What Comes After OLED? Meet QDEL (arstechnica.com) 49
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Quantum dots are already moving in the premium display category, particularly through QD-OLED TVs and monitors. The next step could be QDEL, short for "quantum dot electroluminescent," also known as NanoLED, screens. Not to be confused with the QLED (quantum light emitting diode) tech already available in TVs, QDEL displays don't have a backlight. Instead, the quantum dots are the light source. The expected result is displays with wider color spaces than today's QD-OLEDs (quantum dot OLEDs) that are also brighter, more affordable, and resistant to burn-in. It seems like QDEL is being eyed as one of the most potentially influential developments for consumer displays over the next two years. If you're into high-end display tech, QDEL should be on your radar.
You may know QDEL as NanoLED because that's what Nanosys, a quantum dot supplier developing the technology, calls it. QDEL has gone by other names, such as QLED -- before Samsung claimed that acronym for LCD-LED TVs that use quantum dots. You may also see QDEL referred to as QD-EL, QD-LED, or EL-QD. As the alphabet soup suggests, there are still some things to finalize with this tech. This article will mostly use the term QDEL, with occasional references to NanoLED. If none of those names sound familiar, it's probably because you can't buy any QDEL products yet. Suppliers suggest that could change in the next few years; Nanosys is targeting 2026 for commercial availability. [...]
Today's OLED screens use OLED material as their light source, with QD-OLED specifically applying quantum dots to convert the light into color. In QLED, the light source is a white backlight; QDEL displays apply electricity directly to quantum dots, which then generate light. QDEL uses a layer of quantum dots sandwiched between an anode and cathode to facilitates the flow of electricity into the quantum dots. QDEL displays have pixels made of a red quantum dot subpixel, green quantum dot subpixel, and -- differing from today's QLED and QD-OLED displays -- blue quantum dot subpixel. QDEL displays use the same quantum dot cores that QD-OLED and QLED products use, [Jeff Yurek, Nanosys' VP of marketing] told me, adding, "The functionalization of the outer layer of the [quantum dots] needs to be changed to make it compatible with each display architecture, but the cores that do the heavy lifting are pretty much the same across all of these."
Because QDEL pixels make their own light and can therefore turn off completely, QDEL displays can deliver the same deep blacks and rich contrast that made OLED popular. But with the use of direct-view quantum dots, stakeholders are claiming the potential for wider color gamuts than we've seen in consumer displays before. With fewer layers and parts, there are also implications for QDEL product pricing, longevity, and even thinness. [...] The fact that quantum dots are already being successfully applied to LCD-LED and OLED screens is encouraging for future QDEL products. QDEL stakeholders claim that the tech could bring efficiencies like lower power consumption and higher brightness than OLED. (Research using a prototype device has recorded quantum dot light-emitting diodes reaching 614,000 nits. Of course, those aren't the type of results you should expect to see in a real-life consumer product.) There's also hope that QDEL could eventually last longer than OLED, especially since QDEL doesn't rely on organic materials that can cause burn-in.
You may know QDEL as NanoLED because that's what Nanosys, a quantum dot supplier developing the technology, calls it. QDEL has gone by other names, such as QLED -- before Samsung claimed that acronym for LCD-LED TVs that use quantum dots. You may also see QDEL referred to as QD-EL, QD-LED, or EL-QD. As the alphabet soup suggests, there are still some things to finalize with this tech. This article will mostly use the term QDEL, with occasional references to NanoLED. If none of those names sound familiar, it's probably because you can't buy any QDEL products yet. Suppliers suggest that could change in the next few years; Nanosys is targeting 2026 for commercial availability. [...]
Today's OLED screens use OLED material as their light source, with QD-OLED specifically applying quantum dots to convert the light into color. In QLED, the light source is a white backlight; QDEL displays apply electricity directly to quantum dots, which then generate light. QDEL uses a layer of quantum dots sandwiched between an anode and cathode to facilitates the flow of electricity into the quantum dots. QDEL displays have pixels made of a red quantum dot subpixel, green quantum dot subpixel, and -- differing from today's QLED and QD-OLED displays -- blue quantum dot subpixel. QDEL displays use the same quantum dot cores that QD-OLED and QLED products use, [Jeff Yurek, Nanosys' VP of marketing] told me, adding, "The functionalization of the outer layer of the [quantum dots] needs to be changed to make it compatible with each display architecture, but the cores that do the heavy lifting are pretty much the same across all of these."
Because QDEL pixels make their own light and can therefore turn off completely, QDEL displays can deliver the same deep blacks and rich contrast that made OLED popular. But with the use of direct-view quantum dots, stakeholders are claiming the potential for wider color gamuts than we've seen in consumer displays before. With fewer layers and parts, there are also implications for QDEL product pricing, longevity, and even thinness. [...] The fact that quantum dots are already being successfully applied to LCD-LED and OLED screens is encouraging for future QDEL products. QDEL stakeholders claim that the tech could bring efficiencies like lower power consumption and higher brightness than OLED. (Research using a prototype device has recorded quantum dot light-emitting diodes reaching 614,000 nits. Of course, those aren't the type of results you should expect to see in a real-life consumer product.) There's also hope that QDEL could eventually last longer than OLED, especially since QDEL doesn't rely on organic materials that can cause burn-in.
Acronym salad (Score:5, Funny)
Having a stroke.
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My CEO turns every initialism into an acronym.
Did you know you can pronounce PCMCIA? Hearing that *will* give you a stroke.
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Did you know you can pronounce PCMCIA? Hearing that *will* give you a stroke.
I didn't, but now I'm thinking of something like "Pack 'em, see ya!" which should go fine with these new-fangled portable computers.
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Most of us... (Score:3)
Even OT and Cable programming today is of mid to low quality.
Gaming might benefit the most from this type of technology.
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You have created an ignorant wordsalad of requirements without understanding why they fit together.
You want no backlight bleed? Well for that you can increase the contrast ratio (which you claim doesn't worry you). If you eliminate backlight bleed and have a high contrast ratio you will get banding, so for that you want 10bit colour processing. And funny enough some of the screens with the better contrast ratios, colours, and backlight darkness which don't have burning (aren't OLED) have ...... viewing angl
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Re: Most of us... (Score:1)
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4 laptops, 3 monitors, and 2 TVs in the last 5 years. Not a single dead pixel.
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Most of us watch streamed video that is already highly compressed.
We don't develop technology based on the practices of most of us. We develop technology for the best of us, and let it trickle down to consumers later. Just because you watch a compressed stream doesn't mean videophiles / cinephiles, don't exist.
Gaming isn't a good example of people who make good use of technology such as this. We have HDR displays with defined gamuts and yet a pathetic few games actually implement it correctly. Conversely unless you actually have a proper HDR monitor any deviation from the
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Flagship console games have proper HDR and wide gamut support, which is where I play any game which is a graphical showcase.
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In the UK, broadcast TV is the lowest quality. YouTube is considerably better, and Netflix is on another level.
OLED is good for other stuff too though. For photo and design work, it can be calibrated very well and offers HDR without the haloing.
The main issue for computer use is the non-RGB pixel layout, which makes text look poor compared to LCD. Subpixel anti-aliasing breaks. As soon as someone makes a reasonably priced 28" 4k OLED with a compatible subpixel layout, I'm upgrading.
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Most of us watch streamed video that is already highly compressed.
Even OT and Cable programming today is of mid to low quality.
display performance still has a massive, fundamental effect on image quality, regardless of source.
go watch a youtube video and turn down your current display's brightness and contrast. see if you notice anything.
i dont understand the pessimism; display tech has made massive strides in IQ in the last couple decades, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. it's something to be excited about.
MicroLED (Score:3)
What happened to microLED? That was supposed to be the next display tech for power smartwatches, phones, and home TVs. Instead what we got was a few ultra-large TVs with 4K resolution price at 100k. Are these QDEL things better, or worse .. or equally vaporware?
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MicroLED != OLED
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What are you even on about with this 100k nonsense? 4K OLED TVs are cheap.
The OP said MicroLED. The Samsung MicroLED TV is currently $102,000. It's competition from C-Seed costs $149,000.
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They're all LED displays. The nano ones are just smaller, which is what you need to make smaller displays while keeping the resolution the same.
Those video walls you see in stadiums and Times Square and everywhere else today are LED displays, except they use non-micro (i.e. bigger) LEDs so they're big and/or low resolution. I have a couple of the panels, they're squares with 30 cm sides and 64 x 64 LEDs. A few TV manufacturers made high res video walls with the smallest LEDs they could make, which at the ti
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I work in LED signage and the issue as far as I understand it from my industry really a physical constraint thing. Your big roadside billboards and stadium signs might have a pitch of 8-20mm, your better looking retail and office displays signs are very common from 5.5mm down to even 0.7mm is pretty easy. For comparison a merely 1080p display at 55" diagonal has a pitch of around 0.3mm. Also the term "MicroLED" has no actual meaning, years ago they were just calling it "miniLED".
While processes get bette
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Also the term "MicroLED" has no actual meaning, years ago they were just calling it "miniLED".
This part is incorrect.
miniLED refers to small backlight LEDs (so that you have have literally thousands of local dimming zones)
microLED refers to small individual LEDs (no backlight)
It's been this way for over a decade.
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What industry group owns those terms? My point is no-one does, even this LED display manufacturer has their own explanation for it which doesn't comport with that.
https://www.unilumin.com/blog/... [unilumin.com]
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Some company's fucking marketing blog attempting to muddy the waters to paint themselves in a better light doesn't lend any weight to your argument whatsoever.
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What happened to microLED? That was supposed to be the next display tech for power smartwatches, phones, and home TVs. Instead what we got was a few ultra-large TVs with 4K resolution price at 100k. Are these QDEL things better, or worse .. or equally vaporware?
Nothing happened yet. The industry works on more than one development at a time. MicroLED is still an actively researched field. You'll see MicroLEDs come down in price long before QDEL TVs hit a CES roadshow with an equally high new technology price tag.
Power Consumption? (Score:2)
For mobile devices (smart phones, smart watches, laptops, and the like), power consumption is a huge factor. The summary doesn't mention it, but I'm guessing that the lack of a backlight gives reason to suspect it will either be the same or better than what's currently used. And considering how many screens get left on all the time, having lower power is important in general.
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They have an interesting power dynamic.
They're less efficient when displaying high brightness (because more discretes will always have higher overhead than less), but far more efficient when displaying low brightness, since they're not fighting backlight loss, they can run those fuckers at uamps.
OLED screens have had always-on functionality for a long time now. Samsungs back in the early 2010s is I think where I first saw it. My Apple Watch OLED is al
OLED and Macular Degeneration in my retinas (Score:2)
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It has led me to get OLEDs for everything.
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There's a disconnect in the summary (Score:2)
"More affordable" and "high end" don't typically play in the same space.
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The law of diminishing returns (Score:2)
I'm sure QDEL is great but OLED already delivers most of what this tech screed promises and for substantially less. Building a factory that makes displays costs billions and these screens would *really* have to deliver significant energy saving, and brightness to justify the very large investment necessary to manufacture them. And also consumers would *really* want to buy them to overcome the enormous markup they'll command. Also, aside from its positives there are things which are not mentioned, such as ho
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OLED has horrible screen burn-in. It's only good for devices that you will dispose of in a couple years.
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TVs have always suffered burn in, but you'd have to use the screen in a very atypical way to ever see it. I was once given a Mac Classic that came from someone who worked in Apple which had burn in from the test software ran constantly in its previous role.
As for OLED, it occurs after displaying a static image at a high brightness for a very long time. Assuming you're just watching TV or playing games it probably suffers no harm. Most OLED displays would even have strategies to mitigate burn-in, such as dim
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That said, if an airport used OLED to show nothing but CNN or arrivals/departures then most likely it would suffer burn-in from portions of the screen that were static.
They used to when they were CRTs too, and it made it hard as hell to read them.
OLED definitely isn't the right tech for displays like that. LCDs can be brighter anyway, and image quality is less important, making them just a better fit overall.
I've got a ton of OLED mobile devices, a couple of OLED laptops, a few OLED screens, and an OLED TV... no problems. My ASUS gaming laptop- i'm actually surprised it *hasn't*, because I have a nasty habit of leaving games on it paused and.... going to bed.
OLED bur
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Advertorial (Score:3)
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Yep, an advert for something you can't buy and a product which doesn't exist. You people would call everything a Slashvertisement.
Cheaper old tech? (Score:2)
Will this mean I can finally afford an OLED panel?
(shrug) (Score:2)
I have an LG CX (OLED) and love it.
The whole thing about burn in is a canard; I guess it's a risk if you have like a bar-tv where you leave it on one channel with a chyron or a video game with a persistent UI (like the frames of buttons) that doesn't change for hours and hours and hours.
And "potentially thinner"? My CX is literally the thickness of a single pane of glass - 4mm. There's a point where thinner isn't necessarily better, I don't even know how the guy mounted this thing without cracking it.