Looking at advancements in Display Technology

From smartwatch to smart TV, from foldable to holographic, display technology is evolving rapidly. A new era of flexible display is already here, illustrating the next-gen tech innovation.

Screens in private use are already highly diverse; in terms of size alone, they range from smartwatches to huge flatscreen TVs. The size of monitors was earlier somewhere around 15” 18” but now people are looking for a size of 22” and 24”. So as far as the display goes, bigger and more compact is better and much preferred.

Yogesh Agrawal, CEO and Co-Founder, Consistent Infosystems, shared his thoughts on the future developments of display technologies

What innovations are on the way?

With many innovations on the way, the number of different formats and device types will increase significantly in the coming years. This includes virtual and augmented reality glasses, folding screens, 3D holograms, and direct projections, e.g. onto car windscreens.

Consumers will be able to use these displays to control their appliances as much as for enjoying media content. New screen types will also influence the presentation of the content itself: Storytelling, camera style, and content length will adapt to each format. In addition, stakeholder behavior – from hardware manufacturers to consumers and advertising agencies – will also shape developments.

Will LCD technology become obsolete?

LCDs still exist because they can produce good-quality images at a low cost. If LED panels can be produced and sold at a cost comparable to that of LCD panels, the LCD panel technology may well become history. Additionally, various manufacturers, some leading ones such as LG are now ramping up their production capacities for a superior technology: organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs. This makes the relevance of LCDs a thing of the past.

Will OLED take over in the future?

OLED technology may give birth to a new era of large-area, transparent, flexible and low-energy display and lighting products.

The flexibility of OLEDs enables manufacturers to produce OLEDs using roll-to-roll manufacturing processes, and allows for the production of flexible display and lighting products. OLEDs are commercially produced on rigid glass substrates mainly. However, first applications like watches or bent displays using flexible OLEDs have entered the market lately.

Developing sufficiently durable and flexible OLEDs will require better materials and further development of manufacturing tools and processes. Flexible plastic substrates need improved barrier layers to protect OLEDs from moisture and oxygen. Thin-film encapsulation also is needed to create thin and flexible metal- and glass-based OLEDs.

What to expect in the future?

Right now the market of OLED and QD-OLED is a bit paradoxical. Currently, OLEDs retain a competitive edge over quantum dots in the premium display market, despite the fact that they are often more expensive to produce and are only available in large panel formats.

Current quantum dot displays may be dependent upon established and potentially outmoded LED technology, but they are typically cheaper to produce and subsequently cheaper to purchase. In the end, how much better QD-OLED is than regular OLED doesn't actually matter. QD-OLED is already the most important thing it could be: more OLED. Pushing picture quality up and prices down have never been a bad thing.