MicroLED - Will It Replace OLED?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
912 words · ~4 min read
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By now we've gotten pretty used to the idea of
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incredibly high resolution displays in
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tiny amounts of space. I mean the cell phone in your pocket probably packs in as many or possibly more
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pixels than the 60 inch TV in your living room.
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But the never-ending quest for higher and higher pixel densities stops for absolutely no one.
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Which is why Apple has made headlines recently for sinking a ton of money into making its own
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micro LEDs. But what are those? And
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what's the point when current mobile display tech seems to be serving us just fine?
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Well micro LEDs bear a resemblance to the organic LEDs or
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OLEDs that have become popular over the
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last few years.
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Unlike traditional LCD screens, each pixel on an OLED based display can generate its own light.
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Meaning that there is no need for a backlight that adds thickness and
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can wash the image out or make its colors look uneven. The result is an accurate clear picture with very
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deep blacks and contrast ratios that are marketed as
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infinite. Not to mention a lower power draw which is key for battery dependent
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mobile devices.
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OLEDs are great, but they're kind of fatally flawed in a sense because the organic part of the
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OLED
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refers to carbon-based molecules that deteriorate over time. So the pixels themselves,
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especially the ones displaying white, can suffer from
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burn-in. As some owners of OLED screens have found if they spend lots of time playing games with static UI elements,
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they're not going to be able to keep up.
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They're not going to be able to keep up.
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Micro LED by contrast uses inorganic materials, specifically gallium nitride, which not only lasts longer than the materials in OLED screens,
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but it isn't susceptible to burn-in. Meaning that micro LED offers the benefits of OLED without the common drawbacks.
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And it can be made much brighter as well while using less power for the same brightness level.
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Micro LED screens,
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are also more versatile in that they are easier to manufacture in whatever sizes and
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shapes that you want.
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Samsung notably demonstrated this at CES 2018 with a
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146 inch prototype television that it calls The Wall, made up of smaller
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borderless micro LED panels. So in the future, we might finally break through the 65 inch barrier.
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You know, where TVs stopped getting bigger because they became
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more practical to transport home from the local Best Buy.
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I mean, imagine this. Instead of buying a whole new television set because of one patch of dead pixels,
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you could just go swap in a new modular panel and get on with your mindless consumption.
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So because of all of these benefits, micro LEDs are interesting to more than just the traditional display manufacturers.
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So Apple reportedly has a team of engineers working on implementing them into its own devices.
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But they'll probably be starting to get more into the technology.
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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.
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A few years down the road? Hold on a minute. This sounds great! Why wait so long?
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Good question. The biggest drawback right now is manufacturing complexity.
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It takes a long time to put together a micro LED display, as they have to be built one
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sub-pixel at a time.
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Think about how many of those there would be
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on a standard 4k TV.
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So as is the case with a lot of cool sounding emerging technologies,
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we're going to have to wait a bit before we're all walking around with micro LED gadgets in our pockets.
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But since Apple, Samsung, and LG all own multiple patents relating to micro LEDs,
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it appears that the giants of the tech world are serious about releasing displays with pixels that don't burn.
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Assuming of course that you have money that you can burn.
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