LG Display's (LGD) large OLED with microlensing applications is expected to be released in 2024. By using microlenses, brightness and power consumption can be improved.
A large-size organic light-emitting diode (OLED) with a microlens array (MLA), developed by LGD to improve brightness and power consumption, is expected to be commercialized in 2024, industry sources said on Dec 6, according to South Korean media thelec. LGD debuted an 8K 77-inch OLED using both deuterium technology and microlenses at the International Society for Information Display (SID) show in the United States in May.
MLA is a technology that improves the efficiency of light extraction by changing the light path through a microlens. The brightness of the OLED can be increased by adjusting the light path so that the light reflected from the panel is directed towards the screen the user is viewing. LGD is mass producing the 1000Nit-level OLed.EX, which last year increased the maximum brightness by 30 percent from the previous 800nit model by applying deuterium technology to some large OLED models. Under the premise of the same product life, if the brightness is increased, power consumption can be saved under the same brightness.
LGD encountered problems such as "Mura" in the early stages of developing OLeds using MLA, but it is known that much has improved. Mura, a display industry term imported from Japan, means "smudge" and refers to features that appear uneven on the surface. When the entire screen is displayed at a constant grayscale (concentration level), a defect that shows a particular area unevenly is called mura.
It is well known that LGD has reviewed methods of using microbead diffusion adhesives to eliminate mura caused by the application of MLA. Diffuser glue can be expected to have an effect similar to that of a diffuser plate, which diffuses light from the light-emitting diode (LED) backlight unit (BLU) of a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel to even out the screen color and brightness. The known diffusion adhesive material is produced by Sumitomo, Japan. However, material costs may increase if mura is removed in this way.
Next year, however, it is unlikely to see OLED TVS that use MLA immediately. LG Electronics and SONY, the major customers of LGD, are reportedly not planning OLED models with MLA in their OLED TV lineup next year. As a result, mass production is expected to begin in 2024. LGD is expected to have to prove that its white light (W)-OLED with MLA applications is superior to Samsung Display's quantum dot (QD)-OLED in terms of cost performance. Qd-oled has an advantage in color reproducibility due to the QD color conversion layer. Currently, SONY is the only company to use both W-OLED and QD-OLED as OLED TV panels.
If mass production of the MLA is decided in the future, it is expected that the MLA will first be used to produce some OLED.EX panels at one of the two plants in Paju, Gyeonggi Province or Guangzhou, China. OLED.EX, which uses deuterium blue, was first used in some models at its plant in Guangzhou last year. Deuterium blue is a technology that replaces regular hydrogen with deuterium to extend the life of shorter-lived blue (B) devices.
Microlenses, on the other hand, are used in the optics of LCD panels with LED as the light source, as well as the OLED panel of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S21 Ultra smartphone released last year.
