Theme 3. OLED
#35: OLEDoS
| OLEDoS stands for OLED on Silicon, a cutting-edge display technology where OLED materials are deposited directly onto a silicon wafer instead of traditional glass substrates. |
XR devices, such as AR, VR, and MR, require the user to wear the device and have an extremely short distance between the user and the screen. As a result, XR displays must prioritize factors such as ultra-high resolution, clarity, thickness, and weight.
OLEDoS delivers ultra-clear visuals in a compact, lightweight form with excellent power efficiency thanks to its self-emissive structure.
Today, we’ll take a closer look at LG Display’s OLEDoS technology and how it’s reshaping the future of immersive displays.
Silicon-Based display with Exceptional Resolution: OLEDoS
OLEDoS (OLED on Silicon) is, as the name suggests, a micro display in which OLED materials are deposited onto a silicon wafer substrate through evaporation. While conventional OLED panels form the light-emitting layer on TFT (Thin-Film Transistor) arrays built on glass substrates, OLEDoS forms the OLED emissive layer on top of CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) pixel circuits fabricated on silicon wafer substrates—enabling the ultra-high resolution required for AR and VR applications. This approach not only enables a much smaller and thinner display, but also allows for significantly more precise image control.
Why Silicon?
Silicon, commonly used in semiconductor manufacturing, offers excellent thermal stability, high electron mobility, and enables the formation of highly precise circuit patterns. By depositing OLED materials onto a silicon substrate through evaporation, OLEDoS panels can achieve much higher pixel density, faster response times, and enhanced image clarity compared to conventional glass-based displays.
PPI, or Pixels Per Inch, is a crucial metric for display resolution. It indicates the number of pixels packed into one inch of the display. A higher PPI means that more pixels are present in a given area, resulting in finer detail and smoother image rendering.
Why OLEDoS Is a Game Changer
While conventional OLED panels typically offer pixel densities in the range of several hundred PPI, OLEDoS enables pixel densities in the thousands—delivering ultra-high resolution visuals essential for XR headsets. At such high densities, the “screen door effect” becomes virtually imperceptible, offering a more natural and immersive visual experience.
This is especially critical in VR headsets with wide fields of view. If the resolution is insufficient, users may notice the pixel grid, which breaks immersion and can lead to eye fatigue. OLEDoS significantly mitigates this effect, enhancing realism and comfort in XR environments.
At the SID 2024 exhibition, LG Display unveiled the world’s first VR OLEDoS panel featuring an ultra-high brightness of 10,000 nits (1 nit is the brightness of a candle) and a resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels per inch (ppi), demonstrating its technological capabilities in the field.
