Samsung SDI (Samsung Display Interface) is looking to spearhead the manufacturing of wide VGA (or wVGA, 480 x 800) OLEDs for handhelds. In English, that means the company, together with Clairvoyante, Inc. is looking to make high-res displays for our compact gizmos.

According to a press release, Samsung and Clairvoyante has teamed up to make the wVGA active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) dream come true. The joint venture will be making use of the Clairvoyante's PenTile subpixel rendering technology and will be resulting (hopefully) in a 3.08-inch diagonal screen perfect for upcoming handheld applications.

Right now, we only have displays of up to quarter VGA (qVGA or 240 x 320) because of the challenges in manufacturing, among other things. According to the release, it will be made possible since "PenTile technology makes it possible to attain this improved performance by eliminating one-third of the subpixels while maintaining the same display resolution."

Sung-Chul Kim, Samsung SDI vice president had this to say:

Our partnership with Clairvoyante will create a new PenTile OLED panel that will lead the handheld market with a power-efficient, high-resolution OLED panel that supports continued innovation in emerging handheld applications.

And Samsung seems very confident about the project (just like Sony and its XEL-1 OLED TV), indicating an ETA of Q1 2008 for samples and Q3 for the mass production. For tech heads out there, here are the specs:

• Specifications: 3.08 inch PenTile RGB OLED from Samsung SDI
• Diagonal 3.08 inches
• Luminance 200 cd/m2
• Contrast 1000:1
• Power consumption 400 mW
• Color Gamut (NTSC) 100%
• Format Wide VGA 480 x 800

Sony's announcement that it will begin sales of 11-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) monitors before the end of the year has caused rival companies to step up their own OLED screen development plans. However, as reported by AV zombie, South Korean electronics company Samsung doubts that the electronics giant will not be able to deliver on their promise.

"I hope Sony will really do it, but considering circumstances, I doubt they will be able to start selling it this year," said Yoo Eui-jin, vice president and chief of Samsung SDI’s OLED team. "Maybe it would be possible for them to make a hundred or a thousand units as artifacts, but no more than that."

The advantages of OLED screens (greater range of colors, brightness, theoretically lower costs, etc.) over their LCD counterparts has had manufacturers racing to get them out of the factory and into consumers' homes. Samsung currently plans to introduce active matrix OLED screens for mobile phones and other portable devices instead of TVs.

Someone has finally stepped up to challenge Samsung's claim on the title of world's thinnest LCD, and that someone is... Samsung?

As it turns out, subsidiary Samsung SDI has announced that it has bested its parent company's shortly-held record by a few millimeters. According to The Korea Times, Samsung SDI's LCD comes in at a mere 0.74 millimeters thick, more than enough to push Samsung Electronics' 0.82 mm thick LCD down to second place.

Samsung SDI's new record holder is still in prototype form, and still has a ways to go before it actually finds its way onto phones. The company has already announced that it will make an appearance on their "next-generation phones."

Right now, though, consumers can expect to see Samsung's thicker-yet-still-really-thin 1.9 mm LCD, which will be going into mass production before it winds up on the new Ultra Edition II handsets this spring.

Samsung SDI recently released pics of their latest venture into OLED. Running on the AMOLED they developed some months before, this set's monitor is a scant 1.8-mm thick, with the TVs' cross section totalling only 12-mm in thickness.

Organic Light-Emitting Diode technology's originally been used for MP3 player displays and HUDS. Samsung released a 40-inch prototype TV using this technology in last year's KES, making it the biggest of its kind at the time. OLED technology had been considered a direct competitor for plasma and LCD flat-screen TVs, but due to its short lifespan and sensitivity to moisture, it's still in the works.

With Samsung once again displaying this sort of tech at the KES - and at a smaller 17-inch screen - could this be an indicator for their plans for a commercial product? We'll keep you in touch with this news, as a good screen is just as important as getting a high-performance console to go with it.

Here are the pics, for your viewing pleasure:

It seems everybody and their cousin's releasing a new PMP every week nowadays, so why should we pay special attention to the PMP Samsung SDI presented at the IMID Fair in Korea? One word: AMOLED.

Now you may be asking yourself, "What's that? There's a mole in it?" When we say AMOLED we're not talking about earth-burrowing mammals, but about the new Samsung PMP's display screen. The big deal about this is that unlike conventional TFT-LCDs which feature 68% Gamut, an AMOLED has 100% Gamut. This results in an optimal brightness and contrast ratio without any loss of quality at a 30-degree viewing angle. In short, it produces better-quality images than a normal LCD.

The power consumption of an AMOLED is also lower, making it an ideal choice for cellular phones and - you guessed it - portable media players. The AMOLED display supports a resolution of 240 x 320, 16 million colors and 200 cd/m2 brightness. Expect devices to be equipped with this new display as early as next year.

South Korea's Samsung SDI have developed a new piece of technology that enables 3D images to be viewed on mobile phone screens other devices. The company claims that it is the first to develop the device, which uses so-called 'active matrix organic light-emitting diodes', or AMOLEDs. The new technology, shown above, is said to be much faster than the current generation high-flyer, the LCD screen.

In a statement released on Sunday, Samsung SDI said that the 4.3-inch (10.9 cm) AMOLED panel, currently just for mobile phones, guarantees "the world's highest definition" in terms of 3D images. Samsung SDI added that they are stepping up the research and development into AMOLED panels for TVs and notebooks. Samsung SDI executive vice president Chung Ho-Kyoon said "Within the next 10 years, most flat-panel displays will adopt the 3D display technology."