Mitsubishi created a flurry of interest at Japan's consumer electronics exhibition, CEATEC earlier this month with their 155 inch OLED Screen made from a series of blocks that can be combined to make a screen any size, claim the company.
Apparently when standing up close the screen displays a matrix of flashing, blue red and green light but when you take a couple of steps back the pixels appear to merge giving a high resolution image.
The screen aimed outdoors for advertising applications can be curved around buildings. Although the OLEDs themselves are not flexible, the display can be curved because it is made from individual OLED panels.
Whether the displays are robust enough to withstand the elements outside, remains to be seen. Technical hurdles are likely to be addressed. Currently no manufacturer has been able to make large sized OLED panels with high enough yields to make them economical. Organic compounds found in OLED pixels degrade over time - giving the display an expected lifetime of 20,000 hours, which is about 2.5 years of normal operation. Mitsubishi apparently declined to say how much the displays would cost or when they would be available.
The largest OLED screen commercially available is Sony's 11-inch OLED television at around $2500. Although TechRadar reported last month, that LG will soon launch a 15-inch OLED TV in December this year followed by a 32-inch version at the same time in 2010.
Janice Mahon, vice president of technology commercialization at New Jersey-based Universal Display Corp, said in an interview earlier this year, "OLED televisions probably would be trickling out onto Best Buy and Wal-Mart shelves already if the recession hadn't discouraged so many electronics companies from ramping up their planned investments in OLED manufacturing. Samsung has already said that its 14.1-inch and 31-inch OLED sets are "production ready."
Rumours that Panasonic was developing advanced display panels based on OLED technology with Sumitomo Chemical Co were clarified to Printed Electronics World by a spokesperson at Sumitomo Chemical who confirmed that no such announcement was ever made.
Also attend Printed Electronics USA.
Top image: OLED-DISPLAY.NET
