Samsung’s 2021 Neo QLED TVs include some sophisticated enhancements, but are still based on LCD technology.
Samsung
There are currently two TV technologies available to most people: LCD and OLED. Of course, people with a lot of money can get a MicroLED TV, but mere mortals have only those two choices. The world’s largest TV maker, Samsung, has been firmly in the LCD field for many years while crossing rival cities LG is the biggest name in OLED. LCD, despite advances such as QLED, mini LED and double panels, always have got behind OLED overall image quality.
Now, Samsung is working on a new type of TV that aims to combine two display technologies into something larger than the sum of its parts. It is a hybrid between OLED and quantum dots called QD Display. According to Korea IT News, Samsung Display will end production of LCD panels by the end of 2021, switching to QD Display next year. At the same time, Samsung Electronics could start selling these new TVs as early as 2022.
Here’s what we know so far.
Samsung’s $ 11 billion bet on quantum dots
I’m sure that this tiny pallet truck will lift that box without any problems.
Samsung
Samsung has been selling quantum dot-enhanced LCD TVs in recent years with its QLED brand, but its latest (and only) OLED TV it was an isolated case that stopped selling almost a decade ago. In October 2019, Samsung Display announced that it was building a factory to make TVs that combined these technologies:
Samsung Display will invest 13.1 trillion won by 2025 to build the “Q1 Line”, the world’s first QD display mass production line at Asan Campus. The new line is scheduled to start production in 2021 with an initial 30,000 sheets (8.5 generations) and will produce a huge QD display 65 inches or larger.
This is an investment of about $ 11.1 billion. Although the company calls this “QD display”, it is not electroluminescent, also known as “direct view” quantum dots. This technology has been around for several years. This will be a QD-OLED hybrid.
In the announcement, South Korean President Moon Jae-in also referred to Samsung’s rival LG in relation to Korea’s place in world TV production: “It is important to maintain the top position in the global screen market with revolutionary technologies,” he said. Moon. “After LG Display invested 3 trillion earnings in large OLED panel production in July, Samsung Display’s latest investment plan further illuminates the outlook.”
One thing you may have noticed is that Samsung is calling this the “QD screen”, which can be confusing, as these are not quantum dots for direct viewing (more on that later). As LG has spent years being the only name in the city (figuratively and literally) for OLED, it is unlikely that Samsung will call any version of this technology OLED. We will probably have to wait until CES 2022 to find out how it marks the new TV.
See this:
CES 2021: The best TVs in the show
15:01
How QD-OLED would work
A simplified diagram of how a QD-OLED hybrid would work. A blue OLED material would create all the blue light, plus the light energy that the red and green quantum dots would use to create the red and green light.
Samsung
So, how will this work? Nanosys, a company that makes quantum dots, shared some details. Its CEO, Jason Hartlove, is understandably optimistic about the technology, which depends on converting light from an OLED panel:
“Quantum Dot Color Conversion is a completely new way of rendering colors on monitors,” he told CNET. “The result is a pure quantum dot color with much greater efficiency, as no light is lost in a color filter.”
Combining quantum dots and OLED plays on the strengths of both technologies. The idea of any TV is create red, green and blue light. LED LCDs with quantum dots, like Samsung’s current QLED TVs, use blue LEDs and a layer of quantum dots to convert some of that blue into red and green. With the current version of OLED, yellow and blue OLED materials create “white” light. In both cases, the color filters pass only the color needed for that specific subpixel.
The idea with a QD-OLED is to simplify these designs into one, using OLED to create blue light and then a layer of quantum dots to convert part of the blue to red and green.
How Nanosys predicts that QD-OLED will work. Samsung’s version will likely be similar. A blue OLED layer creates blue light, which passes through a quantum dot color conversion layer (“QDCC”) that converts part of that blue to red and green. Thanks to the way quantum dots work, this is significantly more efficient than using color filters.
Nanosys
There are many advantages to this method, in theory. By using only one color or OLED material, manufacturing costs are reduced as it is easier to build. LG, for example, uses only two OLED materials, blue and yellow, for each pixel across the screen. Light-blocking color filters create green and red. QDs are almost 100% efficient, significantly better than filters, so in theory, hybrid TVs will be much brighter. In addition, there is a possibility that broader color ranges at all levels of brightness.
On the left, the current version of OLED. “White” in the case of LG being a combination of blue and yellow OLED materials. On the right, as the QD-OLED will probably work, using only blue OLED and then converting some of them with red and green quantum dots.
Nanosys
As each pixel can be turned off, these hybrid TVs will also have the incredible contrast ratios for which OLED is known.
Since blue OLED materials still age faster than red and green, having the entire panel in one color means that the TV ages more evenly, with no color change. Keeping this aging to a minimum and, thus, having a TV that does not seem to darken after a few years, is one of the main manufacturing problems. This is especially true in this HDR it was of extreme levels of brightness.
A very, very close view of a QDCC layer. Behind that, there may be blue LEDs or blue OLED. Anyway, the color that comes out is red, green and blue.
Nanosys
While this new Samsung factory is focusing on TV-sized monitors, the technology can also work on phone-sized monitors. Since Samsung doesn’t seem to have any problem making excellent little OLEDs, I would be surprised if it were in a hurry to disrupt the market with something as advanced as this. In addition, OLEDs the size of a Samsung phone use red, green and blue OLEDs compared to LG’s yellow-blue ones. Samsung tried to make OLED RGB TVs and simply failed to make them profitable. What is most likely, and mentioned in the latest rumors, is that they will use this technology to build 8K ultra-high resolution computer monitors alongside larger TV screens.
As mentioned earlier, it is clear that Samsung strongly believes in this technology, as it is ending production of LCDs at its factories in Korea. This does not mean that from next year he will not sell none LCDs. Samsung is a big company and the part of the company that does LCDs, Samsung Display, are halting production. The part of the company that sells TVs, Samsung Electronics, did not make such an announcement. In fact, part of the most recent delay was Samsung Electronics needing LCD panels before it started selling QD-OLED panels. They worked on it for 2021, and probably in the future, they will supply their third-party LCD panels.
In the future
QD-OLED seems to be coming. But what about display technology from an even more distant future? Well, the quantum dot people seem to think direct view quantum dot screens are only a few years away. These electroluminescent quantum dots, or ELQD, would have all the benefits of OLED, all the benefits of QD, and none of the problems of LCD or wear and longevity of OLED. A very promising technology, in fact.
The other new TV technology that is already reaching the market, the extreme top of the market, is MicroLED. It has many of the same benefits as the QD-OLED hybrid, but it doesn’t mess with those uncomfortable organics. Affordable versions of this are still a bit far away. Oh, and MicroLEDs also use quantum dots. They are fascinating technology with way beyond TV screens.
In the meantime, we have mini LED, which is really cool and a lot cheaper than any of these.
In addition to covering TV and other display technologies, Geoff takes photographic tours of museums and interesting places around the world, including nuclear submarines, huge aircraft carriers, medieval castles, airplane cemeteries and more.
You can follow his exploits on Instagram and YouTube, and on his travel blog, BaldNomad. He also wrote a bestselling science fiction novel about city-sized submarines, along with a sequel.