Panel Adjusts Scan Rate Depending on Content
Samsung Display has succeeded in commercializing an OLED panel for smartphones that reduces power consumption by up to 22 percent. The new panel is expected to be welcomed by 5G smartphone users who enjoy video and games that consume much power.
The company applied "adaptive frequency" technology to the new OLED panel. The new technology uses variable scan rates to lower power consumption. It was first applied to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra that Samsung Electronics recently introduced.
Adaptive frequency automatically adjusts display scan rates from 10 Hz to 120 Hz to minimize power consumption. When users switch from mobile games to still images like photos, this new technology changes the scan rate from 120 Hz to 10 Hz, reducing panel drive power by up to 60 percent. By implementing such low scan rates, Samsung Display reduced panels’ power consumption by 22 percent on average in a daily use environment compared to other smartphone models. Panels account for about 40 percent of all smartphone power consumption.
Current smartphone panels use fixed scan rates, which causes a waste of electric power in an environment that requires a low scan rate. Samsung Display has implemented a low scan rate of 10Hz for the first time in smartphones by using “backplane” technology.
Samsung Display elevated power efficiency by using low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) TFTs, which are 100 times faster than low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) TFTs, which it has used thus far. The LTPO method was applied to some models of Apple Watch only.