Samsung to End LCD Manufacturing by Late-2020, Focus on AMOLED and QLED

[mtcn77]

None of this says it's not an LCD or not an LED-backlit(/edge-lit) LCD, so I don't see what you're correcting.

It is not qled, qdot. Sorry, forgot to point that out.

Qled might indeed be quantum light converting.

I'm having tremendous fun tuning my lcd mobile display panel through Intel graphics display features, anybody sharing that sentiment?
I had previously read about mobile gamma modulation software to cut down, and also, to moderate lcd brightness requirements. Essentially, DisplayHDR standards before their inception. I can at last cancel the TN backglow. It essentially is due to low gamma and high panel brightness(not os brightness). It cancels itself out, if you kill the backglow through dropping the blue channel gamma level and consequently lowering the brightness. I therefore recon all ips backglow sufferers need to check first their gamma and brightness channels since it has also been demonstrated that different hardware runs of the same display can be calibrated to a similar model grade, regardless of its lcd component class, TN or IPS.

 

[R-T-B]

Are all LG OLEDs like that? That's pretty clever. Sounds tricky to get good colors that way (unless the color filter is variable like... an LCD? That sounds expensive and dim though.), but their TVs certainly don't seem to struggle with that. Their new 48" OLED is pretty far up my list for a future gaming display purchase.

Yep, all since I think like 2015 or something really early on.

It works extremely well and way better than an LCD because it's still emissive: Every pixel (the white source) can turn 100% black and off.

I am happy with my LED VA LCD Panasonic panel from 2016..

View attachment 149882

I'm glad you are happy, and I love VA panels, but sadly Panasonic has exited the TV market at least in North America.

 

[mtcn77]

Every pixel (the white source) can turn 100% black

You can curb the 'backglow', if that hits close to home.

 

[R-T-B]

You can curb the 'backglow' if that makes it more appreciable.

I mean, it turns off. There is no backglow in OLED.

 

[mtcn77]

I mean, it turns off. There is no backglow in OLED.

Well, yeah, but 'off' is only an illusion with the background radiation present in our universe.
I'm just making a case to adapt to it: cut back gamma for the blue channel 0.2 notes increase its brightness and contrast, reduce lcd brightness. I read an essay sometime in the past. I cannot find it, but can vouch for it to work out as stated.

It was a case of replacing mobile brightness with gamma and saturation. Let's be realistic, backglow is uncalibrated black level.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I donno man, both my Samsung's phone and tablet with AMOLED displays have a perfect quality. Not sure how they lost any race...

 

[Flanker]

LG most notably in terms of truly new display tech, being OLED, because its realistically the perfect (and only) technology that is capable of producing HDR that doesn't burn your retina out, it has perfect contrast ratios and 0.0 black point, perfect color accuracy as a result of that, there is no motion blur from G2G response time etc etc. It just degrades a bit faster than LCD and has image retention problems.

Its much like the old plasma days, really, except now LG owns the patent.

We will be seeing more OLED production lines outside LG but not very soon. Samsung on the other hand lost this race and desperately tries everything to produce something else that is also self emissive and with similar characteristics to OLED. They have candidates. But they're all not ready for market. Meanwhile, they do mix up their new candidates with actual products with similar stickers and a minor improvement, in this case QLED, being nothing more than an added filter, but its still a backlit panel.

Hopefully my next monitor will be a nice OLED, they still don't seem to be very popular or affordable.

 

[watzupken]

Hopefully my next monitor will be a nice OLED, they still don't seem to be very popular or affordable.

Actually the prices of OLED TVs have declined substantially over the years. This is especially so if you don't go for the latest model. I feel it is not just a matter of OLED TVs not picking up, but the demand for TVs have declined substantially over the years. All thanks to tablets and onslaught of mobile phones with bigger screens.

 

[Flanker]

Actually the prices of OLED TVs have declined substantially over the years. This is especially so if you don't go for the latest model. I feel it is not just a matter of OLED TVs not picking up, but the demand for TVs have declined substantially over the years. All thanks to tablets and onslaught of mobile phones with bigger screens.

I'm thinking a 27in 1080p type of monitor

 

[londiste]

Correction, the backplane is dotted with quantum nanoparticles which acts as a better wave guide than a standard diffuser plate. It increases emissive efficiency.
Notice, this image involves a couple of implementations. The first variant is the one I describe, dots that serve the same fresnel prism, but at the lgp light guide plate. The second is quantum wavelength converter, the red and green dots that aren't specific to this.

As far as we know, Samsung has not actually made any products based on this technology yet.

Wrote this to Eizo Foris Nova thread a couple days ago:

There have only been small test samples of emissive QD displays. It is not a technology viable for manufacture, at least not today or the short term.
Micro-LED is closer to becoming a real competitor to OLED.

QD is a thing and has various applications but in terms of monitors or TVs today, there is a lot of hype-generation by Samsung about QD that is simply hype.
- QD used in LED-LCD panels (in color filters) is a viable and used technology today, Samsung calls them QLED, IIRC LG called this Nanocell.
- QD as backlight-modulating layer for both LCD as well as - notably - OLED is being worked on. A layer with QD filtering blue backlight to red/green (which is very efficient with QD). ET is unknown but 1-digit amount of years is likely.
- QD as emissive pixels does work and Samsung and others have small test panels to show it off. It has a plethora of problems and will not be here any time soon.

Are all LG OLEDs like that? That's pretty clever. Sounds tricky to get good colors that way (unless the color filter is variable like... an LCD? That sounds expensive and dim though.), but their TVs certainly don't seem to struggle with that. Their new 48" OLED is pretty far up my list for a future gaming display purchase.

Color filters on LG's WOLED are exactly like LCD. Other than the addition of white subpixel. LG was (and somewhat still is) vague about how their OLEDs actually worked, probably because it is not a "true" OLED, meaning the traditional RGB-OLED panel with each subpixel being a separate OLED. The main drawback for LG is about 30% of brightness being lost to color filters.

AMOLED are RGB-OLED screens. Samsung's 55ES9500 from 2012/2013 was an RGB-OLED. Samsung canceled it and stepped out of OLED TV market because it turned out to be about three times as expensive to manufacture compared to LG's WOLED. RGB-OLED is not without drawbacks of course. The different speed of aging of different subpixels is a big one. Blue is especially problematic because it ages considerably faster than either red or green. This makes burn-in a real concern not only due to changing brightness but also changing colors.

 

[Valantar]

I'm thinking a 27in 1080p type of monitor

OLED is (still) too expensive to be used in anything but a premium device, so I doubt that will ever happen - 27" 1080p is anything but premium, no matter its brightness, contrast, gamut, etc.

 

[Flanker]

OLED is (still) too expensive to be used in anything but a premium device, so I doubt that will ever happen - 27" 1080p is anything but premium, no matter its brightness, contrast, gamut, etc.

Here's hoping my current monitor lasts until it is truly popular lol

 

[Vayra86]

Correction, the backplane is dotted with quantum nanoparticles which acts as a better wave guide than a standard diffuser plate. It increases emissive efficiency.
View attachment 149885
Notice, this image involves a couple of implementations. The first variant is the one I describe, dots that serve the same fresnel prism, but at the lgp light guide plate. The second is quantum wavelength converter, the red and green dots that aren't specific to this.

Yes, the backplane has a QD filter, this is not new, despite using a different wording

As for the color filters I absolurely get how they help for avoiding burn-in, but I still wonder how exactly the filter works - if the OLED just serves as a per-pixel variable backlight with a wide color gamut the filter pretty much has to be an LCD, no?

Its really both; there are four subpixels AND a filter.

 

[Valantar]

Here's hoping my current monitor lasts until it is truly popular lol

... and until they've solved burn-in completely. OLED for regular PC use (desktop) for now will inevitably result in a burnt-in taskbar at the minimum, plus likely static UI elements like browser tabs or close/minimize buttons. I wouldn't trust today's OLEDs to last more than a year or two of regular desktop use before significan burn-in happens.

Its really both; there are four subpixels AND a filter.

View attachment 149925

My partner had a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro that had an RGBW LCD, and it was terrible due to how it killed the contrast ratio of the display as that white pixel would never go really dark - though I guess OLED solves that handily with its per-pixel dimming. All in all, adding an LCD (-like) color filter on top of a wide-gamut white OLED backing is pretty brilliant in terms of solving per-color burn-in. As noted above there has to be a pretty high cost in terms of brightness (30% like noted above is quite significant) but I would guess this tech allows them to use much brighter OLEDs to more than compensate for that. All in all quite neat, and a good demonstration that hybrid solutions are often smarter and better than going all-in on exotic tech. Have to wonder how this affects response times, though.

 

[Vayra86]

... and until they've solved burn-in completely. OLED for regular PC use (desktop) for now will inevitably result in a burnt-in taskbar at the minimum, plus likely static UI elements like browser tabs or close/minimize buttons. I wouldn't trust today's OLEDs to last more than a year or two of regular desktop use before significan burn-in happens.


My partner had a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro that had an RGBW LCD, and it was terrible due to how it killed the contrast ratio of the display as that white pixel would never go really dark - though I guess OLED solves that handily with its per-pixel dimming. All in all, adding an LCD (-like) color filter on top of a wide-gamut white OLED backing is pretty brilliant in terms of solving per-color burn-in. As noted above there has to be a pretty high cost in terms of brightness (30% like noted above is quite significant) but I would guess this tech allows them to use much brighter OLEDs to more than compensate for that. All in all quite neat, and a good demonstration that hybrid solutions are often smarter and better than going all-in on exotic tech. Have to wonder how this affects response times, though.

There is no liquid crystal matrix, so there is no impact on response time. The self emissive pixels push light through the filter ... at the speed of light

 

[Valantar]

There is no liquid crystal matrix, so there is no impact on response time. The self emissive pixels push light through the filter ... at the speed of light

So the color filter is entirely static, with just the dimming of each subpixel responsible for color changes? Neat!

Btw, AnandTech (well, Reuters through ZDNet through AnandTech) says "QLED" LCDs are also going the way of the dodo.

According to a report from Reuters, Samsung Display will cease production of traditional LCD displays by the end of the year. The move comes as the company is apparently turning its full efforts away from traditional liquid crystal displays and towards the company's portfolio of quantum dot technology. Building off of the Reuters report, ZDNet is reporting that Samsung is dropping LCD production entirely – including its quantum dot-enhanced "QLED" LCDs – and that their retooled efforts will focus on QD-enhanced OLED displays. A decision with big ramifications for the traditional LCD market, this means that by the end of the year, the LCD market will be losing one of its bigger (and best-known) manufacturers.

So either a) Samsung starts buying massive amounts of LCD panels off other manufacturers, possibly causing a shortage, or b) there'll be a flood of OLED panels for various use cases showing up over the next couple of years. Apparently they already shut down LCD production at one of their two South Korean plants in October, with the remaining one in SK + two in China now being slated for shutdown by end of year. I would guess they're already well into refitting the first plant for OLED production. Also, these QD-OLEDs are supposed to be both cheaper and have better image quality than traditional OLEDs, which would be very interesting indeed.

 

[londiste]

I call bullshit. Same source but Anandtech should know better.

The alternative is that Samsung is completely confident about mass manufacturing TV panels only on one technology. Technology that has not been in any product. Not just in any sold product but not in a trade show prototype either. Good luck with that...

QD-OLED is that same quantum-dot infused backlight technology coupled with blue OLED. They are being vague about it for obvious reasons but from what we know they do not seem to be planning to have OLED pixels directly from there but should end up in a layout similar to LG's WOLED. Light from blue OLED pixel is converted to white - a light spectrum with nice peaks on R, G and B - that is then sent through color filters for subpixels.

Edit:
So, I was just a bit wrong on couple counts. Samsung does have QD-OLED prototypes that were shown at CES 2020 behind closed doors but not in public. They are expecting QD-OLED to be on the market next year. Doesn't change my overall very doubtful tone by much. It is still unproven and cutting edge technology.

 

[Vayra86]

So the color filter is entirely static, with just the dimming of each subpixel responsible for color changes? Neat!

Yes, the color filter determines the R/G/B channels and the white subpixel (unfiltered) determines luminosity, in a very basic sense. Of couse there is far more trickery happening, but the color filter is static for each channel.

 

[mtcn77]

As far as we know, Samsung has not actually made any products based on this technology yet.

%100 what I was trying to reach, Samsung has quoted QDOT, not QDEF which was my query.

Yes, the backplane has a QD filter, this is not new, despite using a different wording

Look above.
Samsung doesn't have this. I'm fine with that. You see, this increases light extraction and somehow makes it hit above its grade - like LTPS tech, bright and glossy colours coming through the same hardware is pretty amazing.

The backlight diffuser needs to have high attack angle surface for refraction, rather than mirroring of light inside the waveguide to occur. The previous image showed the junction surface prisms as the zigzags. That is the fresnel prism method to provide the high surface angles that make light refract(the other clear way to extract light is density difference which isn't feasible to play around like crt vacuum tubes next to lcd tech).
The other is the nanodots that form the qdot which work like fiber optics.

 

[DrCR]

I was kind of hoping µLED would show up end of 2021 or some time in the somewhat near future. Does this news suggest it won't be anytime soon? My impresssion is that µLED solves all the problems of both LCD and OLED, with the challenge being how to manufacture it economically?

 

[AsRock]

"Samsung to End LCD Manufacturing by Late-2020, Focus on AMOLED and QLED ... wait, moar fancier LCD? But that's still LCD. I'm confused."

It's right here what they are up too, jacking the prices up, or at least trying too.

This would see an end to even LED-backlit LCD panels that make up a bulk of the company's low-cost PC monitors and TVs. The company will focus on more advanced panel technologies, such as AMOLED and QLED

 

[Valantar]

I was kind of hoping µLED would show up end of 2021 or some time in the somewhat near future. Does this news suggest it won't be anytime soon? My impresssion is that µLED solves all the problems of both LCD and OLED, with the challenge being how to manufacture it economically?

No, density is the main challenge for microLED. Current prototypes are gigantic, and there's no real roadmap yet for sufficient miniaturization to make high resolution TVs in reasonable sizes, let alone monitors.

It's right here what they are up too, jacking the prices up, or at least trying too.

Jacking up prices won't help them when competitors are already at price parity with their current offerings with OLED displays, that'll just push buyers away. Increasing margins doesn't help if you then sell dramatically less. TVs are largely a commodity, so the only real ways to make more money are to sell more or lower production costs.

 

[londiste]

I was kind of hoping µLED would show up end of 2021 or some time in the somewhat near future. Does this news suggest it won't be anytime soon? My impresssion is that µLED solves all the problems of both LCD and OLED, with the challenge being how to manufacture it economically?

MicroLED is currently available in form of modules branded as The Wall, also from Sony and basically for professional market.
34.6" 540p modules (0.84mm pixel pitch). This translates to 69" for 1080p and 138" for 4k.
These modules cost about $15k each plus a couple thousand for the box to drive the modules.

Samsung did show 74" 4k screen last year but this does not seem to have translated into a real product yet.
I suppose current prices say something about manufacturing MicroLED economically.

 

[Vayra86]

MicroLED is currently available in form of modules branded as The Wall, also from Sony and basically for professional market.
34.6" 540p modules (0.84mm pixel pitch). This translates to 69" for 1080p and 138" for 4k.
These modules cost about $15k each plus a couple thousand for the box to drive the modules.

Samsung did show 74" 4k screen last year but this does not seem to have translated into a real product yet.
I suppose current prices say something about manufacturing MicroLED economically.

Yep, and this is what The Wall looked like a year ago;

This is not happening anytime soon, if it EVER does. Proof concept, no more

- Visible misalignment of modules

- Visible space between modules & dead pixels

 

[AsRock]

Jacking up prices won't help them when competitors are already at price parity with their current offerings with OLED displays, that'll just push buyers away. Increasing margins doesn't help if you then sell dramatically less. TVs are largely a commodity, so the only real ways to make more money are to sell more or lower production costs.

Then maybe they will just lower the price of the QLed' which would make them look like the better option.