Flexible OLEDs and amorphous silicon.

OLED technology is used in commercial applications such as small screens for mobile phones and portable digital audio players (MP3 players), car radios, digital cameras, and high-resolution microdisplays for head-mounted displays. Such portable applications favor the high light output of OLEDs for readability in sunlight, and their low power drain.

The biggest technical problem for OLEDs is the limited lifetime of the organic materials. In particular, blue OLEDs historically have had a lifetime of around 14,000 hours (5 years at 8 hours a day) when used for flat-panel displays, which is lower than typical lifetime of LCD, LED or PDP technology – each currently rated for about 60,000 hours, depending on manufacturer and model.

The intrusion of water into displays can damage or destroy the organic materials. Therefore, improved sealing processes are important for practical manufacturing and may limit the longevity of more flexible displays.

OLED technology is used in commercial applications such as small screens for mobile phones and portable digital audio players (MP3 players), car radios, digital cameras, and high-resolution microdisplays for head-mounted displays. Such portable applications favor the high light output of OLEDs for readability in sunlight, and their low power drain. Portable displays are also used intermittently, so the lower lifespan of OLEDs is less important here.

Prototypes have been made of flexible and rollable displays which use OLED's unique characteristics. They use amorphous silicon a type of flexible foil rather then glass panels to protect the OLED, thus making them flexible unlike the current OLEDs tv's.

OLEDs have been used in most Motorola and Samsung color cell phones, as well as some Sony Ericsson phones, notably the Z610i, and some models of the Sony Walkman^[43]. It is also found in the Creative Zen V/V Plus series of MP3 players. Nokia has also introduced recently some OLED products, including the 7900 Prism and Nokia 8800 Arte.

On October 1st, 2007, Sony became the first company to announce an OLED television.The XEL-1 11" OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) Digital Television sells for $2499.99 in Canada (as of April 24, 2008). They are available in the United States at select Sony Style stores for US$2499.99. - not a truly flexible tv, because it is displayed using glass not with the flexible foil called amorphous silicon.

The radically different manufacturing process of OLEDs lends itself to many advantages over flat-panel displays made with LCD technology. Since OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate using an inkjet printer or even screen printing technologies,^[30] they can theoretically have a significantly lower cost than LCDs or plasma displays. Printing OLEDs onto flexible substrates opens the door to new applications such as roll-up displays and displays embedded in fabrics or clothing.

OLEDs enable a greater range of colors, brightness, and viewing angle than LCDs, because OLED pixels directly emit light. OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90 degrees from normal. LCDs use a backlight and cannot show true black, while an "off" OLED element produces no light and consumes no power. Energy is also wasted in LCDs because they require polarizers which filter out about half of the light emitted by the backlight. Additionally, color filters in color LCDs filter out two-thirds of the light.

OLEDs also have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas a standard LCD currently has an average of 4-8 millisecond response time, an OLED can have less than 0.01ms response time.

Samsung unveiled a 31-inch OLED TV at the January 2008 CES in Las Vegas and is promising much larger screens to come. “We have the technological ability to make 40-inch OLED,” said a spokesman, before adding that it won’t be until 2010 that the company will be in a position to mass produce such panels: - But this wont be totally flexible because it will be encased in glass not using the amorphous silicon.