According to Korean economic reports, virtual reality can be used in various fields such as games and education, and the market prospects are promising. The market size is expected to reach approximately 10 billion US dollars in 2016, and will expand more than 7 times within 5 years. Therefore, IT companies such as Samsung, Google, and Facebook all regard virtual reality as their future development goal.
However, the current difficulty with VR devices is image quality. Judging from the products currently on the market, you will feel a headache after just three minutes of viewing them. This is because you have to create a picture that covers the entire human field of view on a display that is less than 20 centimeters in size. Therefore, to produce a good-quality VR device, the resolution must be much higher than that of a smartphone panel. Experts believe that panels used in VR devices must be at least three times higher than ultra-high-definition (UHD) OLED (approximately 500ppi) in order to eliminate dizziness.
In addition to resolution, the display's response speed must also be faster. Current monitors are prone to image sticking, so the image processing speed needs to be accelerated. Since the virtual reality is unfolding right in front of your eyes, even a little residual image will make your eyes uncomfortable and cause dizziness. Experts believe that this problem can be solved by increasing the response speed to twice that of the highest-end smartphones.
The industry once believed that it was impossible for OLED to enter mass production, but the emergence of smartphones has broken this stereotype. In order to make smartphones with thinner and brighter displays, Samsung Electronics urged Samsung Display to develop OLED and launched the Galaxy S series equipped with OLED panels in 2010. Industry comments at the time believed that smartphones had advanced the development of OLED by five years.
Samsung Display and LG Display, which have this experience, are working quickly to develop VR devices. Not only have relevant technologies been identified, but investments in dedicated production lines are also being evaluated.
The VR-specific panel Samsung is researching is essentially similar to the display panel used in smartphones, but it uses technology that can draw more precise circuits on glass or plastic substrates to improve image quality. According to industry rumors, Samsung Display has received demand for higher-quality OLEDs from VR companies such as Samsung Electronics and Sony. It is currently studying with equipment and parts companies, and is also reviewing whether additional investment should be made.
LG is studying ways to replace existing plastic and glass substrates with silicon wafers. It is currently reported that LG Display is carefully considering whether to set up a dedicated production line for VR displays using silicon wafers at the new OLED factory under construction in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province.
In addition to displays, there are still many areas that need to be overcome if VR is to be popularized. In order to transmit ultra-high-definition VR content over the Internet, the current universal transmission speed must be increased from 4G to 5G, which is more than 1,000 times faster. Also, although Samsung and LG have launched virtual reality cameras, the camera technology for shooting virtual reality images is still insufficient.
The most difficult thing to overcome is the technical aspect, but experts believe that VR will play the same catalyst role as smartphones and will make great leaps forward in various technologies. Senior figures in the display industry said that as long as there is demand, related technologies will evolve to meet that demand. They also said that virtual reality will promote the faster development of related technologies such as displays and communications.
ANNA