Sometimes, the high-tech world seems strange. I told you about future flexible monitors for television and computers three months ago. (Check "Roll up for the floppy television" for this *old* story.)
And almost simultaneously, two articles came up this week about this subject, and from two different continents.
Let's start with John Leyden who's speaking about a small -- and ambitious -- european company.
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) today announced the acquisition of rival Opsys' organic light emitting diode (OLED) display business with the goal of developing roll up computer and TV screens within three years.
The OLED display market has been forecast to grow as high as $2.5 billion in revenue by 2007 and consists of a wide range of electronics products, including mobile phones, PDAs, digital cameras, camcorders, microdisplays, and eventually personal computers, television and other consumer products. Monochrome OLED displays are already in use in mobile phones, with colour displays in the works.
Now, let's turn to Richard Shim, who writes in "Trio teams up for bendable screens" that some larger american companies are pursuing the same goal.
DuPont, Sarnoff and Lucent Technologies said Tuesday they will work together for three years as part of an initiative sponsored by the Advanced Technology Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
DuPont will provide technical input for combining organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, technology to flexible substrates, or bases, and for the manufacturing process. For its part, Sarnoff will work to improve video display systems and the use of color. Lucent will be subcontracted to develop the organic materials and the design of the electronic components used in the displays. The flexible displays that the joint effort will be developing will use polymer-based OLED.
Analysts estimate it will be 10 years before sizable OLED displays will be ready to take on LCDs. As with any emerging technology, it will take time to streamline production and boost yields for high efficiencies and volumes. OLED displays are currently used in smaller devices, such as cell phones and electric shavers.
The market for OLEDs is projected to grow from $85 million this year to $3 billion by 2007, according to a report from research group DisplaySearch.
So it looks like that the european and U.S. companies slightly disagree about the size of their future markets. More importantly, they don't seem to target the same timeframe for having their products on the market.
When will it be possible to roll my monitor and to put it in my backpack? 2005 or 2012? Probably in between.
Sources: John Leyden, The Register, October 28, 2002; Richard Shim, CNET News.com, October 29, 2002
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