Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#1

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs
spectrum.ieee.org

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#2

Post by flyinfungi » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:09 PM UTC

What is a reasonable time to see this in my next phone? 2020? Looks really cool, with the screen being the biggest battery hog I hope to see a bump in battery lasting through the day (otherwise we get thinner phones).

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#3

Post by vanderZwan » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

I'm actually most excited by the transparency. If we get low-cost transparent displays, it will finally make finally make Ishii's clearboard an affordable possibility for remote collaboration.

http://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/clearboard/

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#4

Post by eat_veggies » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

The transparency aspect is so cool! They look like they'd be awesome for AR goggles, although I don't know enough about the optics to know if that'd be feasible. We may also be close to getting those Star Trek style clear displays! Exciting stuff.

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#5

Post by leggomylibro » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

eat_veggies wrote: post #4

The transparency aspect is so cool! They look like they'd be awesome for AR goggles, although I don't know enough about the optics to know if that'd be feasible. We may also be close to getting those Star Trek style clear displays! Exciting stuff.

I was actually wondering recently if you could do something like that with a small off-the-shelf TFT screen.

ILI9341 modules are less than $5 each, and have 16/18-bit color with typical resolutions of 240x320. You can separate the actual panel from its backlights and casing without damaging it if you're careful, so I was thinking of trying to maybe put one in a box for a sort of DIY projector or something.

But I'm also pretty sure there's some reason why it won't work; maybe the glass is too polarized, maybe the colors are too dim, etc.

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#6

Post by ableal » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

A phrase in the article made me look up the price of raw silicon wafers, but although there are articles mentioning scarcity and 20% price hikes in 2017 (e.g. https://semiengineering.com/silicon-wafers-ma-and-price-hike... ), they are rather coy about actual values.

Anyone has a ballpark figure for Si wafers? All I found quickly was a chart image mentioning around 3k USD ( http://semimd.com/blog/2014/05/16/st-licenses-28nm-fd-soi-to... )

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#7

Post by hristov » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

flyinfungi wrote: post #2

What is a reasonable time to see this in my next phone? 2020? Looks really cool, with the screen being the biggest battery hog I hope to see a bump in battery lasting through the day (otherwise we get thinner phones).

It won't be on your phone by 2020. It is not clear whether it will ever be on your phone. The iphone 8 has about 3 million subpixels which will all have to be individually cut, tested and assembled on a display for a microled to work.

Or, alternatively, the display can be made from a whole wafer, which will cost about a thousand dollars for the raw materials and perhaps $5k for the finished display.

I know technology tends to advance a lot, but the advances required for microled to work seem really far fetched. Also, display technology does not advance as quickly as digital computation technology. Remember we have been talking about OLEDs for at least 20 years now and they are only now becoming mainstream.

This technology, if it ever works, will be for very small devices where brightness is very important but resolution is not that important. So smart glasses and smart watches. Even for those applications it is not at all certain that they will be able to bring the cost down sufficiently.

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#8

Post by 6d6b73 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #7

flyinfungi wrote: post #2

What is a reasonable time to see this in my next phone? 2020? Looks really cool, with the screen being the biggest battery hog I hope to see a bump in battery lasting through the day (otherwise we get thinner phones).

It won't be on your phone by 2020. It is not clear whether it will ever be on your phone. The iphone 8 has about 3 million subpixels which will all have to be individually cut, tested and assembled on a display for a microled to work. Or, alternatively, the display can be made from a whole wafer, which will cost about a thousand dollars for the raw materials and perhaps $5k for the finished display. I know technology…

It already works: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/01/11/samsungs-...

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#9

Post by utopcell » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

I'm not sure I see the "revolutionary" aspect of this. With displays, you don't need to make power consumption arbitrarily small. By Amdahl's law, you only need to make it a small percentage of the cpu (and wireless) consumption. In this respect, Sharp's transflective displays (that were found, for example, in the pebble watches,) were already resolving the power issue in the context of smartwatches.

Re: Next-Gen Display: MicroLEDs

#10

Post by kridsdale1 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

utopcell wrote: post #9

I'm not sure I see the "revolutionary" aspect of this. With displays, you don't need to make power consumption arbitrarily small. By Amdahl's law, you only need to make it a small percentage of the cpu (and wireless) consumption. In this respect, Sharp's transflective displays (that were found, for example, in the pebble watches,) were already resolving the power issue in the context of smartwatches.

All energy savings have value. You may argue relative significance, but a joule saved is a joule saved.