Looking to the future, the Blade Runner-esque vision of information scrolling across a variety of surface screens may not be that unrealistic. Away from the hotly-contested debate over LCD versus plasma TV screens, a series of exciting new technologies is waiting in the wings, all set to transform interface displays on everything from mobile phones to dishwashers.
By 2010, the home could be a different place where low-power, low-cost, flexible intuitive screens guide users through processes. Yet this innovation can only happen when the screens are less costly to produce.
Two significant factors will influence demand for future technologies: size and approximating how the user will interface with information. It is inevitable that consumers, and hence manufacturers, will demand smaller, more lightweight products. From a manufacturer’s standpoint, there is also an additional consideration of energy efficiency. Everything from mobile phones to MP3 players is becoming more complex and feature rich. The importance of highly efficient products, with minimal leakage and low power consumption, is undisputable.
As the interface display market currently stands, there are a number of relatively unknown technologies emerging as viable contenders; NED, OLED and pSEL (based on electroluminescence technology) to name but three.
Until recently, the organic light emitting diode (OLED) was garnering a lot of attention from display makers. Around for a long time now, OLEDs are self-luminous, which means that they glow when an electrical field is applied to the electrodes coating a glass or polymer substrate. They don’t require backlighting, diffusers or polarizers, which makes them highly efficient, lightweight and potentially inexpensive in displays.
The electroluminescent technology of pSELs has, up until now, been sorely overlooked. The key difference between Pelikon’s pSEL and OLED technology is the pSEL’s ability to offer flexible, segmented display and backlight technology.
A segmented display is a power saving one as it only lights sections of the display when required to do so. And, more importantly, it offers a vastly simplified interface made relevant to usage or function. The flexible display can convey complex information clearly, using nested menus to guide the user through their interaction, only displaying relevant detail at each stage of the process.
To dig a little deeper into the nature of electroluminescent (EL) technology and the pSEL concept, EL — the emission of light by a substance exposed to an electric field — has commonly been associated with being used for the backlight to liquid crystal displays since its first commercial application in the 1950s, although industrial success with it was not achieved until the 1990s. Now Cardiff-based designer and manufacturer Pelikon is set to challenge conventional displays with the relatively unexplored potential of pSEL technology.
Taking existing electroluminescent technology as its building blocks for a new, intuitive and flexible display, Pelikon has worked to develop flexible display and interface technologies, taking flexible plastic displays from the drawing board to the market in less than five years. Current intellectual property covers the development and manufacture of printed segmented electroluminescent (pSEL) displays, backlights and the driver electronics to control them. The technology makes practical previously impossible designs, paving the way for highly differentiated products.
Display panels utilising pSEL technology use an encapsulated printed electroluminescent phosphor layer with various capacitive, insulation and conducting layers to create iconic and segmented lit areas. The manufacturing process of printing displays ensures the products are low cost, have low power consumption and enable customers to develop marketable products quickly.
Next generation displays will not be limited to a “conventional” size or shape either. Electroluminescent technology can be cut into any size or shape, allowing a diverse range of displays around the home; bright and highly efficient.
Using pSEL will make it possible to have unusually-sited, flexed displays that convey complex information simply, as well as offering the option of a segmented screen.
The product is designed to be combined with channel segment driver ICs offering up to 80 segments (in multiples of 16), as well as a power and a display controllers. These enhance the performance of pSEL, and also allow the control of individual segments on a display unit. The touch screen technology uses a dedicated display controller.
With fast time to market, pSEL delivers display complexity and high performance. A key advantage over alternative electroluminescent technologies is its ability to offer a segmented display, which illuminates according to user requirement. This not only creates aesthetically-superior logical solutions to manufacturers, but also significantly reduces power consumption because only the areas of the screen required at any one time are used.
As the nature of displays shifts, Pelikon sees pSEL as a driving force behind flexible displays in the home and work environment. Why? Because EL screens readily provide a bright, even illumination to the entire display while consuming relatively little electricity. Until now, the technology has been most commonly implemented in battery-operated devices such as PDAs, watches, and as a backlight in mobile phones.
To date the application of EL in more sophisticated products has been limited, but this is set to change. Flexible display technology is anticipated to take precedence in a variety of consumer goods, from fridges to remote controls.
As it stands, electroluminescent technology, and the subsequent pSEL technology, have been relatively unexplored by displays
manufacturers yet. In many ways, pSEL is able to provide a solution where OLED cannot necessarily meet requirements. But it will not, in the short term, replace LCD and plasma technology; that was never the purpose.
What is more questionable is the future of white goods and smaller consumer electronic items such as mobile phones. The combination of a low power screen, fully touch sensitive and above all cheap, is a compelling offer to any manufacturer. As we move toward 2010, the home of the future will be very much flexible.
Andrew Green, product manager at Pelikon