According to LG Display, the new FLiPP OLED technology provides 2.4 times longer display life than conventional panels made with fine metal masks under the same conditions. The brightness has increased by 1.6 times, while reducing energy consumption by 13%.
LG Display plans to bring FLiPP to IT products like monitors and tablets first, giving the technology a fairly direct path from the lab to actual products you can buy.
This puts OLED monitors at the front of the line to test whether those numbers will hold up once the FLiPP goes into mass production.
How FLiPP is changing OLED manufacturing
Most OLED panels use fine metal masks to deposit the red, green, and blue materials in precise locations. As panels get bigger, LG says these masks can sag enough to cause alignment issues and color mixing errors.
FLiPP gets rid of the mask. LG instead lays down the RGB materials sequentially and uses photolithography with UV light to remove unwanted areas. The process increases usable pixel area by around 55%, giving LG more room to increase brightness and longevity without increasing power consumption.
Why are monitors first in line?
FLiPP also gives LG Display more flexibility in terms of panel size and resolution. The company says the process could theoretically work on displays ranging from 1 inch to 100 inches, but monitors and tablets are the first categories on its roadmap.
Production could also become more efficient. According to LG, FLiPP is able to use an entire 8.5-generation base glass substrate instead of cutting it into smaller parts, improving glass usage by up to 64% over equivalent laptop panels.
This sounds promising in terms of manufacturing costs, but there is no guarantee that savings will be reflected in retail prices.
When will FLiPP reach actual products?
For now, FLiPP remains a technology announcement, not something you can buy. LG Display did not name any monitor or tablet partners, nor did it provide a commercial release date.
The first FLiPP monitors and tablets will therefore have a lot to prove. They will show whether LG can reproduce these gains on a commercial scale, and more importantly for buyers, whether the technology results in an OLED upgrade that can be noticed outside of the specification.
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