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Manufacturing OLEDs is vastly more complex than CRTs, which is essentially folding and welding sheet metal and glasblowing. I'm pretty sure one person can make

Manufacturing OLEDs is vastly more complex than CRTs, which is essentially folding and welding sheet metal and glasblowing. I'm pretty sure one person can make basic CRTs in their shed because that's pretty much how early CRTs were made. Of course really good or very fast CRTs are a tad different, but the fundamentals (i.e. electron optics) are still used in various places, so it's not like we've collectively forgotten how to shape an electron beam. Tektronix also published tons of literature about stuff like this. > What is the easiest display to actually make? Discounting electro-mechanical displays, I'd say VFDs.

phkahler 5y ago
>> Manufacturing OLEDs is vastly more complex than CRTs, which is essentially folding and welding sheet metal and glasblowing. I recall an article from ~20 years ago where some researchers made an OLED display using an inkjet printer. I'm sure the consistency and reliability were not what you get out of modern manufacturing, but still... I've been waiting for inkjet based printing of simple circuits and lighting but it's just not happening. Imagine printing light-up signs. c'mon Y-combinator we need this tech everywhere.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  Fun fact: OLEDs have radically shorter lifespans "in the field" than LED or LCD. According to a paper from Samsung at IEEE IRPS three years ago, the best OLED screens only have about 2 years (600 hours) best case continuous use but that is extended by "screen savers" and estimates of only 25%-50% customer use in a 24 hour period to about 5 years (extend by not using) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8720529 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8720529 Part of the reason for this: low energy manufacturing materials/processes, by definition (physics), will have low energy failure mechanisms (which always means they will fail more quickly). This is about chemico-physical reaction activation energy. Anything ink-jet created or organic is a low energy process/material.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    >>best OLED screens only have about 2 years (600 hours) best case continuous use I don't have access to paper, but rough estimate is that there are ~17k hours in 2 years. If screen has actually 2 years 24x7 continuous use (and I assume they use a semi-arbitrary brightness threshold or something?), I imagine for TVs that'll be an easy decade of real-world use, depending on usage patterns. For some phones maybe less. I'd be curious what the specs for LCD & LED are then.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Surely it’s not that low? The lamp in my projector (BenQ W1070) is rated for 5,000 hours, and that’s low enough that the manufacturer includes a lamp timer in the menu and sells user-swappable replacements. I’m on my third lamp. If the whole display was expected to die in anything like this amount of time, I would anticipate widespread consumer outrage.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    >> low energy manufacturing materials/processes, by definition (physics), will have low energy failure mechanisms That is one of the most obvious-in-hindsight things I've learned lately. Thanks!
xyzzy21 5y ago
Actually CRTs and vacuum tubes in general are the "far more complex" manufacturing process compared to semiconductor. It's sounds wrong but just watch the following video about Mullard vacuum tube (valve) manufacturing in the early 1960s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvF89Bh27Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvF89Bh27Y The transistor would start to displace tubes during the 1960s (when I got into electronics in the early 1970s, you still would learn or use or have as option the user of vacuum tubes but by the end of the 1970s, that was 100% gone for professionals and hobbyists though in 1980s as a freshman EE student we had the last gasp of vacuum tube education corresponding to having to use FORTRAN and punch cards that one last semester for programming as well). At the same time, discrete transistors were arising as the de facto choice in commercial (the adoption "Chasm" for them occurred in the late 1950s). ICs were still "early adopter" in the 1960 and crossed the chasm in the late 1960s, early 1970s which is why the 1970s were the boom decade for Silicon Valley and IC manufacturing. As I watch tube manufacturing with 40 years of experience in semiconductor, I just cringe at the non-reproducibility and labor involved - it's insane. By contrast, semiconductor (and by commonality of process, OLED) is far simpler. The reason: the planar photolithographic cycle is repeated over and over again in semiconductors which in contrast to the "different at every single step" of tube manufacturing is radially simpler.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  It depends on how we define define "manufacturing complexity" right? Perhaps (I'm not in manufacturing, so...) it is right to say that a CRT is more complex to build than an LCD or OLED, in the same sense that a suit of plate armor is more complex to build than an M16. The former can be created with lower technology and more manual labor by an expert, the latter can be basically stamped out, some assembly required.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Complex, yes. But, don't forget that if we still made CRTs we'd desire them at extremely high quality. Much higher than they were when they were still manufactured. I don't think there'd be much difference in complexity. Also, the much higher amount of materials, the bulk etc would make them unviable now.

phkahler 5y ago

>> Manufacturing OLEDs is vastly more complex than CRTs, which is essentially folding and welding sheet metal and glasblowing. I recall an article from ~20 years ago where some researchers made an OLED display using an inkjet printer. I'm sure the consistency and reliability were not what you get out of modern manufacturing, but still... I've been waiting for inkjet based printing of simple circuits and lighting but it's just not happening. Imagine printing light-up signs. c'mon Y-combinator we need this tech everywhere.

xyzzy21 5y ago
Fun fact: OLEDs have radically shorter lifespans "in the field" than LED or LCD. According to a paper from Samsung at IEEE IRPS three years ago, the best OLED screens only have about 2 years (600 hours) best case continuous use but that is extended by "screen savers" and estimates of only 25%-50% customer use in a 24 hour period to about 5 years (extend by not using) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8720529 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8720529 Part of the reason for this: low energy manufacturing materials/processes, by definition (physics), will have low energy failure mechanisms (which always means they will fail more quickly). This is about chemico-physical reaction activation energy. Anything ink-jet created or organic is a low energy process/material.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  >>best OLED screens only have about 2 years (600 hours) best case continuous use I don't have access to paper, but rough estimate is that there are ~17k hours in 2 years. If screen has actually 2 years 24x7 continuous use (and I assume they use a semi-arbitrary brightness threshold or something?), I imagine for TVs that'll be an easy decade of real-world use, depending on usage patterns. For some phones maybe less. I'd be curious what the specs for LCD & LED are then.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Surely it’s not that low? The lamp in my projector (BenQ W1070) is rated for 5,000 hours, and that’s low enough that the manufacturer includes a lamp timer in the menu and sells user-swappable replacements. I’m on my third lamp. If the whole display was expected to die in anything like this amount of time, I would anticipate widespread consumer outrage.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> low energy manufacturing materials/processes, by definition (physics), will have low energy failure mechanisms That is one of the most obvious-in-hindsight things I've learned lately. Thanks!

xyzzy21 5y ago

Actually CRTs and vacuum tubes in general are the "far more complex" manufacturing process compared to semiconductor. It's sounds wrong but just watch the following video about Mullard vacuum tube (valve) manufacturing in the early 1960s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvF89Bh27Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvF89Bh27Y The transistor would start to displace tubes during the 1960s (when I got into electronics in the early 1970s, you still would learn or use or have as option the user of vacuum tubes but by the end of the 1970s, that was 100% gone for professionals and hobbyists though in 1980s as a freshman EE student we had the last gasp of vacuum tube education corresponding to having to use FORTRAN and punch cards that one last semester for programming as well). At the same time, discrete transistors were arising as the de facto choice in commercial (the adoption "Chasm" for them occurred in the late 1950s). ICs were still "early adopter" in the 1960 and crossed the chasm in the late 1960s, early 1970s which is why the 1970s were the boom decade for Silicon Valley and IC manufacturing. As I watch tube manufacturing with 40 years of experience in semiconductor, I just cringe at the non-reproducibility and labor involved - it's insane. By contrast, semiconductor (and by commonality of process, OLED) is far simpler. The reason: the planar photolithographic cycle is repeated over and over again in semiconductors which in contrast to the "different at every single step" of tube manufacturing is radially simpler.

bee_rider 5y ago
It depends on how we define define "manufacturing complexity" right? Perhaps (I'm not in manufacturing, so...) it is right to say that a CRT is more complex to build than an LCD or OLED, in the same sense that a suit of plate armor is more complex to build than an M16. The former can be created with lower technology and more manual labor by an expert, the latter can be basically stamped out, some assembly required.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Complex, yes. But, don't forget that if we still made CRTs we'd desire them at extremely high quality. Much higher than they were when they were still manufactured. I don't think there'd be much difference in complexity. Also, the much higher amount of materials, the bulk etc would make them unviable now.