By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics has begun mass-producing a 16 million-color display driver IC (DDI) chip for active matrix organic light-emitting diode (AM OLED) displays for the first time in the industry.
The new chip for AM OLED displays provides qVGA (quarter Video Graphics Array) resolutions (240 RGB by 320 dots) and makes it possible to produce a range of sixteen million colors, while illuminating only areas that need light, according to the company.
``We will expand usage of the chip to portable multimedia players and portable TVs to meet rising demand for `dream displays’,’’ Kim Tae-jin, vice president of Samsung Electronics’ System LSI division, said Thursday.
``The new DDI self-adjusts the screen brightness, minimizes power consumption, extends battery life and the read-only memory (ROM) is able to reproduce more lifelike images,’’ he added.
Samsung has maintained the top share of the global DDI market for the past five years.
AM OLEDs, often called ``dream displays,’’ are seen as promising technology because they are self-luminous and, unlike liquid crystal displays (LCDs), do not require expensive backlighting. This results in thinner displays that consume almost 40 percent less power, a key advantage for mobile phones and other portable devices.
According to market research firm DisplaySearch, the global AM OLED market is expected to reach 7.82 million units this year and 127 million units by 2011 with an annual growth of 101 percent.