Display Tech Race
Apple took the wraps off Apple’s Vision Pro, a mixed reality (MR) device that performs both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) functions on June 5. Since then, the new device has been receiving rave reviews.
What has driven the Vision Pro’s popularity is its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays that create ultra-high-quality 4K pictures close to the eyes. The Vision Pro has two tiny displays inside and each of the displays is about the size of a postage stamp. While production of large 4K OLED TVs requires great technical skills, that of tiny 4K OLED displays is also a significant challenge.
Displays for TVs and smartphones have OLED elements on glass substrates. The Vision Pro’s display, on the other hand, is made by depositing OLED elements on a silicon wafer. This explains why it was named OLED On Silicon (OLEDoS).
Sony is the leader in OLEDoS displays, while LG Display and Samsung Display are pumping up their efforts to develop related technologies, according to sources in the display industry. Sony, which makes image sensors, lenses, and PlayStation VR devices, has been improving its technology since it became the world’s first to develop an OLEDoS display in 2011.
Sony’s OLEDoS display used in the Vision Pro has more than 3,000 pixels per inch, several times more dense than the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s 460 pixels and the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 500 pixels per inch.
As a result, you will not see any pixel borders when you wear it, making your eyes less tired and you more immersed. It is lightweight thanks to the use of silicon wafers. Until now, VR-AR devices have used glass substrate-based OLED displays or LCDs cheaper than them, but recent improvements in OLEDoS technology are expected to see OLEDoS displays replace them.
LG Display has already succeeded in making a WOLED prototype display in the same way as Sony’s OLEDoS displays. The WOLED prototype is made by placing a layer of OLEDs that emit white light on a silicon wafer substrate and covering it with red, green, and blue color filters.
LG Display unwrapped a 0.42-inch-sized OLEDoS display smaller than a fingernail at CES2023 in Las Vegas in January. The display has 3,500 PPIs and emits 7000 nits of brightness. As LG Display does not have a semiconductor factory, the Korean display giant reportedly requested SK hynix to produce silicon wafers to use them as substrates for its OLEDOoS displays.
Along with developing OLEDoS displays in the WOLED method, Samsung Display is developing an OLEDoS display through a new method that does not use color filters. In May, the company signed a deal to acquire eMagin, a U.S. company that owns the original technology for patterning OLED devices onto silicon wafers, for US$218 million (290 billion won). Samsung Display’s parent company Samsung Electronics is also developing an MR device with Google and Qualcomm. It is believed that the device will be loaded with OLEDoS displays from Samsung Display.
Industry insiders forecast that Apple’s MR devices will use LG Display’s or Samsung Display’s OLEDoS displays in the future.
This is because Apple does not usually have a single source for components, and Sony’s supply of OLEDoS displays is limited. “Being completely dependent on competitor Sony, which makes PlayStation VR devices, is something Apple does not want,” said an industry insider.
Chinese companies such as BOE have also entered the OLEDoS market, which is bad news to Korean display makers. However, display industry experts believe that their technology level is not yet that high.