Follow LG Display’s journey of OLED innovation,
where future technology became today’s reality.
In the early 2000s, LCD dominated the display industry while OLED was still regarded as a “technology of the future.” Despite OLED’s superior technical advantages, bringing it to the mainstream required entirely new investments in manufacturing processes and technologies—especially for large-screen formats. The path forward was unclear, and the risks were significant.
Yet at that pivotal moment, LG Display embarked on a bold mission: to commercialize large-sized OLED TVs featuring White OLED (WOLED) technology. With a firm belief that this innovation could reshape the future of TV, LG Display began writing a new chapter in display history.
The Challenge – Optimal Solution Leading the Mainstream of Large OLED,
Oxide TFT and WOLED
OLED is a self-emissive technology that produces light without the need for a backlight. It took LG Display nearly ten years to expand OLED displays from a compact 3.8 inches to 15 inches—underscoring the extreme technical difficulty involved. But LG Display didn’t stop there. After countless trials and errors, the company ultimately succeeded in making over two million pixels emit light uniformly—marking a major breakthrough in the development of large-sized OLEDs.
To optimize for OLED’s unique characteristics—requiring more precise and faster control over brightness and color—LG Display adopted Oxide TFT(Thin-Film Transistor) instead of the LTPS (Low Temperature Poly Silicon) TFT used in small OLEDs. This not only achieved comparable performance but also significantly reduced manufacturing costs.
For the OLED stack itself, LG Display turned away from the RGB OLED method (which arranges red, green, and blue diodes horizontally) and pioneered a new approach: stacking the RGB diodes vertically to create White OLED (WOLED). This structure enabled higher pixel density for ultra-high-definition displays, supported larger screen sizes, enhanced viewing angles, and improved power efficiency.
The Breakthrough – Turning the Impossible into Reality
Finally, in 2011, LG Display achieved the world’s first successful development of a 55-inch OLED TV panel featuring White OLED technology.
· 2011: First successful development of a 55-inch OLED TV panel
· 2012: First public unveiling at CES
· 2013: World’s first mass production of 55-inch OLED TV panels
LG Display’s first-generation OLED has since expanded into various sizes and formats—65-inch, 77-inch, and beyond—evolving into futuristic form factors such as flexible and transparent OLEDs. Global TV brands have chosen LG Display’s OLEDs as their standard, firmly positioning the company as the leader in the large-sized OLED market.
