Oh my gosh, it's over? Wow, thanks for watching.
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