News Item Dated: 23 September 2002
From: ExtremeTech (09/16/02); Salvator, Dave

A number of large technology firms, and many more smaller ones, are working on next-generation organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, which will allow for greater versatility and less power consumption than even LCDs. The advantages of OLEDs include faster response times, less power usage, better viewing at an angle, and no need for a backlight. One company is even working on flexible OLED displays. OLED technology involves charging special organic material with electric current so that it emits light; the color depends on what type of material is used.

So far, however, only very small screens have been produced commercially, for cell phones and car stereos. Displays up to 17 inches in diameter have been prototyped, but are very expensive and suffer from relatively low resolution; Sony demonstrated a 17-inch panel with a resolution of 800 by 600 pixels at the recent Society of Information Display's annual conference. A number of players are pioneering their own OLED technology, while Eastman Kodak, which first published OLED research in 1987, has begun licensing its OLED technology to other firms. Other companies engaged in OLED display development include Sanyo, Cambridge Display Technology, Philips, Dupont Displays, Universal Display, Toshiba, Sony, Opsys, and IBM.

Interested? For further reading, check out this link: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,533865,00.asp