oled vs lcd display factory

OLED displays have several advantages over LCDs, including superior contrast, thinner profiles, and faster image refresh rates. Plus, they consume less power, and their production is more environmentally friendly than LCDs’.

However, there are tradeoffs. OLED displays are more susceptible to image “burn-in” after prolonged use, and they tend to burn out quicker, too. Their relatively short lifespans are tied to image brightness.

These concessions don’t always make sense for commercial applications, though commercial OLEDs are manufactured with these limitations in mind. For example, modern OLED signage displays protect against burn-in with self-healing technology. Though, as you might expect, their price point is much higher than their LCD alternatives’.

You may be wondering about some other terms we haven’t discussed yet, such as 4K, HiDPI, and Retina display. These describe screen resolutions, and while the subject of resolution could warrant an entire article, there are a few things you should know when selecting (or being sold) displays for your project.

SD is easy to spot because it appears as that 4:3 (almost) squared image on older TVs instead of the widescreen, rectangular shape of modern displays. When you’re watching TV and you see an old show come on with black bars on each side, it’s because the show was produced in SD.

1080i refers to a 1920 x 1080 resolution on a display that creates images by illuminating rows of pixels in an alternating fashion (_interlaced _scan). If a 1080 display lights pixels progressively from top to bottom, the resolution would be called 1080p (progressive scan). The same goes for 720i and 720p displays, which specify a 1280 x 720 resolution with interlaced or progressive scan.

4K indicates a resolution with approximately 4,000 horizontal pixels or approximately four times the pixel count of a 1080p HDTV. 4K displays have at least 8 million active pixels, though the term is not as exact as 1080p. 4K has picked up steam as a marketable buzzword, and 8K displays have emerged as well.

You may also see the term UHD or Ultra High Definition used to describe similar resolutions to 4K. In fact, many consumer displays that would be more accurately described as UHD or 2160p are marketed as 4K. There are some technical differences between 4K and UHD, but they aren’t differences you’d be likely to notice.

So, now we can determine the number of pixels in a display from its resolution. But are those pixels compressed into a 40” TV or spread out across a 15’ video wall? The resolution alone does not tell us how good an image will look. The pixel density and the viewers’ distance from the screen do.

DPI (dots per inch) and PPI (pixels per inch) are measures of density that represent the number of pixels per inch of screen. HiDPI is a term used for displays with very high pixel density—usually at least 200 DPI. High-density displays came on our radar with iPhones. Since then, tablets, notebooks, and other HiDPI personal devices have followed.

Today, smartphones have DPIs climbing into the 500s, while an 8K TV might have a PPI of only 117. The reason for this disparity is perspective: the closer the viewer is to the screen, the higher DPI you’ll need for a crisp, seamless image. Though, the opposite is also true. You might not need to splurge on those 8K displays if the viewing area is far away. Most scoreboards and video walls have lower resolutions than a 4K TV—and much lower DPI.

“Retina display” is a proprietary term used by Apple. It refers to displays with a pixel density so high that the human eye cannot perceive the pixels. Apple introduced the term with the iPhone 4, which had 326 DPI. Steve Jobs qualified the screen as having imperceptible pixels at a distance of 12 inches.

Since then, Retina displays have lacked a concrete definition, though they tend to have more than 300 DPI for phones and sometimes less for tablets—the justification being that people tend to hold tablets further away than their phones.

Consider a “day in the life” of a commercial display. It is constantly on, perhaps 24 hours a day. If used for signage, it might show the same images over and over again, making it susceptible to burn-in. Depending on its location, it may be at risk of being bumped around by staff or patrons, and aesthetically it might require a perfectly rectangular frame to match up with adjacent screens or windows.

Consumer TVs are not built with these issues in mind. Their chassis are not as sturdy, and their components do not last as long as commercial displays’. Further, consumer TV designs are updated frequently, so you might have a hard time finding a replacement that matches the building’s other displays when the need arises.

Lastly, consumer displays may lack external control functionality. If your facility has multiple displays, you shouldn’t need someone to walk around with a TV remote to turn them on every day. Commercial displays come with standard control ports, so they can be tied into several types of control systems, enabling touchpanel control, scheduled operation, and more. An AV consultant can ensure you get the models you need for seamless integration.

When buying TVs for your commercial project, it’s best to understand your needs clearly and avoid getting distracted by buzzwords and tech hype. The battle between LCD and OLED technology is ongoing as manufacturers work to improve the image quality of LCDs and make OLEDs more durable and affordable.

Either display type may be the right choice for your project, and luckily we live in a time where there is a display available for almost every application.

We hope this guide helps you make informed decisions and demystifies the growing TV vernacular. You can contact Chroma today for an expert’s opinion on the right displays for your project.

OLED displays have higher contrast ratios (1 million : 1 static compared with 1,000 : 1 for LCD screens), deeper blacks and lower power consumption compared with LCD displays. They also have greater color accuracy. However, they are more expensive, and blue OLEDs have a shorter lifetime.

OLED displays offer a much better viewing angle. In contrast, viewing angle is limited with LCD displays. And even inside the supported viewing angle, the quality of the picture on an LCD screen is not consistent; it varies in brightness, contrast, saturation and hue by variations in posture of the viewer.

There are no geographical constraints with OLED screens. LCD screens, on the other hand, lose contrast in high temperature environments, and lose brightness and speed in low temperature environments.

Blue OLEDs degrade more rapidly than the materials that produce other colors. Because of this, the manufacturers of these displays often compensate by calibrating the colors in a way that oversaturates the them and adds a bluish tint to the screen.

With current technology, OLED displays use more energy than backlit LCDs when displaying light colors. While OLED displays have deeper blacks compared with backlit LCD displays, they have dimmer whites.

LCDs use liquid crystals that twist and untwist in response to an electric charge and are lit by a backlight. When a current runs through them, they untwist to let through a specific amount of light. They are then paired with color filters to create the display.

AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) is a different form of OLED used in some mobile phones, media players and digital cameras. It offers higher refresh rates with OLEDs and consume a lot less power, making them good for portable electronics. However, they are difficult to view in direct sunlight. Products with AMOLED screens include Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, HTC Legend and PlayStation Vita.

Tech observers and investors revel in lively discussions about the latest, greatest gadget and whose bottom line will get the greatest bounce. They enjoy debating the intricacies and details of materials that contribute to these devices, and the related trends and developments.  For us at Corning, materials innovators for 165 years, it’s been great to see a recent uptick in discussions about OLED versus LCD display panel technology - a genuine #GlassAge debate.

Corning.com staff sat down with Mike Kunigonis, business director for Corning’s High Performance Displays Group, to understand key differences between OLED and LCD display technology.

Corning.com:  Thanks for your time today, Mike. Let’s start with a key question:  In the context of display panels, how does OLED technology work and what are the main differences between it and LCD technology?

MK: OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode, or Organic LED.  It’s an alternative to LCDs for consumer electronic devices that range in size from wearable to TVs. Like LCD, OLED is a type of panel that enables the displays on device screens. An OLED display picture is generated by turning on and off millions of tiny individual LEDs, each forming the individual pixels of a display. Compare this to LCD, where an always-on backlight projects light through a liquid crystal, sandwiched between two pieces of glass. When the liquid crystal is excited by an electrical current, it lets the light of an individual pixel pass through like a shutter. LCD and OLED display panels both excel at delivering vibrant consumer displays, each in its own unique way.

Corning.com: We’ve heard industry analysts with varying opinions on the benefits an OLED device offers. So why would a consumer prefer a device with an OLED display over an LCD display?

MK: Adoption of OLED displays on smaller, mobile devices is the driver behind most of today’s OLED industry growth, so let me focus on that. A handheld OLED display is attractive to consumers because of the industrial design and display attributes that this technology can support. For example, OLED displays can be curved, or be thinner, or have narrower bezels – or no bezels at all – or flex and bend.  Plus, an OLED display will be a great solution for virtual reality applications because it can provide high resolution and superior response time and latency.

For all the new technologies that have come our way in recent times, it’s worth taking a minute to consider an old battle going on between two display types. Two display types that can be found across monitors, TVs, mobile phones, cameras and pretty much any other device that has a screen.

In one corner is LED (light-emitting diode). It’s the most common type of display on the market, however, it might be unfamiliar because there’s slight labelling confusion with LCD (liquid crystal display).

For display purposes the two are the same, and if you see a TV or smartphone that states it has an ‘LED’ screen, it’s an LCD. The LED part just refers to the lighting source, not the display itself.

In a nutshell, LED LCD screens use a backlight to illuminate their pixels, while OLED’s pixels produce their own light. You might hear OLED’s pixels called ‘self-emissive’, while LCD tech is ‘transmissive’.

The light of an OLED display can be controlled on a pixel-by-pixel basis. This sort of dexterity isn’t possible with an LED LCD – but there are drawbacks to this approach, which we’ll come to later.

In cheaper TVs and LCD-screen phones, LED LCD displays tend to use ‘edge lighting’, where LEDs sit to the side of the display, not behind it. The light from these LEDs is fired through a matrix that feeds it through the red, green and blue pixels and into our eyes.

LED LCD screens can go brighter than OLED. That’s a big deal in the TV world, but even more so for smartphones, which are often used outdoors and in bright sunlight.

Brightness is generally measured as ‘nits’ – roughly the light of a candle per square metre. Brightness is important when viewing content in ambient light or sunlight, but also for high dynamic range video. This applies more to TVs, but phones boast credible video performance, and so it matters in that market too. The higher the level of brightness, the greater the visual impact.

Take an LCD screen into a darkened room and you may notice that parts of a purely black image aren’t black, because you can still see the backlighting (or edge lighting) showing through.

Being able to see unwanted backlighting affects a display’s contrast, which is the difference between its brightest highlights and its darkest shadows.

You’ll often see a contrast ratio quoted in a product’s specification, particularly when it comes to TVs and monitors. This tells you how much brighter a display’s whites are compared to its blacks. A decent LCD screen might have a contrast ratio of 1,000:1, which means the whites are a thousand times brighter than the blacks.

Contrast on an OLED display is far higher. When an OLED screen goes black, its pixels produce no light whatsoever. That means an infinite contrast ratio, although how great it looks will depend on how bright the screen can go. In general, OLED screens are best suited for use in darker rooms, and this is certainly the case where TVs are concerned.

OLED panels enjoy excellent viewing angles, primarily because the technology is so thin, and the pixels are so close to the surface. You can walk around an OLED TV or spread out in different spots in your living room, and you won’t lose out on contrast. For phones, viewing angles are extra important because you don’t tend to hold your hand perfectly parallel to your face.

Viewing angles are generally worse in LCDs, but this varies hugely depending on the display technology used. And there are lots of different kinds of LCD panel.

Thankfully, a lot of LCD devices use IPS panels these days. This stands for ‘in-plane switching’ and it generally provides better colour performance and dramatically improved viewing angles.

IPS is used in most smartphones and tablets, plenty of computer monitors and lots of TVs. It’s important to note that IPS and LED LCD aren’t mutually exclusive; it’s just another bit of jargon to tack on. Beware of the marketing blurb and head straight to the spec sheet.

The latest LCD screens can produce fantastic natural-looking colours. However, as is the case with viewing angles, it depends on the specific technology used.

OLED’s colours have fewer issues with pop and vibrancy, but early OLED TVs and phones had problems reining in colours and keeping them realistic. These days, the situation is better, Panasonic’s flagship OLEDs are used in the grading of Hollywood films.

Where OLED struggles is in colour volume. That is, bright scenes may challenge an OLED panel’s ability to maintain levels of colour saturation. It’s a weakness that LCD-favouring manufacturers enjoy pointing out.

Both have been the subject of further advancements in recent years. For LCD there’s Quantum Dot and Mini LED. The former uses a quantum-dot screen with blue LEDs rather than white LEDs and ‘nanocrystals’ of various sizes to convert light into different colours by altering its wavelength. Several TV manufacturers have jumped onboard Quantum Dot technology, but the most popular has been Samsung’s QLED branded TVs.

Mini LED is another derivation of LED LCD panels, employing smaller-sized LEDs that can emit more light than standard versions, increasing brightness output of the TV. And as they are smaller, more can be fitted into a screen, leading to greater control over brightness and contrast. This type of TV is becoming more popular, though in the UK and Europe it’s still relatively expensive. You can read more about Mini LED and its advantages in our explainer.

OLED, meanwhile, hasn’t stood still either. LG is the biggest manufacturer of large-sized OLED panels and has produced panels branded as evo OLED that are brighter than older versions. It uses a different material for its blue OLED material layer within the panel (deuterium), which can last for longer and can have more electrical current passed through it, increasing the brightness of the screen, and elevating the colour volume (range of colours it can display).

Another development is the eagerly anticipated QD-OLED. This display technology merges Quantum Dot backlights with an OLED panel, increasing the brightness, colour accuracy and volume, while retaining OLED’s perfect blacks, infinite contrast and potentially even wider viewing angles, so viewers can spread out anywhere in a room and see pretty much the same image. Samsung and Sonyare the two companies launching QD-OLED TVs in 2022.

And for smartphones there’s been a move towards AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) screens for Android screens, while Apple has moved towards OLED for its smartphones and tried Mini LED with its iPad Pro. Technologies are consistently evolving with Superand Dynamic AMOLED versions available, more performance is being eked out.

While LED LCD has been around for much longer and is cheaper to make, manufacturers are beginning to move away from it, at least in the sense of the ‘standard’ LCD LED displays, opting to explore the likes of Mini LED and Quantum Dot variations.

OLED has gained momentum and become cheaper, with prices dipping well below the £1000 price point. OLED is much better than LED LCD at handling darkness and lighting precision, and offers much wider viewing angles, which is great for when large groups of people are watching TV. Refresh rates and motion processing are also better with OLED though there is the spectre of image retention.

If you’re dealing with a limited budget, whether you’re buying a phone, a monitor, a laptop or a TV, you’ll almost certainly end up with an LCD-based screen. OLED, meanwhile, incurs more of a premium but is getting cheaper, appearing in handheld gaming devices, laptops, some of the best smartphones as well as TVs

Which is better? Even if you eliminate money from the equation, it really comes down to personal taste. Neither OLED nor LCD LED is perfect. Some extol OLED’s skill in handling darkness, and its lighting precision. Others prefer LCD’s ability to go brighter and maintain colours at bright levels.

How do you decide? Stop reading this and go to a shop to check it out for yourself. While a shop floor isn’t the best environment in which to evaluate ultimate picture quality, it will at least provide an opportunity for you to realise your priorities. Whether you choose to side with LCD or OLED, you can take comfort in the fact that both technologies have matured considerably, making this is a safe time to invest.

OLED, an acronym for Organic Light Emitting Diode, is often identified as the modern-age display. Many companies are still using LCDs, but the growing demand for OLEDs overshadows the market of LCDs.

Traditional LCDs use CCFL or cold-cathode fluorescent lamps backlight whereas OLEDs use organic material to emit light in different combinations of colors without using any backlight. In LCDs, the light emitted by the LED backlight passes through a layer of crystal material.

Since LCDs exhibit full-screen brightness with their LED backlights, they get a competitive edge over OLEDs in this parameter. However, in the modern-age displays, brightness is not given much importance in terms of image clarity and light output.

The standard contrast ratio of LCDs of computers may value 1000:1, whereas the contrast ratio of LCD TV displays may go around 4000:1. The contrast ratio of the OLED displays can go as high as 1,000,000:1. The more the contrast ratio is, the better your device’s picture quality will be.

The contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest and darkest visual of a display. Since OLEDs have true black where the pixels turn off when they show black color, which is not the case with LCDs, the OLEDs become a better option for contrast and picture quality.

The number of times a display presents a new image every second is called refresh rate. The OLEDs switch images far faster than LCDs. Today’s OLED displays have a 120Hz refresh rate far more than the 60Hz refresh rate of traditional LCDs. Despite being ahead of LCD, the OLEDs exhibit motion blur, which is a challenge for aspiring electronic equipment manufacturers of today.

Unlike LCDs that always need the backlight to illuminate their pixels, OLEDs use organic material to emit light and create an image. Having true black is another crucial reason why OLEDs consume less power than the contending LCDs. We can say that it is more about the brightness of the image being displayed. The less the light is emitted, the module will consume less energy. It means if we keep the LED backlight of LCDs low, it is possible to make them more energy-efficient than OLEDs.

Viewing angle is one of the most crucial parameters where OLEDs win over LCDs. If you sit off-axis in front of an LCD, you may not consider the image in its actual appearance as the visuals would fade away, which is not the case with OLED displays.

In all the parameters we have discussed here, OLEDs seem more advantageous. Moreover, OLEDs are easier to manufacture. Many OLED displays are offering bendable, foldable, and rollable OLED displays. From small-scale applications such as smartwatches to large-scale applications such as smartphones and TV displays, OLEDs are finding across more and more use cases.

There are two main competing display technologies in the market today: LCD and OLED. The mature and dominant technology is the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), while the up-and-coming challenger is the Organic Light Emitting Diode Display (OLED display). The main difference between LCD and OLED displays is how they create the light and the colors of the image being displayed. This leads to application dependent strengths and weaknesses of either technology.

OLEDs operate via a solid-state technology, where the individual pixels can emit light in various colors and intensity without the need for an additional light source or color filter. The light-emitting portion of an OLED display is comprised of multiple layers of very specific organic semiconductor materials which can be adjusted to emit light in specific wavelengths. These organic layers have a typical thickness in the order of 100nm. In addition, no backlight is required, allowing for a very thin display module.

The organic layers beginning on the cathode side of the device consist of several electron transport layers, a recombination layer and end with a hole transport layer on the anode side. The electron transport layers in the OLED stack-up allow movement of electrons from the cathode toward holes supplied from the anode. The electrons and holes recombine in the emissive recombination layer of the film stack-up. This recombination relaxes the energy levels of the electrons, which produces an emission of light. The wavelength of the emitted light is dependent on the chemical composition of the organic materials used in the recombination layer. The intensity of the light is controlled by the amount of current flowing through the OLED’s organic layers. In OLEDs, the individual pixels can emit red, green, or blue light, or – alternatively – they emit white light, which must then pass through color filters.

There are two main varieties of OLED screens: active-matrix and passive-matrix. The difference lies in how the pixels are generated. In the passive-matrix version, each pixel is created by the intersection of two wires, through which electrical current is passed to create a different color. In an active-matrix setup, each pixel has its individual transistor, which allows for faster refresh times and creates smoother motion and transitions in the picture.

In LCD display technology, the individual pixels modulate light. An applied voltage changes the orientation of liquid crystal molecules that – in conjunction with a pair of polarizers – function as a light shutter by either blocking or allowing light to pass through. LCD displays, therefore, require an additional light source, either from reflected ambient light or more commonly from a “backlight” (an array of LEDs arranged behind or next to the LCD panel). LCD color can be created by adding color filters to the individual pixels. Because OLED displays don’t require the additional backlight, polarizers, or color filter components of an LCD module, they can be made much thinner than LCD displays of equivalent size and resolution.

OLED display technology can offer power-saving advantages over LCDs, which is important, especially for battery-powered applications such as mobile phones. An OLED’s power consumption will vary with image content and brightness, as light is generated only at the individual pixels needed to display the image. A dark image or a graphic on a black background will consume much less power than bright images or graphics. In contrast, LCD backlights must be ON while the display operates. It’s possible to control individual zones of the backlight separately to save power, but this added complexity is usually only applied in larger displays.

OLEDs can achieve a much higher contrast ratio if reflections from the front surface are carefully controlled. If no current flows through an OLED pixel, it does not emit any light. In contrast the shutter effect of an LCD pixel does not block 100% of the light. Depending on the specific LCD technology used and the angle of observation, a small percentage of the light generated in the backlight can escape. This can wash out dark areas of an image. It is possible but expensive to limit this light leakage to a point where the contrast of an LCD and OLED display become perceptually equivalent.

RGB OLEDs naturally generate a narrow bandwidth of light. This leads to very saturated primary colors and a wide color gamut. This enables OLED technology to display colors which are not easily accessible to LCDs unless RGB backlights or quantum dots are used. Often OLED colors are used “as is”, however, for very high image color fidelity, such high color saturation needs to be electronically ‘tuned down’, to match the color bandwidth of the rendering chain.

LCDs offer an advantage over OLEDs in applications where a continuous static image is required. The light emitting materials in OLEDs are affected by luminance decay as a function of the total amount of current that has passed through the pixel. This decay differs for red, green and blue. The dimming effect is subtle, but when adjacent pixels are illuminated at the same time it can become noticeable as an undesired brightness variation or color shift. LCDs don’t suffer from this dimming effect, which makes them a more suitable solution for applications with static images or images with static elements.

Another advantage of LCD technology is the wide variety of different variations to choose from. Depending on the application certain trade-offs can be very attractive. An example is much lower cost for a laptop display compared to a tablet. This is achieved by allowing poor image performance when viewed from the direction the is usually blocked by the keyboard. In a tablet where good viewing performance is required from any direction, much higher cost LCDs or OLEDs must be used.

OLEDs offer an excellent solution for a variety of applications: Glucometers, thermometers, fitness trackers, professional audio equipment, Wi-Fi hotspots, radar detectors, dive computers, biometric transaction devices, and military communications equipment.

They can be used to replace old TN LCDs or add dynamic push buttons on industrial equipment. They can be customized to various resolutions, FPC configurations, colors, custom shaped OLED displays (e.g. octagonal, round, etc.) and can even be made into flexible and transparent displays. Thanks to their versatility, OLED display panel suppliers can offer some exciting capabilities for their customers – things that were previously impossible with LCDs.

As an experienced LCD and OLED panel supplier, New Vision Display can help you find the right technology for your application. Contact us via the below form to discuss your project.

For the convenience of understanding, we reduce some layers, after removing the vertical and horizontal polarizer and the positive and negative circuit, only left to luminous plate, liquid crystal layer and color filter. and then we can see the lcd display module’s layer work as a shutter.

The backlight emits light, and the shade adjusts the Angle to determine how much light passes through the color filter. Different percent of the RGB tri-color light mix to produce different colors of light. Does that sound good? If you want the pixels at this location to display pure red, then ideally the shade under the blue and green blocks should be completely closed. At this point, only the red color can be displayed accurately. But it is only ideal status, the reality is different to we would think. Complete closure is only theoretical, and in fact, there are more or less incomplete closures. Something like this, more or less a little white light is leaking out. It lead to the problem that colors mixed and colors inaccuracy.

arrays, which have become one of the distinguishing features of OLED screens. The main cause for OLED screen life time is the blue pixel. Since the luminous efficiency of blue pixels is much lower

to reduce the blue pixel current to improve the oled life time. This is also the diamond arrangement and so on. The original pixel arrangement scheme was Samsung"s RGB

Liquid Crystal Displays or LCD is a fairly old technology that has seen a recent burst in advancement. From calculator screens, LCDs are now fairly common in mobile phones, PDAs, computers, and a lot more applications. OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diode) are an improved version of LEDs that utilizes organic compounds to produce light. OLEDs have been eyed by many manufacturers as a good replacement for LCDs in many applications due to multiple advantages.

From the phrase ‘light emitting’ we can deduce that OLEDs produce their own light unlike LCDs which require a backlight that means fewer parts. Another advantage that this presents is the lower power consumption; a great amount of the power consumed by LCDs goes to the backlight, thus the big power difference. The lack of a backlight also means that an OLED display can be significantly slimmer than an LCD display. OLEDs have also been observed to show warmer images with better contrast making their image quality far superior than what LCDs currently achieve.

Manufacturing OLEDs could also be a lot cheaper than manufacturing LCDs. LCD screens are made out of transistors that are expensive to manufacture. OLEDs on the other hand can be applied to a substrate that has been treated to accept organic compounds via printing methods just like ink. Any inkjet printer can do this, making it easier and more economical to mass produce OLED displays. The printing method of production could also make it viable to have OLED displays on different mediums like cloth and paper which are unthinkable places for LCD displays.

The current problem that most OLED displays face nowadays is the very short lifetime. OLEDs are currently rated to last for up to 14,000 hours of operation before elements in the display begin to fail. This means that it won’t last four years if used for 10 hours every day. LCDs are known to last for over 4 times longer at 60,000 hours. This limitation is currently being looked into to make OLED displays more viable and a good candidate as an LCD replacement.

When you see a phone, tablet, or TV these days, it"s probably either using an LCD or an OLED display. These two display technologies have been developing over the years, and they now exist in every corner of our everyday lives.

There are a lot of differences between LCD and OLED technology, but what are these? Here is a dive into the science behind these two technologies and what makes them different from one another.

LCD stands for "Liquid Crystal Display". The basic science behind LCD technology can be complicated because different types exist. In order to keep things simple, this article will only discuss the science behind the most basic and straightforward type of LCD: the calculator LCD.

The polarization of light plays a huge role in LCD technology. Intrinsically, light vibrates in many different areas. When light hits a polarization filter, most of it gets blocked except for light vibrating on a specific plane. So, if light hits a vertical filter, all but the light vibrating on the vertical plane gets blocked.

To begin with, external light enters the display and hits the vertical polarization filter. Though the polarized light passes through the first electrode unphased, it gets twisted 90 degrees after hitting the liquid crystal. Now, it can pass through the horizontal filter. The light hits the reflective panel, and then bounces back through the layers and to the viewers" eyes.

Smartphone and TV displays are a bit different, but ultimately, they share the same concepts. There is a flat panel that"s set up behind the layers that provide the light. It gets polarized as it travels through the layers and eventually hits the red, green, and blue sub-pixels. This is how the light gets its color before it hits the viewers" eyes.

OLED stands for "Organic Light Emitting Diode". One differentiator compared to an LCD is that OLEDs emit their own light. LCD displays, on the other hand, require a light source—like a backlit panel, LEDs, or ambient light.

Each technology has its advantages over the other. To help you decide whether you"d rather buy a device with an LCD or OLED screen, we"ve discussed the main benefits for each below.

When it comes to cost, LCD wins. A lot of device manufacturers put LCD panels in their less-expensive devices, since the average price of installing an LCD is less than doing so with an OLED panel. The price will, however, differ depending on the type of LCD panel inserted.

Another win for LCD comes in the form of heat resistance. When exposed to high temperatures, pixels in LCD panels go black for a period of time. However, they fully recover to working order in little time. If exposed to the same heat, pixels on some OLED panels turn a white color and never recover.

OLED takes the prize in terms of contrast. One main draw of OLED is that each pixel can be turned on and off individually. This means that if there"s a scene where we see a lot of black elements, those pixels can shut off completely, giving a true blackness.

For LCD panels to display an image, there is a flat panel behind the layers that provides the light for the screen. In black scenes, that light still leaks through, which means that the contrast isn"t as high. What also drives people away is the notorious LCD screen burn-in issue. There are, however, some methods to fix LCD and plasma screen burn-in.

OLEDs can also produce more vibrant colors. LCDs just can"t match the punchy saturated colors on an OLED panel. A lot of people prefer OLED screens for that reason.

There are two sides to this equation. It seems that LCD has more practical advantages. They are cheaper to install and they can survive better under intense heat. When it comes to lifestyle features like more vibrant colors and better contrast, OLED comes out on top. Whether you go for OLED or LCD, both technologies will go on to power displays for many years to come.

If you’re designing a display application or deciding what type of TV to get, you’ll probably have to choose between an OLED or LCD as your display type.

Not sure which one will be best for you? Don’t worry! We’re here to help you figure out the right display for your project or application. In this post we’ll break down the pros and cons of these display types so you can decide which one is right for you.

LCDs utilize liquid crystals that produce an image when light is passed through the display. OLED displays generate images by applying electricity to organic materials inside the display.OLED and LCD Main Difference:

These different technological approaches to display technology have big impact in some features including contrast, brightness, viewing angles, lifespan, black levels, image burn-in, and price.

Everything from the environment your display will be used in, your budget, to the lighting conditions and the required durability will play a part in this decision.

Contrast refers to the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of an image. High contrast will produce sharper images and more easily readable text. It’s a crucial quality for high fidelity graphics and images or to make sure that a message on a display is very visible.

graphics and images visible. This is the reason you’re still able to see light coming through on images that are meant to be dark on an LCD monitor, display, or television.

OLEDs by comparison, deliver a drastically higher contrast by dynamically managing their individual pixels. When an image on an OLED display uses the color black, the pixel shuts off completely and renders a much higher contrast than that of LCDs.OLED vs LCD - Who is better at contrast?

Having a high brightness level is important if your display is going to be used in direct sunlight or somewhere with high ambient brightness. The display"s brightness level isn"t as important if it’s going to be used indoors or in a low light setting.OLED vs LCD - Who is better at Brightness?

This means the display is much thinner than LCD displays and their pixels are much closer to the surface of the display, giving them an inherently wider viewing angle.

You’ll often notice images becoming distorted or losing their colors when tilting an LCD or when you view it from different angles. However, many LCDs now include technology to compensate for this – specifically In-Plane Switching (IPS).

LCDs with IPS are significantly brighter than standard LCDs and offer viewing angles that are on-par with OLEDs.OLED vs LCD - Who is better at Viewing Angles?

LCDs have been on the market much longer than OLEDs, so there is more data to support their longevity. On average LCDs have proven to perform for around 60,000 hours (2,500) days of operation.

With most LCDs you can expect about 7 years of consistent performance. Some dimming of the backlight has been observed but it is not significant to the quality of the display.

OLEDs are a newer technology in the display market, which makes them harder to fully review. Not only does OLED technology continue to improve at a rapid pace, but there also hasn’t been enough time to thoroughly observe their performance.

You must also consider OLED’s vulnerability to image burn-in. The organic material in these displays can leave a permanent afterimage on the display if a static image is displayed for too long.

So depending on how your OLED is used, this can greatly affect its lifespan. An OLED being used to show static images for long periods of time will not have the same longevity as one displaying dynamic, constantly moving images.OLED vs LCD - Which one last longer?

There is not yet a clear winner when it comes to lifespans between LCD and OLED displays. Each have their advantages depending on their use-cases. It’s a tie!

For a display application requiring the best colors, contrast, and viewing angles – especially for small and lightweight wearable devices – we would suggest an OLED display.

OLED vs. IPS LCD is a topic that comes up whenever consumers upgrade to a newer TV or a smartphone. Should you buy a TV that uses an IPS LCD display or should you pick up a TV with an OLED screen? Well, the answer isn’t so straightforward because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will explain how these screen technologies work and which one you should opt for while buying a TV.

IPS LCD (In-Plane Switching Liquid Crystal Display) and OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) are the two most commonly used screen technologies. Older technologies, such as TN (Twisted Nematic) and PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching) displays, have almost disappeared (except in the world of PC monitors and budget laptops) because IPS LCD and OLED are clearly better in almost all aspects. Other technologies such as Mini-LED, MicroLED, and QNED technologies are extremely new and they won’t become mainstream for a few years.

So, when you are finally deciding which TV to buy, the real battle is between OLED and IPS LCD. So where do these stand? Which is better for you? Which one should you pick for your new home theatre? Read on for more information on the OLED vs IPS LCD battle.

IPS LCD displays are perhaps the most common display type days, especially in TVs and laptops. Laptops, entry-level and mid-range smartphones, and most TVs use LCD displays. So, how do IPS displays work? IPS displays use an array of LCD pixels that shift colour as required. However, they don’t emit light on their own. That’s the reason they need a backlight made up of LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes). The backlight can be arranged in various layouts: towards the edges, spread across the whole display, or separated into different sections.

IPS screens display the black colour by changing the alignment of LCDs so that pixels block the transmission of light, but some light still gets through. That’s the reason IPS LCD displays can’t display true deep black colour. Instead, they display dark grey and there is some ‘backlight bleed’.

To reduce the backlight bleed, a feature called Local Dimming is used. The feature requires the backlight to be compartmentalized into different matrices, and only those sections are turned on which need to display non-black colours. Other sections of the backlight are turned off, offering true blacks. However, active zones still display some backlight bleed.

OLED displays have traditionally been restricted to high-end devices. Even today, only high-end TVs and laptops feature OLED displays. In the world of smartphones, though, OLED technology has been democratised and even mid-range smartphones these days use OLED displays with high brightness and high refresh rates.

In a nutshell, OLED displays don’t use separate backlight sources. Instead, every pixel can reproduce its own light (also known as self-emissive displays). So, there’s no need for an additional backlight and each pixel can be turned on or off as needed. Since there is no need for a separate backlight plane, OLED displays are much thinner than LCD displays. They also offer a much better contrast ratio and viewing angles. However, the organic material used in OLED pixels tends to “burn” over the years that results in ghosting. Moreover, they can’t be as bright as LCD, Mini-LED, or Micro-LED displays.

We have given you a brief overview of IPS and OLED technologies. But which one is better? And which of these will be right for you? Here’s a list of pros and cons to help you in your purchase decision, where it is for smartphones or TVs.

OLEDs have a quicker response time: OLEDs individually-lit pixels can switch on/off or change colour faster. This makes for lower ghosting during fast-and-frenetic action scenes or while playing games. Ghosting refers to when the image on the screen seems to be following itself around or is blurry at the edges.

OLED TVs are slimmer and flexible: As we mentioned earlier, OLED displays don’t need a bulky backlight plane, so OLED TVs are really slim. The next wave of display technologies – foldable and rollable displays – will also be powered by OLED.

IPS LCD TVs offer higher brightness: IPS LCD TVs use a powerful backlight which also lets them get much brighter than their OLED counterparts. This can make for better HDR and even offer a better viewing experience if your TV room gets a lot of sunlight.

IPS TVs suffer from backlight bleed and blooming: This is less of an issue with high-end IPS TVs, but some cheaper models may suffer from glow (bright, greyish areas near the corners of the screen) or backlight bleed (patches or leaks of light, usually around the edges).

OLED TVs can suffer burn-in: OLED displays are at risk of burn-in, a condition in which a static image left on for too long can get permanently ‘burned’ onto the display and may appear like a ghostly dark patch.

OLEDs may get dimmer with age: OLEDs use organic substances which tend to decay over time. So, OLED displays lose brightness with age. It is quite slow and modern OLED TVs are not as affected by this as older OLED TVs, and this really shouldn’t be an issue, but you need to be aware of this.

IPS TVs are much cheaper: OLED is a relatively newer technology and is more expensive to manufacture. Currently, very few companies make OLED display panels. LG Display makes most of the OLED panels found on OLED TVs, while Samsung Display, CSOT, LG Display, and BOE make OLED screens for smartphones and smaller products. Most manufacturers also tend to restrict OLED tech to their largest, most feature-packed range, fueling the perception of OLED being expensive.

Competition and innovation are hallmarks of the consumer electronics market which has experienced practically uninterrupted growth for decades. Many consumers own a range of electronic devices (laptop, smartphone, tablet, TV, etc.), each of which is available in a plethora of options: brands; grades, formats; technologies. This technological array is further complicated by marketing terms that try to differentiate between competing products. Acronyms like OLED and LCD are rife in the electronics sector, but what is the actual difference between the two?

The inordinate popularity of smart consumer devices continues to drive growth in the global display market, currently valued in the region of $135 billion. Screens based on LEDs (light-emitting diodes) used to be the industry-standard, but trends towards device miniaturization, portability, improved efficiency, and greater picture quality gradually fuelled OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels. Over the next few years, the OLED market is expected to expand by a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 14.27%.

Currently, OLED televisions outperform traditional LED products on several fronts. They come in a versatile range of formats: panels as large as 88-inches satisfy the demands of premium TV displays; while smaller AMOLED (active-matrix OLED) screens set the benchmark of picture quality in the smartphone industry. Foldable OLED devices have finally begun to enter the consumer electronics market too, fulfilling a long-standing promise from proponents of the technology.

Traditional LED TVs are based on liquid crystal display (LCD) screen technology; a tried-and-tested panel structure. On an LCD screen, images are produced by a thin layer of liquid crystal solution overlaid on a transistor grid which uses small electrical charges to set the individual crystals to an open/closed state. This produces a pattern of light and dark pixels, but the light itself is produced by a bank of LEDs arranged at the edges of the screen or in a backlit array.

The best possible picture on LCD screens is produced using a full-array LED backlight with local-dimming which yields the widest possible contrast. However, LCDs comprise multiple sequential layers within the panel (color filters, polarizers, etc.) which are necessary for producing fully-saturated images but may inhibit picture uniformity and viewing angles. This also makes LED TVs thicker and heavier, rendering them undesirable for applications where reduction of thickness or weight is important.

OLEDs circumvent each of these issues by eschewing a backlight in favor of a self-emissive panel of organic carbon-based material. This allows each subpixel onscreen to be controlled independently. Alongside greater dynamic ranges and energy efficiency, the unique characteristics of OLED panels allow for significantly fewer layers in the screen matrix. Consequently, OLED TVs are typically thinner and lighter in weight than conventional LCDs, but cost significantly more to produce than LCD displays.

Avantama is one of the industry-leading formulators for consumer electronics applications, generating solutions for today’s cutting-edge displays and devices. If you would like more information about our full portfolio of nanoparticle inks and dispersions for OLED manufacturing, simply contact a member of the Avantama team today.

TFT LCD is a mature technology. OLED is a relatively new display technology, being used in more and more applications. As for Micro LED, it is a new generation technology with very promising future. Followings are the pros and cons of each display technology.

TFT Liquid Crystal Display is widely used these days. Since LCD itself doesn"t emit light. TFT LCD relies on white LED backlight to show content. This is an explanation of how TFT LCD works.

Relatively lower contrast：Light needs to pass through LCD glasses, liquid crystal layer, polarizers and color filters. Over 90% is lost. Also, LCD can not display pure black.

Organic Light-Emitting Diode is built from an electro-luminescent layer that contains organic compounds, which emit light in response to an electric current. There are two types of OLED, Passive Matrix OLED (PMOLED) and Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED). These driving methods are similar to LCD"s. PMOLED is controlled sequentially using a matrix addressing scheme, m + n control signals are required to address a m x n display. AMOLED uses a TFT backplane that can switch individual pixels on and off.

Low power consumption and flexible: OLED doesn"t rely on backlight and consumes less power. OLED is essentially created on plastic film. It is bendable and easy to process.

High contrast and vivid color: OLED emits light itself, can produce very bright image with beautiful color. And because OLED can be turned off, it can produce true black.

Stroboscopic effect: most OLED screen uses PWM dimming technology. Some people who are easy perceive stroboscopic frequency may have sore eyes and tears.

​Micro LED, sometimes called μLED is made up of tiny LED, measure less than 100μm. Another way of looking at this is that MicroLEDs are simply traditional LEDs shrunk down and placed into an array.

Replacing organic material with inorganic GaN material eliminates the need of polarizing and encapsulation layer, found in OLED. Micro LED is smaller and thinner, consumes less power.

Cutting edge display technology has been a central feature of flagship smartphones in recent years. The LG V30 arrived late last year with yet another innovation in screen tech: new panel type called P-OLED. With Samsung still marketing its Super AMOLED and Infinity Display technology, and some other manufacturers moving away from the tried and tested IPS LCD, there’s never been more choice for display panel tech in the smartphone market.

P-OLED isn’t exactly the new kid on the block, but the technology is just starting to appear in a number of flagship handsets. We’ve already seen how LG Display’s P-OLED stacks up against Samsung’s AMOLED,but what about the common IPS LCD display technology? That’s what we aim to find out in this P-OLED vs IPS LCD breakdown.

The common LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display, while IPS stands for “in-plane switching”. The latter controlls the crystal elements in the display’s RGB sub-pixel layout. IPS replaced twisted nematic field effect (TN) as the technology of choice for LCD in the 90s, and is what you’ll find in all LCD-based smartphone panels.

Each sub-pixel is connected up to a thin-film transistor active matrix, which drives the panel’s brightness and color without consuming as much current as an outdated passive matrix display. Using different TFT materials and production techniques can alter the driving properties of the display and alter the transistor sizes, which affects properties such as brightness, viewing angles, and color gamut. Hence why you’ll find a variety of different naming schemes for IPS LCD display, including Super IPS, Super LCD5, and others.

The makeup of the backlight can vary between LCD panels too, as the white light has to be created from another group of colors. The light source can be made up of LEDs or an electroluminescent panel (ELP), among others, each of which can offer a slightly different white tint and varying degrees of even light across their surface.

OLED technology has been the major rival to LCD in the smartphone market for what seems like forever. Samsung’s AMOLED technology has powered generations of the top selling Android flagship. Plastic-OLED (or P-OLED) is simply the latest iteration of this technology, primarily designed to enable new and interesting form factors.

Compared with the numerous layers of an LCD display, P-OLED is considerably less complicated looking. The key component is a Light Emitting Diode (LED). So rather than relying on a universal backlight, each sub-pixel is capable of producing its own red, green, or blue light, or being shut-off completely. The O part in OLED stands for organic, which is the compound type that lights up when current is applied.

To drive this current, the TFT matrix is used in a very similar way to LCD. Although this time the current is used to produce the light rather than twist the polarizing crystals. As this is an active matrix TFT, Samsung chose to call its OLED panels AMOLED. P-OLED shouldn’t be confused with the outdated PMOLED technology, which stands for passive matrix and isn’t used in any modern pieces of high-end display tech.

So where does the plastic element come in? Well it’s simply the material used as the back substrate on which the TFT and OLED components are placed. Historically, this has been made from glass but using a plastic substrate makes the display more malleable and flexible. It’s important to note however, that switching over to a plastic substrate requires new materials for the TFT plane that can withstand the manufacturing temperatures, while still providing sufficient electron mobility and current for the LEDs.

The two display technologies have their own pros and cons in terms of viewing quality, but plastic OLED has a trick up its sleeve that LCD can’t yet match — flexibility.

LG recently stated that its move to P-OLED in the V30 smartphone wasn’t based on increased image quality. Instead, the company acknowledged that thin bezels and curved designs are in high demand from consumers. The only currently viable way to achieve these designs is by using a flexible plastic substrate in an OLED display, which makes the panel lighter, thinner, and more pliable than using a traditional glass substrate.

While the aesthetics won’t be to everyone’s tastes, manufacturers are clearly interested in plastic OLED as a way to help differentiate their smartphones from the competitors. Although this effect will diminish as more and more manufacturers move over to a similar looking, slim bezel design. For us consumers, another added benefit from the move to P-OLED is more durable displays.

Although the very top of a smartphone display will likely feature a protective glass layer, such as Gorilla Glass, the underlying plastic substrate layer does offer some additional shock absorption. This means that it’s less likely that the TFT layer will break on dropping, helping to preserve functionality even if the top layer cracks.

It’s worth stating that flexible LCD alternatives are in development. Japan Display showcased its low-cost flexible LCD technology in early 2017 and other companies are working on Organic LCD and similar ideas. However, the trick is still to match flexible OLED for pixel density and resolution, color gamut, and production yield. So it’s likely to be a while before we see competing flexible LCD products.

Unfortunately, there’s no definitive superior technology between IPS LCD and P-OLED. There are too many variables beyond the basic display type that determine the quality of the viewing experience. These include sub-pixel layouts and manufacturing materials.

No two IPS LCD manufacturers are necessarily alike, and even P-OLED will undoubtedly go through generational revisions over the next few years and continue to improve performance. Furthermore, new advances in LCD technology, including Quantum Dot, WRGB, and others, keep  reinvigorating the already well-refined technology.

Where OLED, including Plastic-OLED, does have a notable head start is in the growing demand for HDR and virtual reality applications. There, deep contrast and very high panel refresh rates in compact form factors are the order of the day. Combined with the more unique form factors available in smartphones and automotive and industrial applications, we’re bound to see plenty more P-OLED in the coming years.

In both LCD and OLED displays, producing these cells – which are highly complex – is by far the most difficult element of the production process. Indeed, the complexity of these cells, combined with the levels of investment needed to achieve expertise in their production, explains why there are less than 30 companies in the whole world that can produce them. China, for instance, has invested more than 300 billion yuan (approximately $45 billion USD) in just one of these companies – BOE – over the past 14 years.

Panox Display has been involved in the display industry for many years and has built strong and long-term partner relationships with many of the biggest OLED and LCD panel manufacturers. As a result, we are able to offer our clients guaranteed access to display products from the biggest manufacturers.

LG Display was, until 2021, the No. 1 display panel manufacturer in the world. Owned by LG Group and headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, it has R&D, production, and trade institutions in China, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and Europe.

Founded in 2001, AUO – or AU Optronics – is the world’s leading TFT-LCD panel manufacturer (with a 16% market share) that designs, develops, and manufactures the world’s top three liquid crystal displays. With panels ranging from as small as 1.5 inches to 46 inches, it boasts one of the world"s few large-, medium -and small-sized product lines.

AUO offers advanced display integration solutions with innovative technologies, including 4K2K ultra-high resolution, 3D, ultra-thin, narrow bezel, transparent display, LTPS, OLED, and touch solutions. AOU has the most complete generation production line, ranging from 3.5G to 8.5G, offering panel products for a variety of LCD applications in a range of sizes, from as small as 1.2 inches to 71 inches.

Now Sharp is still top 10 TV brands all over the world. Just like BOE, Sharp produce LCDs in all kinds of size. Including small LCD (3.5 inch~9.1 inch), medium LCD (10.1 ~27 inch), large LCD (31.5~110 inch). Sharp LCD has been used on Iphone series for a long time.

Beside those current LCDs, the industrial LCD of Sharp is also excellent and widely used in public facilities, factories, and vehicles. The Sharp industrial LCD, just means solid, high brightness, super long working time, highest stability.

Since its establishment, Truly Semiconductors has focused on researching, developing, and manufacturing liquid crystal flat panel displays. Now, after twenty years of development, it is the biggest small- and medium-sized flat panel display manufacturer in China.

Truly’s factory in Shanwei City is enormous, covering an area of 1 million square meters, with a net housing area of more than 100,000 square meters. It includes five LCD production lines, one OLED production line, three touch screen production lines, and several COG, LCM, MDS, CCM, TAB, and SMT production lines.

Its world-class production lines produce LCD displays, liquid crystal display modules (LCMs), OLED displays, resistive and capacitive touch screens (touch panels), micro camera modules (CCMs), and GPS receiving modules, with such products widely used in the smartphone, automobile, and medical industries. The LCD products it offers include TFT, TN, Color TN with Black Mark (TN type LCD display for onboard machines), STN, FSTN, 65K color, and 262K color or above CSTN, COG, COF, and TAB modules.

In its early days, Innolux attached great importance to researching and developing new products. Mobile phones, portable and mounted DVD players, digital cameras, games consoles, PDA LCDs, and other star products were put into mass production and quickly captured the market, winning the company considerable market share.

Looking forward to the future, the group of photoelectric will continue to deep LCD display field, is committed to the development of plane display core technology, make good use of global operations mechanism and depth of division of labor, promise customers high-quality products and services, become the world"s top display system suppliers, in 2006 in the global mobile phone color display market leader, become "Foxconn technology" future sustained rapid growth of the engine.

Founded in June 1998, Hannstar specializes in producing thin-film transistor liquid crystal display panels, mainly for use in monitors, notebook displays and televisions. It was the first company in Taiwan to adopt the world’s top ultra-wide perspective technology (AS-IPS).

The company has three LCD factories and one LCM factory. It has acquired state-of-the-art TFT-LCD manufacturing technology, which enables it to achieve the highest efficiency in the mass production of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display production technology. Its customers include man