Next generation LED TV's on the horizon

Combining the advantages of organic with inorganic LED TV's, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois believe they have developed what will prove to be the next big step forward for LED and TV technology.

The research team have developed a new process to create tiny (up to 100 times smaller than existing LEDs), ultrathin inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that have the advantage of shining brighter and lasting longer than conventional LEDs. The new technology composes a stretchable micro-LED display with an interconnected mesh of printed micro LEDs bonded to a rubber substrate.

The new technology raises the prospect of see-through construction and mechanical flexibility, that would be impossible to achieve with existing technologies. TV's that are flexible enough to roll-up are one of the tantalizing prospects of the new process.

A range of applications are planned for these new LED arrays, which can be printed onto flat or flexible substrates such as glass to plastic and rubber. A wearable health monitor which is composed of micro LEDs printed on a thin film of plastic, wrapped round a finger is just one of those applications.

John Rogers, a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois commented: "Our goal is to marry some of the advantages of inorganic LED technology with the scalability, ease of processing and resolution of organic LEDs,” said Rogers. “By printing large arrays of ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic LEDs and interconnecting them using thin-film processing, we can create general lighting and high-resolution display systems that otherwise could not be built with the conventional ways that inorganic LEDs are made, manipulated, and assembled".

If you would like to find out more about LED technology you might like to read the LED TV Introduction below:

LED TV Introduction

LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology has actually been around since the early part of the 19th Century, gaining a certain notoriety in the 70s with the arrival of bright red lit LED watches.

It is the recent integration of LED's into the familiar LCD flat panel TV however, that marks an exciting new development of a technology which offers the potential for a superior viewing experience.

LCD TV's have traditionally relied on a fluorescent 'backlight' (something like the one in many household kitchens) for their illumination. The problem with this 'always on' backlight is that it is difficult to achieve the rich deep blacks that we take for granted on Plasma screens.

Note: LED, LCD and Plasma TV's all fall into the HDTV (High Definition TV) category.

LED TV advantages

An indication of the depth and purity of black levels produced by this new wave of LED TV's can be gleaned from the manufacturers claimed contrast ratios (in a nutshell the difference between the brightest white and darkest black that can be produced onscreen). Always to be taken with a pinch of salt, LED TV's will however invariably claim a contrast ratio of around 1,000,000:1 rather than a figure closer to 50,000:1 for traditional LCD TV's.

LED TV's consume much less power than your the traditional LCD TV's; About 40% less compared to a similar sized screen.

Certain implementations of LED technology produce much slimmer screens.

LED can produce ultra slim screens

LED TV's offer a greatly expanded range of colours (gamut), particularly when RGB-LED backlighting is used.

With the removal of lead from the manufacturing process along with longer life, they are considered more environmentally friendly.

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