Samsung Develops 40-inch OLED Display

Samsung has successfully developed the world's first single-sheet, 40-inch active matrix (AM) OLED (organic light-emitting diode) for emissive flat panel TV applications.

The high-definition-compatible OLED prototype has a wide screen pixel format of 1280×800 (WXGA) driven by an amorphous silicon (a-Si) AM backplane to permit faster video response times with low power consumption.

Manufactured on Samsung’s fourth generation (4G) production line with a mother-glass size of 730mm x 920mm, the new OLED prototype combines all of the traditional features of emissive OLED technology, including wide viewing angle, thin package size, no color filter and no backlight, with the enormous production infrastructure advantages of standard a-Si techniques. To date, AM OLED prototypes have used costly polysilicon approaches, which have limited production sizes.

Shattering traditional AM OLED size limitations, the new prototype offers a maximum screen brightness of 600 nits; a black-and-white contrast ratio of 5,000:1; and, a color gamut of 80 percent. Motion pictures with ultra-high quality images can be impeccably reproduced by skillfully employing OLED’s rapid video response capabilities for image processing of HD-class resolution. The ultra-thin shape of the panels will allow future TV set designers to create televisions with a total thickness of only 3cm or less.

After launching its OLED development initiative in 2001 to secure leadership in next-generation display technologies, Samsung developed a 14.1″ WXGA (1280×768) OLED panel in 2004, followed by the world’s first 21″ HD-class (1920×1080) OLED panel in January, 2005. This ambitious pace of innovation accelerated development of today’s unusually large 40-inch OLED prototype, paving the way for large-size OLED TVs.