Display Tech – OLED Displays

Nearly all electronic devices used today have some type of display integrated into them. Displays can be simple and provide very basic information, like a simple screen on a calculator. They also can be larger and more complex components of a system, allowing you to experience a device’s full graphical interface.

Usually the important information expressed about a display is its total screen size, pixel density, contrast ratio, and so on, with little attention being paid to the underlying technology of the display. Today’s blog post aims to address this topic in depth.

I’ll be tackling the concepts behind organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, the technology found in thePmodOLED和PmodOLEDrgb.

看，是传统LED的图。

OLED显示功能与正常LED相同的基本概念。使用正常的LED，您可以在二极管的任一侧（LED的阳极和阴极）施加电压。一旦二极管的电压达到或超过一定的阈值，电流就开始跨二极管进行操作，因此二极管会产生光。对于一个操作原则，对于OLED展示，但是，二极管两侧之间的材料是有机分子而不是固体硅材料。可以将有机材料夹在两个导电表面（其阳极和阴极）之间，可将其夹在多个层中，从而使显示表面非常薄。

There are a couple of disadvantages that are inherent with OLED displays compared to a liquid crystal display (LCD). The total number of operating hours you can get out of current technology is much lower than that ofLCDscreens. Additionally, color balance is difficult to maintain over the life of the screen, since the material used to produce blue light degrades much faster than the green or red in the display.

OLED但是，显示技术确实提供了比传统LCD的许多好处。第一个好处在名称本身中很明显。OLED显示器是发光二极管的显示，这一事实意味着它不需要任何形式的背光才能可见，而LCD技术需要使用背光。这也允许第二个好处，即显示厚度。由于整个显示屏在阳极层的范围内和阴极层的范围内，因此OLED显示器可能非常薄。进一步的好处包括诸如较低的总体功耗（在大多数情况下），在亮度，对比度和视角方面的图像质量更好，以及耐用性和温度公差的提高。

The ability to create small displays that do not require an independent backlight allows this technology to be well suited for small form factor applications, such as thePmodOLED和PmodOLEDrgb.

As I mentioned in the beginning, there is a lot of functionality that can be added to a device through the addition of a display. These two Pmods provide an easy means for you to add that extra level of interaction with a project. Whether it is something simple like显示传感器数据或者显示的图像(as part of a microcontroller sketch) there are endless possibilities unlocked by adding an OLED display to your project!