http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13241/...-TV-This-Year/
At this year’s CES, Sony showed the first two prototypes of its Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays aimed at the computer display and HDTV markets. Attendees were amazed by the 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio offered by these displays as well as their 3mm thickness.
Today, at the Display 2007 Forum in Tokyo, where Sony is once again showing these two prototypes, the company announced it plans to start selling one of them this year. Unfortunately, it won’t be the 27” prototype that featured a 1920x1080 resolution but the smaller one, the 11” OLED display, which features a W-SVGA resolution of 1024x600.
OLED is made of small lumps of organic material that glow when electrical current is applied, a process known as electro-phosphorescence.
When OLED is used to produce displays, the technology can produce self-luminous screens that don’t require a source of light like to work (thus requiring less power), so manufacturers can obtain screens that are even thinner than LCD displays because there is no backlight. In the picture below, you can see how thin this Sony OLED display is:
Sony started the development of OLED in the early 90's. Since then, the company has developed a proprietary OLED technology called "Super Top Emission," an original panel structure enabling higher quality color reproduction by multiple interference effect.
By releasing this 11-inch OLED display, Sony will be the first-to-market OLED TV manufacturer.
Currently, Sony is the world’s largest LCD TV maker and makes big LCD panels with Samsung Electronics. Sony plans to join forces Toyota to make 1,000 11-inc OLED panels per month.
It will take many years before OLED replaces LCD in large size displays as Sony and other manufacturers see OLED as a future display technology.
"It won't be easy for OLED TVs to replace LCD TVs, but we would like to turn OLED TVs into a big new business," Sony Executive Deputy President Katsumi Ihara said in a speech at the display forum.
