Sony

OLED, 3D displaying is showed at Ceatec 2008

sarafan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:08:46 +0000

it’s reported that Sony has an entire wall of its 11-inch XEL-1 OLED TVs set up here at Ceatec 2008, but in contrast with past gadget shows, it's not the only company showing off OLED prototypes.

Panasonic may have said earlier this week that OLED is still far from becoming a mass-produced mainstream technology for use in big-screen TVs, but other electronics makers are plowing ahead with their own research on the organic, thin film technology: NEC, Sony, and KDDI showed off what they've been doing with OLED in their research labs.

Of course, Sony continues to press ahead its OLED research and development, showing a flexible OLED display as thin as a playing card, as well an OLED TV that's even thinner than its current XEL-1. The prototype measures just 0.3 millimeter thick. Besides, KDDI is going in a slightly different direction, looking to take OLED smaller and mobile. The mobile phone company showed an OLED display measuring 3.1 inches and meant for mobile devices. It's just a prototype for now.

Another theme here at Ceatec is 3D displays. Sure, Panasonic is showing its 3D high-definition home theater using a giant TV, but you still need 3D glasses to get the stereoscopic effect. NEC is showing a 9-inch LCD display a 3D image without the need for those silly plastic frames. KDDI also had its own 3D LCD display measuring 3.1 inches and for use by mobile devices. Also no need for 3D glasses.

Of course, while these are really cool concepts, they're still in the thick of development and it will be years before we see mass production of any of them.

The Great Future of LED TV(2)-- The maturity and productization of LED TV Technology

ivan — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:08:16 +0000

In the IFA 2008, many manufacturers introduced LED TVs to show their capability of combining LED and TV technology.

Samsung

For example, Samsung introduced the A950 series, which supports Full HD(1920*1080) with screens made 46 or 55 inches, and adopts LED back light, which can control the brightness more efficiently.

Sony

Sony also displayed LED TVs made with two different LED back-lighting technologies. One of them called X4500 series, which adopts 「Direct Type」 LED back-light and comes with screens made as 46 and 55 inches. The X4500 series adopts Sony's exclusive technology of LED Back-lighting, which is called TRILUMINOS RGB. TRILUMINOS RGB changes the result of traditional RGB LED back-light, which arranges the colors of red, green and blue in a special way, pushing up NTSC to 102% and the dynamic contrast ratio to 1000000︰1.

Another LED TV from Sony is called ZX1, which adopts the 「Edge Type」 LED back-light and 40-inch panel, reducing the thickness of its LCD panel to 9.9mm only, and thus becomes the thinest big-screen TV in the industry. ZX1 weights only 12.2 kilograms, contains 120Hz MotionFlow scanning technology, x.v.Color and BRAVIA Engine 2 picture processing technology. But in order to make the ZX1 ultra-thin, Sony has sacrificed some features, such as the static contrast ratio, which is only 3000:1, and the ZX1 only has one HDMI. It's priced at 490,000 yen(4,600 USD).

LG didn't show its LED TV in the IFA this time, but already launched the LG90 series in Korea, which adopts 47-inch panel and LED back-light. The contrast ratio of LG90 series is as high as 1000000: 1, while its energy consumption is only 70% of that of other LCD TVs with similar screen size. LG90 series also adopts 120Hz technology, which is combined with the high efficiency of switching from LED back-light to lift up the level of definition for dynamic pictures.

Sharp

Sharp's LED TV is named Aquos-XS series, which comes with 65 or 52-inch panel, 1000000:1 contrast ratio, and 105% NTSC. LED back-light makes the thinest place of Aquos-XS only 23mm. Aquos-XS is scheduled to launch in October 2008.

Philips

The LED TV from Philips is 42PFL9803, which adopts 42-inch screen and LED back-light,and is the first TV that utilizes Philips' LED LUX dimming technology. 42PFL9803 has 128 sets of LED(1152 in total) which are separated into 8 rows, and each set contains 9 LEDs that can individually shift to dark, so every pixel can be controlled accurately to increase the performance of dark color. Philips claims that the picture performed in its 42PFL9803 has better quality than that in the plasma TV, because the dynamic contrast ratio of 42PFL9803 is as high as 2000000:1.

Previous: The Great Future of LED TV(1)-- LED TV became focus in the IFA 2008

Next: The Great Future of LED TV(3)--Thinner、Better Picture Quality and More Energy Saving

The Great Future of LED TV(1)-- LED TV became focus in the IFA 2008

ivan — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:06:27 +0000

Why use LED backlight？

A few days ago in the IFA 2008 hosted in Berlin，many of the branded TV manufacturers introduced LED-backlighted TVs(LED TV)，aimed at the top layer of customers. Some leading manufacturers such as Sony and Samsung already introduced LED TV in 2006，but with the costs of LED have decreased and the LED technology has progressed rapidly, LED TV has moved toward a real product rather than just a demonstration of technology.

The structure of LED backlighting is fundamentally the same with that of CCFL, but CCFL produces light in the form of 「rays」 and LED in the form of 「spots」, which is the main difference. So what is the reason that the leading TV manufacturers shift to LED from CCFL? Generally LED has some distinguishing features as follows：

The 「spot」 form of LED light can individually adjust the brightness and contrast in different areas. It can also increase the gray levels of LED monitors, broaden the color saturation(NTSC >100%), heighten the distinction between dark and bright, and improve the richness of the picture.
LED spot light can switch on or off rapidly, due to this LED backlight has a longer life than CCFL, and its quick reaction also improves the quality of an active picture by reducing hazy or sway.
LED backlight is smaller, and can be made straight down or on the left side or right side, helping making the TV slimmer.
LED TV is a real green product. It gives no radiation, contains no mercury, and lives longer. It can also reduce the energy consumption for 30％ up.

However, compared with CCFL, LED TV still has a long way to go. For example, LED backlight requires a big number of bulbs, how to set up these bulbs without losing the equality and balance remains a question. Besides, there are still problems regarding heat cooling, lighting efficiency, and cost reduction.

Next: The Great Future of LED TV(2)-- The maturity and productization of LED TV Technology

TV performance is improved by LED backlights technology

sarafan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:46:30 +0000

Recently, Philips and Sony both unveiled new LCD televisions that use LED backlights at IFA, a major consumer electronic show held in Berlin, Germany on August 29 - September 3. Both companies had new TVs that used the LED backlights to achieve local dimming, while Sony also had a 40-inch LCD TV with LED edge-lighting – almost certainly a first.

The new 42PFL9803 FlatTV from Philips won the “European LCD-TV 2008-2009” award from the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA). According to Philips, its 42-inch set "delivers levels of contrast and motion smoothness never achieved by an LCD before." In its official citation, the EISA judging panel said, “The new 42PFL9803 solves two of the most critical challenges in current LCD TV technology: black level and motion blur. Thanks to its genius LED backlight. The 42PFL9803 is the first LCD TV to feature Philips' "LED LUX" local dimming backlight technology. Local dimming requires the distribution of LEDs across the backplane of the LCD. Unlike a conventional CCFL backlight that can be either on or off, each LED pixel can be individually dimmed to correspond to the brightness of the image.

The LED LUX system comprises a total of 1,152 RGB LEDs, split into 128 segments. Each of the 8 rows contains 16 segments, with 9 LEDs in each segment. These LEDs can be individually dimmed to precisely control the output of each pixel. So, even if a segment contains both bright and dark portions, the pixel values of the dark portions can be dimmed to deliver optimum contrast performance. The set also has the Ambilight Spectra 2 technology, which identifies dominant on-screen colors and then uses LED lighting to generate accurately-matched ambient lighting from both sides of the screen onto a rear wall.

Sony's new Bravia KDL-55X4500 is a 55-inch 1080p Full HD TV that uses local dimming of the RGB dynamic LED backlight to achieve a contrast ratio of over 1,000,000:1. The arrangement of the LEDs is likely to be broadly similar to the Philips TV i.e. multiple RGB devices distributed across the backplane.

Using a completely different approach to LED backlighting, the new ZX1 Series is a 40-inch display that is only 9.9mm thick at its slimmest point. As with ultra-thin notebook computers such as the MacBook Air, the secret is edge-lighting using white LEDs.

White LED edge-lighting is used in smaller LCD screens, from mobile phones all the way through to notebooks and some smaller monitors. But we're not aware of any screen this large that has used this technology. One major problem is that when the light sources are at the edges of the screen, it is difficult to achieve sufficiently high brightness and uniformity across the entire display. As you can see from this YouTube clip, Sony has clearly solved this problem.

The key of Bravia TVs’ Picture Quality is RGB LED Backlight Technology

sarafan — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:45:29 +0000

Recently, Sony Corp announced a new product line of Bravia LCD TVs including the XR1 series, which has an RGB LED backlight unit. The company said that the XR1 series offers "the highest picture quality in the history of Bravia," and also has an extremely wide color gamut of 122% NTSC. It is scheduled for release on Oct 10, 2008, many of the details have yet to be released.

Based on the backlight unit of the latest series exhibited at the conference hall, we made a comparison between the XR1 series and LED backlight models released in the past.

In 2004, Sony unveiled the Qualia 005, which was its first LCD TV incorporating an LED backlight unit. The Qualia 005 adopted a backlight technology dubbed "Triluminous," which used LED devices in RGB colors. It has a color gamut of 105% NTSC and uses a set of five LED devices arranged horizontally in the order of green, red, blue, red and green.

The second Triluminous model, the KDL-70X7000, was announced in August 2007. In this model, Sony drastically changed the alignment of LED devices, combining four LED devices, namely one red, one blue and two green, into one set. They are arranged in the shape of a diamond, with the two green devices vertically located, while the blue and the red were aligned horizontally. A lens-like component was placed on top of each device.

In the third version, Sony changed the alignment and the shape of the LED devices again. The layout, which consists of a set of one red, one blue and two green arranged in a square, is similar to that of the second version, but the alignment was changed. The green and blue LED devices are arranged on the upper row, and the red and green are set out on the lower one. The package size of each LED is smaller, and the distance between the packages looks narrower. The lens-like external part is not attached to the devices.

Thanks to the LED devices that are densely mounted in each set, the RGB colors can be effectively mixed to emit white light with less unevenness. Estimating from the small and densely mounted packages, the heat generated by each LED device may be lower than that of the existing models. The heat value of each LED device presumably decreased because its luminance efficiency was improved. Alternatively, the package size and the distance between the packages may be reduced by slashing the power input to each device. Sony has not disclosed the number of LED devices used in the backlight or the input power per device.

Toshiba and Matsushita joint venture to develop advanced OLED panels

sarafan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:35:37 +0000

Recently, Japan's Toshiba Corp and Matsushita joint venture to develop OLED displays with the world's longest product life span and lowest power consumption. The venture has developed the new panel in cooperation with Idemitsu Kosan Co, a Japanese oil refiner active in OLED materials development.

OLED panels are expected to be a promising next-generation display as they are thinner and offer brighter colours than liquid crystal displays (LCD) and plasma panels. Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology said it aims to start commercial production of the advanced OLED panels by March 2009 for cell phones and other mobile devices. It has yet to decide the size of production.

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology, owned 60 percent by Toshiba and 40 percent by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, said it has developed a 2.2-inch OLED panel with a lifetime of 60,000 hours and power consumption of 100 mW. Sony Corp, which launched the world's first OLED TVs late last year, said in October the product had a life span of about 30,000 hours of viewing, about half that of Sony's LCD TVs.

Matsushita works on OLED displays

sarafan — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:42:56 +0000

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. will begin test production of next-generation displays for TVs next year with plans for commercial output as early as 2011. Competition is heating up among the world's electronics makers, including Japanese rival Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea, in OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, displays.

OLED technology is in the works at its planned display plant in Japan — the company's second here — which will mainly make liquid crystal displays already common in flat-panel TVs. It uses materials that emit light on their own and don't require a back light. OLED displays are thinner, use less energy than current technology, and have high video display quality. However, OLED technology is currently more expensive than LCDs and plasma display panels. Smaller OLEDs are becoming gradually more widespread in cell phones and other mobile devices.

The Japanese government will support Sony, Sharp Corp., Matsushita and other domestic companies in joint development of OLED displays, with the plan to develop a 40-inch OLED display sometime after 2015.

The chance for OLED technology in the lighting market

Emma — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 06:01:11 +0000

Brief Comment：The Influence of SONY’s 70-inch LCDTV Back Light Module to the Industry

ivan — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:20:02 +0000

In CEATEC JAPAN 2007 exhibited recently in Japan , Japanese electronics giant SONY Corp announced the LED LCDTV back light module technology used in the latest 70-inch module of BRAVIA LCD TV . As one of the leader brands of LCD TV, SONY’s choice of back light module technology will certainly cause some influence to the industry, especially the trend of LED modules used in high-end LCD TV and designs of periphreals. It’s possible that the most common strategy might be mimicking SONY, SAMSUNG and SHARP.

SONY is using tricolor-RGB LED back light module technology ,which is with higher color purity and a wider color reproduction, not white light LED with narrower color reproduction. The development of tricolor-RGB LED back light module used in high-end products is very likely to maintain for a certain period, unless white light LED back light module could get an important technological breakthrough , improving its trait of color reproduction.

The LED module type, array, and diffuser plate combination adopted by SONY this time, were those with technological probroblems overcome and could be put into max production,able to be made into commercial products.

Comparing with SONY QUALIA 005 annouced three years ago, the LED modules used in the latest 70-inch LCD TV have more technological breakthrough than before. First, the amount of LED modules used were fewer in same size, although the actual decreasement in numbers was not declared, judging from the amount used in original QUALIA 005─46-inch module used 90 sets of LED modules, totally 450, 40-inch module used 60 sets, totally 325 LED modules, arranged in Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green 5 in 1 row array, LED sets were horizontally arranged in a file before being vertically arrayed.

In SONY’s new back light module, one LED set is composed of 4 LEDs, one Red and one Blue ,with two Greens. One RED LED spared, but with a light efficiency no less than before, the arrangement is in foursquare, not 5 in 1 row. The lens module in this back light module was changed into up-side-down arrangement , more efficient than before.

SONY originally used LEDs form Lumileds Corp. ,subdivision of Philips Lumileds Group. The supplier of new LED modules not revealed, but there were rumors that it was a Japanese origin, implying that Japanese Suppliers like Nichia Corp and TOYODA GOSEI Corp might have better chance of being adopted in Japanese electronic products.

Large-sized LCD TVs have higher price, thus could cover the increased cost of using modules made of multiple LEDs, meanwhile offer better graphics and power efficiency. Samsung ,Sharp and others are moving into 10th-generation LCD production line in order to cut into 6 pieces of 70-inch panel with economical benefit, the yield of present 60-inch panels and 70-inch panels were also improving, to be differentiating, there will be more and more large-sized panels using RGB LED back light module,this trend is certain, and the numbers of LED used will increase as well.

On the LED industry side, common Red, Green LEDs have been under-priced, Blue LEDs with higher price is the key of profitting. Red and Green LEDs used in LED back light modules is certainly higher class in quality and specifications. After top three panel makers adopted LED back light modules, other LCD TV makers and monitor manufacturers will have the possibility to follow their steps, expanding demands of LEDs from other LED suppliers.

About small-sized panel, the trend of white light LED back light module replacing common CCFL is obvious, we expect there to be a stronger upward in 2008.