The best OLED TVs are about to get a whole lot better. A new panel technology known as eLEAP will officially go into production later this year, according to FlatpanelsHD. Although it won’t be going into any big-name TVs at first, the new screen technology promises to deliver brightness in excess of 3,000 nits and improved durability, which means that it could make screens last longer, helping to cut down on e-waste.
eLeap was developed by Japan Display (JDI), which is a firm that was created by the merger of the display businesses of Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi. And while we first started reporting on it in 2022, it’s only just starting to ramp up production with plans to expand this to the mainstream market in late 2024.
Although no consumer brands have yet announced plans to use the new tech, the panels are likely to appear in laptops first, with one of the first panels being a 14-inch OLED for portable computers. That’ll deliver peak brightness of 1,600 nits, but even brighter panels are imminent.
What is eLeap OLED?
eLeap – it’s an extremely tenuous acronym for “environment positive lithography with maskless deposition, extreme long life, low power and high luminance” – uses light to transfer patterns in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, a process that can deliver increased brightness and increased durability too, which is great news for cutting down on e-waste.
This is the first OLED technology to use such a process, and according to Japan Display the production process is currently six months ahead. In the eight months before launch, JDI says it’s already achieving production yields of 60%. The higher the yield the more efficient the production and the lower the cost.
According to JDI, it will supply eLeap panels “for use in a wide array of end-use applications, including smartwatches and wearables, smartphones, notebook PCs, and automotive displays”. TVs are currently conspicuous by their absence, however. That’s because the manufacturing capacity isn’t there yet to produce larger panels: JDI’s plant for that is not expected to be online until 2027.