OLEDs and their advantages 

OLEDs are solid-state devices made out of thin films of organic molecules that create light with the application of electricity. An OLED display is composed of an emissive and a conductive layer of polymer trapped between an anode and a cathode terminal which are all placed on a substrate and protected by a hermetic cover made of glass or sealed plastic. 

OLED has some unique advantages over existing CRT, TFT and plasma display technology. The first advantage of OLED has to do with its relatively simple manufacturing process. There are currently several methods for creating OLED displays but the most cost effective is called inkjet printing and is similar to the technology used in commercial home and office inkjet printers but instead of spraying ink the print head sprays organic material onto a substrate. This technology allows for a cheap way of creating large screens based on OLED technology. Unlike TFT or plasma, OLED can be made to be flexible opening a completely new range of potential uses including screens woven into fabrics, OLED based watches and portable media players as well as electronic papers. OLED is superior to existing LCD technology in almost any respect. OLEDs has better colors, better viewing angle (almost 180 degrees), they do not require backlight since the organic material produces its own light hence they require far less energy to operate (good for portable devices) and as we mentioned before has better black colors (a problem with current LCD technology). 

Until recently OLED displays suffered from one crucial drawback – the predicted lifetime of the organic material used to create OLED displays was far too short. LCD screens have an expected lifespan of about 50,000 hours while OLED was typically capable of about 5000 hours (not even a year if operated 24/7). Recent developments improved the lifespan of OLED technology, and especially of the blue colors which were particularly problematic in this respect, up to 20,000 hours (and even more, depending on the brightness used). Currently OLED based displays are fairly expensive to manufacture, but this is due to the relatively small production capacity. As the technology will mature and OLED based displays will start to ship in greater volumes prices will drop significantly and inkjet printing technology has the potential to produce large, high resolution TVs costing far less than existing large LCDs and plasmas. 

More information on Sony's XEL-1 can be found on the company's press release (via Google translate).

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