Seiko Epson's inkjet tech brings big-screen OLED TVs closer to reality

We know it's been burning on your mind everyday since December 6th, 2007: "What on Earth are those guys and gals over at Seiko Epson doing now that they've killed production of RPTVs?" At long last, we've located an answer. According to a prideful new release from the outfit, it has developed a new inkjet technology that will enable the "uniform deposition of organic material in the production of large-screen OLED TVs." For what seems like years now, manufacturers have teased us with 37-inch OLED HDTVs, but they've skirted around questions relating to "price" and "release." Now, the last remaining excuse seems to have been vaporized, so if we don't see a market-ready big-screen OLED at CES 2010... well, let's just say the knee-capping club is dying for a reason to reunite.

[Via Akihabara News]

[Templarian @ May 26th 2009 10:48AM]

A printing company making a printer to make OLED screens... makes sense.

Hopefully this all works.

[Tim @ May 26th 2009 5:53PM]

I once worked at Cambridge Display Technologies. They have been trying to make inkjet printed OLED displays for several years now. Currently there are two main ways to make an OLED display. You can spin white ink onto the entire display and cover it with RGB filters, or you can try to print red, green, and blue inks into each pixel with an inkjet printer. The second approach is theoretically superior because you get better colour and efficiency. However it doesn't really work very well because the blue ink has a lifetime on the order of tens of hours. That's why you can't buy them yet.

It's a shame because the demo model I saw was awesome. Basically a 1mm sheet of glass with a bright clear display on it. 180 degree viewing angle too.

[Oli D @ May 26th 2009 10:54AM]

So the watch featured is NOT made by Seiko

[dyt1983 @ May 26th 2009 2:23PM]

Actually, yes, the watch is made by Seiko, very expensive, and very nice.

[jon @ May 26th 2009 11:11AM]

Can I speak for everyone here when I say:

It's about fucking time.

[Agent .25i @ May 26th 2009 1:20PM]

Really? Like you have been on the edge of your seat waiting for this?

[HyperHacker @ May 26th 2009 1:24PM]

Yes!

[jon @ May 26th 2009 2:14PM]

Like right on the edge? No.

I have, however been reading about how circuit printing tech is going to bring affordable large OLED panels into the home for 5 or 6 years.

So to reiterate, it's about fucking time.

[superhobo @ May 26th 2009 3:04PM]

No, and if you continue to speak on my behalf without my express permission, expect legal consequences.

[jon @ May 26th 2009 5:14PM]

Highly unlikely, I acquired your PoA in a poker game months ago.

[jon @ May 26th 2009 11:22AM]

Form the read link:

Epson will exhibit a 14-inch OLED display having resolution equivalent to a 37-inch full-HD display. The prototype display was trial-manufactured using Epson's inkjet process.

So, does this mean an actual 14" 1080 display, or that it just looks like 1080 because it's only 14".

If the former, and they can maintain that pixel density on larger screens, say hello to semi-affordable 8k home displays.

[mirakutea @ May 26th 2009 1:19PM]

yea I heard recently 8k-10k resolution is the ultimate goal for the consumer - looking at a TV being the same as looking out of a window... to the human perception anyway.

[elBravo @ May 26th 2009 3:23PM]

It might bring down the price to make the 8k res screen, but I could only image the price of the image processors, storage mediums, video decoding processors and Monster "8k Super Ultra High Def REAL-VIEW(tm) HDMI 3.2c" cables to connect it all...

[Wwhat @ May 26th 2009 3:55PM]

LED still need power, so they need powerlines on the back of the display too, and more and more power as the number of pixels increases, and then there's the circuitry to address all those dots.
I wonder how much power a single dot on an OLED display uses, I assume a LCD dot requires several factors less since they don't give off light themselves (the dots themselves I mean, not the whole display including backlighting).

[Wwhat @ May 26th 2009 4:16PM]

Example: lets say a full HD panel is 2073600 dots, and each dots uses 1mA, that would mean 2073600 mA, divided by 1000 = 2073.6 ampere, that's a bit too much to handle methinks :)
Even when a dot uses 0.1mA it would still be a whopping 207 Amps, 0.01mA would start to get manageable at 20.7A.
So anybody know what the voltage/amperage is per pixel?

Google doesn't help much, although I did see on a samsung site a mention of disadvantage of PM-OLED listed as 'higher power inappropriate for wide displays" and "Lower brightness with increased number of lines"

[jon @ May 26th 2009 5:48PM]

This is an section from a patent application for a device for measuring sub-pixel current in amoled displays.

The last two lines are most important, but I wanted to include the whole thing.

The background current, however, is comprised of the leakage current through all the TFTs T2 and Cs capacitors in the OLED display, because all the sub-pixels are tied to the supply voltages VDD and VSS through the column power lines in a conventional OLED display. For example, a VGA resolution (NTSC-monochromatic) display has 640×480 pixels (m=640, n=480). In the case of a full color display, each pixel is made up of three sub-pixels, red (R), green (G), and blue (B). Therefore, the total number of columns in a VGA full color display is 640×3=1920 columns (m=1920). Thus, the total number of sub-pixels in a full color VGA display is 1920×480=921,600 sub-pixels, or almost a million sub-pixels. Typically, the leakage in a single TFT T2 can be 10 picoamperes. Therefore, the total background (leakage) current of a VGA full color OLED display can be approximately 10 microamperes (1 million sub-pixels×10 pA). Since the background current (10 microamperes) is very large compared to the current increase resulting from a single turned-on sub-pixel (between a few nanoamperes and one microampere), it is extremely difficult to measure the sub-pixel current accurately.

If I'm reading this correctly, it looks like the per pixel use is closer to 1 microamp than 1 milliamp.

@elbravo

2 years ago who would have guessed that we'd see affordable Full HD image processors on handheld devices, with a little luck we'll see one launched at e3 next week. Who knows what's next.
If Red-ray has half the specs claimed storage and decoding won't be a problem either, and considering how many pixels worth of 3d graphics the newest video cards can spit out, I'm not real concerned about running out of pre-rendered 2d pixels.
For cabling, I buy my hdmi cables from monoprice for $10, I plan on getting whatever replaces it for $12 or $13.

[Wwhat @ May 26th 2009 6:26PM]

I'm obviously also hopeful about a replacement for LCD, which I think is more a stopgap technology really, with all its issues like lack of deep black and angle dependency and such.
But there must be a reason why not even sony, and not even for all the money, can muster a large OLED display.
Still I hope fixes will be found, I'm just not sure that the author's statement that the subject of this article fixes 'the last remaining excuse" is completely true, and I don't get my hopes up too much at this point, although I'm convinced eventually something will be available that beats LCD massively.

[Shinigami @ May 26th 2009 11:27AM]

Does this mean my budget-minded 40-inch Full-HD OLED TV is delayed again?
My TV budget is small - $1500 max.

[DWells55 @ May 26th 2009 12:08PM]

You can pick up a pretty nice 50" Panasonic plasma for that price. The new line isn't quite Kuro quality, but the black levels are fantastic and the picture is tough to beat for the price.

[jon @ May 26th 2009 2:11PM]

On the contrary, if this pans out it could mean that instead of a 37" panel for $6k in 12 months, you could be looking at a 37" panel for $3k in 18 months.

I'm guessing we're still 24+ months away from a OLED panel of any size for $1500.

However, unless 24fps playback is a big issue for you you can't really go wrong with the new panny PDPs.

[Pastry Chef @ May 26th 2009 12:08PM]

If this thing clogs half as often as their printers, you won't want it.

[HyperHacker @ May 26th 2009 1:26PM]

lol, screen jam. You're watching and all of a sudden the picture bunches up and smudges.

[RedSpdr @ May 26th 2009 12:26PM]

Where can i sign-up for the knee-capping club?

[Matt @ May 26th 2009 3:22PM]

I second that.

Sign me up.