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Apple’s New Taiwanese Lab May Focus on OLED and Micro-LED Display Technology

More display rumors? I guess we can get the standard responses out of the way.
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Why is Apple waiting so long to implement OLED? Playing catch up again.

OLED sucks because xyz. I'd much rather keep LCD.

I'd rather they put in a bigger battery.
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In all seriousness though, I'm very intrigued by this "micro-LED" technology that seems to keep popping up. Unfortunately we probably won't see it for another 3 years.
 
balmeo said:
It's basically what Sony called Crystal LED display in 2012: Every sub pixel (Red, Green and Blue) will have its own backlight unit (that's why micro LED instead normal LED). So when you are showing black on display, it will not consume any power (just like OLED). Search YouTube "Crystal LED" and you will find Sony's nice CES demo.
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It's not that each LED has a backlight, it's that each LED is the light source itself (similar to OLED). A backlight in a traditional LCD panel is a white LED source that is eventually masked by the LCD, which is in the "front".
 
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Why does Apple keep trying to make things better besides the battery? I'd much prefer fluorescent tube lamps. Concentrate on harnessing nuclear fusion in a smartphone sized package. Even if it means making it 12" thick.
 
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Do OLED displays work with the 3D Touch that's in the current iPhones? I keep hearing they don't.
 
meaning-matters said:
Apple is still striving to control both the hardware and software. A sure way to amazing products.
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what hardware, other than their A series core? I have a funny feeling that this is going to turn out like LiquidMetal -- meaning it would go nowhere. What does this group have that LG, Samsung, Japan Display who have spent significant $$$ and many years in R&D don't?
 
tooltalk said:
what hardware, other than their A series core? I have a funny feeling that this is going to turn out like LiquidMetal -- meaning it would go nowhere. What does this group have that LG, Samsung, Japan Display who have spent significant $$$ and many years in R&D don't?
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A lot of industry work goes "nowhere," but you have to take the risk and try to get anywhere, otherwise you'll never see any innovations.

Also, Samsung/LG/etc have spent considerable $$ on OLED/LCD, but micro-LED is a completely different manufacturing technology. The research $$ on OLED/LCD does not translate.
 
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Up until very recently, I have not liked OLED. They have suffered from pentile sub pixels and over saturation. Many are even still poorly calibrated. That said the current top displays are quite good. I feel what OLED needs now is a new reference gamut. I want the full color range to be used, without stretching reference RGB to fill the the wider color space.
Apple (as well as anybody else) has the opportunity to make a big leap in displays with HDR.
My guess about Micro LED, is that it is just a variant of OLED. I'm sure Apple wants to do everything possible to avoid the OLED name.
 
Jim Lahey said:
Why does Apple keep trying to make things better besides the battery? I'd much prefer fluorescent tube lamps. Concentrate on harnessing nuclear fusion in a smartphone sized package. Even if it means making it 12" thick.
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So you want a pipboy :)
 
err404 said:
My guess about Micro LED, is that it is just a variant of OLED. I'm sure Apple wants to do everything possible to avoid the OLED name.
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Micro-LED is nothing like OLED. OLED is based on an organic polymer, micro-LED is based on inorganic crystalline semiconductor material, and inherently has a much higher quantum efficiency than organic polymers (efficiency of converting electronic carriers into photons). OLEDs can be panel processed since the base material can be deposited in large areas, whereas micro-LEDs cannot be (they have to be grown as epitaxial layers on small single crystalline substrates). Micro-LEDs themselves are small blocks of material (i.e. a block 10 um x 10 um x 10 um in size), hence the terminology "micro" LED.

Micro-LEDs will be a significantly new/game changing technology, if they can make it manufacturable. This technology is not so secretive as Apple would like you to believe, there has been quite a bit of work in academia for this technology
 
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tooltalk said:
what hardware, other than their A series core? I have a funny feeling that this is going to turn out like LiquidMetal -- meaning it would go nowhere. What does this group have that LG, Samsung, Japan Display who have spent significant $$$ and many years in R&D don't?
Click to expand...
So nobody else should invest or do their own R&D? Apple should just be beholden to Samsung and LG forever?
 
tooltalk said:
what hardware, other than their A series core? I have a funny feeling that this is going to turn out like LiquidMetal -- meaning it would go nowhere. What does this group have that LG, Samsung, Japan Display who have spent significant $$$ and many years in R&D don't?
Click to expand...

If more people don't try different things, technology won't advance as fast. I want more companies researching as many different things as possible. There can only be good things that come from it.
 
Once again!
Apple on the vanguard of the technology… Ohh wait a minute!
4 years ago there was Nokia 808 that already came with a Oled screen!!! Let me guess, the best part is that Apple will release a 16 gb model with a "revolutionary" screen, you that can record 4 minutes of 4k videos on the 12gb available memory and then they will ask 800€ for that!
 
Polkatulk said:
Once again!
Apple on the vanguard of the technology… Ohh wait a minute!
4 years ago there was Nokia 808 that already came with a Oled screen!!! Let me guess, the best part is that Apple will release a 16 gb model with a "revolutionary" screen, you that can record 4 minutes of 4k videos on the 12gb available memory and then they will ask 800€ for that!
Click to expand...

Anyone else find this type of post hilarious?
 
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chych7 said:
It's not that each LED has a backlight, it's that each LED is the light source itself (similar to OLED). A backlight in a traditional LCD panel is a white LED source that is eventually masked by the LCD, which is in the "front".
Click to expand...
Curious, what is the difference between MicroLED and AMOLED then?
 
lunarworks said:
AMOLED is kinda cool, I love how you can have always-on info screens, but I'm glad Apple hasn't gone with it yet. The colours look so unnatural on all the OLED phones I've seen. I love digital photography, so it's kind of a big deal for me and many others.
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I'm the same. Amateur photographer. Had a Note II, and a couple other AMOLED Displays and the saturation was always too much for me. But the current displays (S6, S6Edge, Note 5 and S6Edge+) sems to have fixed this oversaturation problem. one of the best displays in the game right now (right on par with the iPhones colour representation, as tested by anandtech). Now, by Default samsung enables an "adaptive" calibration mode that tends to still oversaturate, but it's easily disabled in the settings. Just another example of Touchwiz getting in the way of fantastic hardware.


just.in.time said:
OLED would be amazing if it weren't for the technology's sensitivity to screen burn in.
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Harmonious Zen said:
No kidding. All of the Samsung phones I've seen in stores have horrendous burn in.
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Burn in is not a problem with everyday usage. The problem with Burn in occurs on showroom displays that have their devices cranked to 100% brightness and running for virtually 24 hours a day. And believe it or not, Burn in also can occur in LCD based displays as well. You don't see it so clearly in iPhones because Apples glass is darkened, where Samsung is using a non-tinted glass, but i HAVE seen iPhone displays with burn-in from the same usage situations.
 
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