Small OLED Displays: Race to be the Smallest

Small OLED displays for low power portable battery devices

Whether it’s TFT, OLED displays, or a custom graphics LCD, it seems that technology news headlines covering color LCD Panels are dominated by who can build the largest TFT, plasma or OLED TV. Every year at CES the competition heats up and one manufacture is competing to out do the others.

Although this is interesting news, most US and Canadian-based OEM manufactures do not manufacture large TV’s or digital airport bill boards; in fact, many of our customers who are looking for color LCDs seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Their emphasis is geared towards the race to be smaller: smaller size, smaller power requirements and smaller footprint; in other words a small color LCD. A good fit is the small OLED displays.

Designers of battery and solar powered devices have concentrated on extending the battery life of their products by selecting power-efficient processors, higher capacity batteries and now low power LCD Displays.

One option: the Bistable or zero power displays, is a good fit for portable devices, but this technology lacks the ability to display multiple colors with the added burden of a tooling fee.

The technology of OLED displays offers high brightness, low power consumption and in an ultra-thin package. This is a great technology for small OLED displays.

OLED Advantages:

Thinness:

The advantage of OLED displays is that these displays can be built on a very thin substrate, allowing the display to be thinner and flexible. The organic layers of an OLED displays are much thinner than the corresponding crystal layers of an LED allowing the display to have a thickness in the 2mm to 4mm range.

Brightness:

OLEDs are brighter than LEDs because they do not require glass, which absorbs some of the light. LEDs and LCDs both require glass for support.

No backlight:

OLEDs do not require backlighting like other color LCD panel displays. LCDs operate by blocking areas of the backlight to make the images that you see. OLEDs generate their own light which not only eliminates the need for a backlight, but consumes less power than the backlight required on a Liquid Crystal Display.

Very wide viewing angle:

OLEDs produce their own light which provides a large field of view, an estimated 170 degrees. Because LCDs operate by blocking light, they have an intrinsic viewing obstacle from certain angles.

If you have any questions regarding your small OLED displays design, contact a technical support engineer. We’re ready to assist you with your design needs. Or, call us at 480-503-4295.