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Samsung to Cease Traditional LCD Production, Move To Quantum Dot OLEDs
According to a report from Reuters, Samsung Display will cease production of traditional LCD displays by the end of the year. The move comes as the company is apparently turning its full efforts away from traditional liquid crystal displays and towards the company's portfolio of quantum dot technology. Building off of the Reuters report, ZDNet is reporting that Samsung is dropping LCD production entirely – including its quantum dot-enhanced "QLED" LCDs – and that their retooled efforts will focus on QD-enhanced OLED displays. A decision with big ramifications for the traditional LCD market, this means that by the end of the year, the LCD market will be losing one of its bigger (and best-known) manufacturers.
As recently as last year, Samsung Display had two LCD production facilities in South Korea and another two LCD plants in China. Back in October, 2019, the company halted production [in] one of the South Korean factories, and now plans to suspend production of LCDs at the remaining three facilities due to the low profitability and oversupply of traditional LCDs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:32PM (27 children)
Why bother continuing to make an old and now obsolete technology when there's something that's so much better? This reminds me of when companies like this finally stopped producing CRTs. For cellphones, we've had OLEDs for years now, and they really do look much better than LCDs, so it's about time they finally gave up on the LCDs.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:39PM (5 children)
It would be possible to put a modern flat panel display, even LCD, into an old bulky CRT enclosure to provide comfort to those unable to adapt.
It is likely to be possible to put a QD enhanced OLED into an LCD enclosure.
Probably emacs can have vi key bindings.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:43PM
Why go to Hell when you can turn Heaven into Hell instead? Let's ctrl-k that idea.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:20PM (3 children)
This doesn't make much sense. People don't use CRTs today because they are big. CRTs behave very differently from modern displays and a lot of contemporaneous video sources took advantage of that behaviour.
For example, a lot of equipment (such as most game systems made in in the 90s and earlier, including to some extent the 6th generation consoles, and most personal computers before the IBM PC) simply do not work properly with modern displays as they do all sorts of fun tricks with the analog video signals and basically none of those effects are correctly emulated in "modern flat panel displays". Perhaps the most famous trick is the so-called "240p" video mode where only the odd fields are ever sent to the display.
Decent results can be achieved on modern displays with the use of relatively expensive conversion hardware, but while these work pretty well they inevitably add some input lag which is not present on a real CRT (the lag is the the main reason why you can't play Duck Hunt with anything but a proper CRT).
Interlaced sources never look as good on an LCD as they do on a real CRT as real-time deinterlacers all mostly don't work very well.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:28PM
A modern PC could probably be fit into a PC case that predated the IBM PC.
A modern game system could possibly be put into a 90's and earlier game system.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
240p is basically a quick and dirty hack to turn an interlaced display back into a progressive scan one, and interlacing is an awful, dirty hack in general.
CRTs also suffer from bad flicker (TVs generally aren't so bad, but running a computer monitor below 85hz is like staring into a strobe light).
I absolutely do not miss eyestrain.
Really, the biggest drawback from moving from CRT has to be proper response time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Friday April 03 2020, @03:27AM
>Really, the biggest drawback from moving from CRT has to be proper response time.
And the contrast - LCD can't begin to match the deep blacks of a halfway decent CRT, though I understand OLED can.
LCD viewing angles are mostly pretty bad too. Especially when looking from below, which is especially important for...
The aspect ratio. Good luck finding a modern LCD with a nice tall aspect ratio instead of some wide short thing. You can rotate them 90* for a nice tall screen, but that lack of vertical viewing angle becomes painfully obvious when it's made horizontal. Good luck finding the sweet spot where your eyes aren't seeing distinctly different colors.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by acid andy on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:56PM (2 children)
Agreed, except that CRTs were arguably better, when compared to the earlier LCDs that first replaced them. I've been waiting the whole time for something better than LCD to gain some traction for desktop monitors. Finally we seem to be getting there, when I'd pretty much given up (and conceded that the latest LCD tech isn't really that bad after all).
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Friday April 03 2020, @02:04AM (1 child)
What's the big deal with QLED/OLED? I've been looking at photos of OLED displays on my LCD display and they look pretty close to standard LCD displays.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Friday April 03 2020, @03:39AM
You've got to fiddle with the LCD's quantum interferometer to make the differences properly visible. :-D
In all seriousness though: QLED/OLED are two *completely* different tehnologies, with QLED apparently named specifically to exploit confusion.
OLED - uses separate Organic LEDs for each pixel, so that the light can be completely independently adjusted for each pixel, allowing for "perfect" deep blacks and eliminating the many artifacts introduced by "cross-bleed" of light between an LCD subpixels and the color filters
QLED - in contrast is often just an ordinary LCD with a layer of quantum dots added to "tune" the colors to be more consistent and vibrant (though to confuse things there are also electroluminescent QLED screens that actually are more visually similar to OLED)
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:06PM (3 children)
I still read complaints about burn-in with OLED. QLED [wikipedia.org] or MicroLED [wikipedia.org] might be the better way forward.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday April 02 2020, @10:29PM (2 children)
That's what screensavers are for! Speaking of which, why are so many people suffering under the delusion that "screensaver" is a word for a desktop background?!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Friday April 03 2020, @03:30AM (1 child)
The problem is the same one you have with the OLED TV's where eventually the CNN (or whatever) logo gets burned into the corner. Screen elements that rarely or never change will get burned in - i.e. the Start button in the corner on Windows systems, the close button on the top right of a maximized window.
I assume the best "screensaver" for an OLED is to just blank the screen, as drawing something on the screen, even if it's constantly changing, will slowly reduce the life of the display. Though I suppose it would be pretty safe for a screensaver to just light up the red LEDs, and maybe the green ones too. It's the blue ones that have the shortest lifespan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04 2020, @12:44AM
That is where you are mistaken. The reason why they chose designs, preferably ones with a lot of color, instead of blank screens or turning the monitor off is because exercising the screen reduces the burn-in look of the phosphors. In fact, a friend of mine used to take screens from businesses, like doctors offices, and put them through special programs just to get rid of the burn in. For a while, he made a killing doing the same with large plasma televisions for his corporate customers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:14PM (6 children)
This reminds me of something I read on the green site long ago. Maybe in the early 2000s.
Suppose at night, in a dark room, someone is using a computer. The glow form the monitor can be seen from the room's window. Someone in a van can use a telescope to get a look at any of the light reflected from the CRT. Either onto a wall / ceiling, or the window shade, etc.
This light is flickering at very high speed. First you get the line rate right for the expected number of lines. Take your pick there weren't that many. 640x480, 1024x768, etc. Then take a "guess" at the flicker rate per line and you can crudely reconstruct a live image of what's on that CRT.
I don't have a link. I described the above in my own words from memory of an article I found interesting.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:40PM
now you can do this [wired.com] (also described here [newatlas.com].)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 03 2020, @11:22AM
I wonder if the light from a multi-monitor setup would be enough to make the signal too hard to interpret. I guess if one of the monitors was scanning while the others were doing the vertical blank, even for a moment, van (wo)man would have got you.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Friday April 03 2020, @12:00PM (3 children)
That sounds like Van Eck phreaking [wikipedia.org] but with the primary signal instead of sideband data. Read Cryptonomicon for an example.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 03 2020, @03:35PM (2 children)
The article I remember was based on the flickering light from the CRT, collected optically, from a distance.
But side channel EM emissions are also interesting in a similar way.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04 2020, @12:51AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) [wikipedia.org] is probably going to get you close to what you are looking for. Some monitors and programs used to come with TEMPEST mitigation measures. Those flat screens were a pain in the ass to read looking straight on, let alone from the side. However, I can't find any examples because someone has a "tempest" brand monitor now.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday April 04 2020, @02:04AM
Sounds like a good conspiracy (theory?).
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:24PM (3 children)
Their only advantage is form factor; having to choose between bad color reproduction and bad lag, and finally pay at least twice the price of a CRT for a device visibly inferior in both, is a ridiculous result for 20 years of "progress".
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday April 02 2020, @10:32PM (1 child)
...and a crappy range of acceptable viewing angles...
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @11:17PM
Another part is 6-bit (!) actual color depth in many LCD panels, which is then masked by "temporal dithering". Fill an area with a long gradient (say 512+ pixels) and look closely; if you get a swarm of flickering darker/lighter pixels, here it is.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 03 2020, @03:02PM
You haven't priced a CRT lately, have you? Neither have I. I kinda wonder what it would cost, if I could find a nice, new, shiney 24" CRT.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @10:47PM (1 child)
This just sounds like a big liberal scam to take away our LCDs. First they took away our incandescent bulbs and now they're coming for our LCDs. I should have the freedom to purchase whatever screen I want! The government should keep out of this and make the companies continue to produce this stuff.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Friday April 03 2020, @03:00AM
I see what you did there.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @06:01PM
Sure you might get stuck pixels over time, but IPS screens or older non-IPS TFTs remain viable 20+ years on. OLED on the other hand have color burnin just like CRT phosphors, starting with the green(?) bit of the OLED array since they are self-radiating instead of self-emitting. That means while OLEDs may be thinner and provide better color without requiring backlighting, they are NOT better for anyone who wants their hardware to last indefinitely into the future. Sure there are lots of parts that may break in the intervening years, but replacing the physical screen technology is a lot harder to pull off.