OLED displays - soon in mobile mainstream

“The killer benefits are viewing angle and contrast, which are better than any other display technology,” explains Mike Caddy, product manager for displays at Anders Electronics. “Viewing angle is nearly 180 degrees and there is a completely symmetrical cone. Also, brightness, contrast and colour balance doesn't change with viewing angle. This is because the OLED is an inherently emissive display so there is no light being manipulated through the depths of the display”, he added. One issue that has been a hurdle for the OLED technology to spread faster is the short lifetime of the materials. Especially the blue emitter. “Blue lifetimes have improved a lot over the last few years and now they have a half-life in excess of around 20k hours [at 100cd/m2,” says Myrddin Jones, CEO of OLED-T, which supplies materials to small molecule OLED makers. “That is still shorter than the red and green, which can be in excess of 100k hours, but works out at around 2.5 years of continuous use. Most mobiles spend a lot of time in standby, so the calculation that's been made is that it's good enough”, he added.