Sony unveils ultrathin OLED screen

At Display 2008 exhibition in Tokyo last week Sony unveiled an OLED (organic light emitting diode) screen that is just 0.2 millimetres thick.

The thinnest screen ever developed, it was showcased as a 3.5 inch panel screen with QVGA resolution (320×240 pixels). It started out life as a normal OLED screen, but was ground down by Sony to just one-fifth of a millimetre.

Sony also showcased an 11-inch OLED TV screen at just 0.3 millimetres thick. Despite the screen’s thinness, it has the same resolution of its predecessor, the XEL-1, which was 1.4 millimetres thick.

OLED screens are able to be made so thin because they emit their own light. They consume less power than LCD screens, handle fast moving images better, and give good colour representation.

Because of these obvious advantages, it is expected that in the near future OLED screens will repleace LCD screens as the screen of choice for most manufacturers.