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Tandem OLED has been round for years, however Apple made the know-how really feel new and glossy when it introduced that the display screen in its first ever OLED-based iPad would use a tandem construction.
Different shopper devices, like laptops and telephones, are additionally slowly beginning to incorporate Tandem OLED shows. So we thought it is a good time to take a look at how Tandem OLED is used, what advantages it is delivering, and the way the know-how may affect future units and compete towards different rising show applied sciences, like MicroLED and QDEL.
OLED TVs, screens already use totally different sorts of tandem stacks
We received’t go too deep into the technical particulars of Tandem OLED on this article ( readers can reference this helpful breakdown, which additionally consists of data on present technical obstacles, like light-extraction inefficiencies). However when you’re new to Tandem OLED, right here’s a short have a look at what makes it so attention-grabbing for tech devices.
Merely put, Tandem OLED screens, just like the one on the M4 iPad Professional, have two layers of crimson, inexperienced, and blue (RGB) natural light-emitting layers stacked atop each other and are pushed in tandem. Due to these two layers, a Tandem OLED display screen can attain the identical brightness ranges as an an identical design with one OLED stack however with every layer within the show working at decrease currents than in a single-stack OLED. The first advantages are much less burn-in danger, much less energy consumption, and the potential for greater brightness ranges.

LG Show
On this article, we’ll use the time period “Tandem OLED” to seek advice from shows that use two layers of RGB OLED supplies. That is the setup that has acquired latest consideration in shopper shows because of units just like the iPad Professional and XPS 13. However different OLED shows use totally different sorts of tandem buildings. OLED TVs and screens utilizing LG Show’s WOLED (white OLED) and Samsung Show’s QD-OLED (quantum dot OLED) additionally use tandem stacks.

Ross Younger
QD-OLED screens even use three stacks of blue OLED emitter layers (reportedly to handle the inefficiency of blue emitters).
As Ross Younger, CEO at Show Provide Chain Consultants (DSCC), advised me by way of e mail, “WOLED makes use of two blue layers with crimson and inexperienced in a stack, and QD-OLED makes use of three blue layers and inexperienced in a stack. These panels are creating white (WOLED) and blue (QD-OLED) gentle solely, so it’s totally different than the RGB tandem stacks getting used for the OLED iPad Execs and choose automotive shows.”
With trendy OLED TVs already getting numerous brightness from their present multi-stack OLED architectures, there could also be minimal incentive for Tandem RGB OLED stacks to hit high-end TVs, Eric Virey, principal shows analyst at Yole Intelligence, advised me. He additionally famous problems within the manufacturing course of:
As well as, the manufacturing course of utilized in TV manufacturing is totally different from the one utilized in smaller OLED units and wouldn’t be appropriate with RGB Tandem OLED. To be extra particular, small OLED shows, similar to smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and laptops, are made utilizing a Nice Steel Masks (FMM) patterning know-how, whereas giant OLEDs, similar to TVs, use an open masks. The latter wouldn’t fly with an RGB Tandem OLED structure.