Samsung Claims Creation Of 40-Inch OLED Display

LONDON — South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. claims to have developed the world's first 40-inch display panel made from a single sheet of organic light-emitting diode material. The OLED prototype has a wide screen format of 1,280 by 800 pixels and is driven by an active-matrix backplane of amorphous silicon transistors.

Samsung launched an OLED development initiative in 2001, and the 40-inch panel follows Samsung's development of OLED prototypes at 14.1-inch diagonal size and 21-inch diagonal size in 2004 and January 2005, respectively.

This latest prototype has a maximum screen brightness of 600 candela per meter², a black-and-white contrast ratio is 5,000:1. The ultrathin shape of the panels will allow future TV set designers to create televisions with a total thickness of only 3 cm or less, Samsung said.

Samsung said it plans to exhibit the 40-inch OLED panel at the Society for Information Display conference and exhibition in Boston from May 24 to 27.