Sony demos ultra thin prototype OLED TV panels

Sony on Wednesday showed off its newest thin organic LED TVs at the Display 2008 expo trade show in Japan. The company demonstrated even thinner displays than its already industry-leading OLEDs, showing a new version of its 11-inch XEL-1, the world's first mass-produced OLED TV. The new display panel itself, not the 'packaged' TV, measures just 0.3mm thick (0.01in), a huge improvement over the current model's 1.4mm (0.06in) thickness. Despite being near paper-thin, the display is good for the same resolution of 960x540 pixels, as the thicker panel.

That impressive reduction in size is achieved thanks to a new TFT substrate and less glass support, making the screen too delicate to endure traditional methods of transport and shipping associated with mass market products.

Yet another, even thinner prototype display was shown at the Sony booth. The 0.2mm (0.008in) thick display measured just 3.5 inches diagonally across and featured a 320x220-pixel resolution.

A display most likely to be produced soon was a 27-inch OLED prototype panel Sony first showed at CEATEC in Japan last year. The possible next generation of the XEL-1 TV is capable of 1920x1080-pixel HD resolution; the only changes Sony has made since 2007 are a new stand and detail design changes to the structure. Due to the different materials used in the XEL-1 and this new 27-inch screen, manufacturing processes and costs are significantly more involved, and Sony has not revealed plans to put any of these displays into mass-production, saying that large-scale capital investment is needed. [via Impress]

11-inch, 0.01-inch thick OLED display