Specifications

Everyone’s dumping their fat-ass CRTs in fa-
vor of thin and light LCDs, and manufactur-
ers are cheerfully cranking out models with
bigger viewing areas, faster response times,
and lower prices. But peek into the R&D clean
rooms of many LCD makers and you’ll fi nd
they’re quietly ramping up production of the
next generation of display technology—one
that promises richer colors and thinner pack-
ages at lower prices than today’s LCDs.
The technology is called Organic Light-
Emitting Diode, or OLED, and primitive ver-
sions are already shipping in products today,
such as MSI’s MEGA line of MP3 players and
Samsung’s E71x series of cellphones. One of
OLED’s intrinsic advantages over today’s thin-
fi lm transistor (TFT) displays is that displayed
data remains crisp and legible even in bright
sunlight and/or with the screen held at sharp
angles. But these modest two- and four-color
displays are only a hint of what’s to come.
One of the most aggressive pioneers of
OLED technology is LG Philips, which is cur-
rently showing off the world’s largest OLED
display—at 20.1 viewable inches—on the
trade show circuit. OLED fever is also catch-
ing on quickly with other manufacturers—in-
cluding Sony, DuPont, Kodak, and Samsung.
Undoubtedly, these companies appreciate the
fact that, in mass production, OLED displays
will be cheaper to manufacture than traditional
liquid-crystal displays. In contrast to the com-
plicated process of layering rigid materials for
LCDs, the red, green, and blue sub-pixels of
OLED displays can be literally sprayed onto a
substrate in a single step using precision inkjet
printers. No, we’re not making this up.
Cheaper production means cheaper prod-
ucts for consumers, and the fun doesn’t end
there. Because the pixels in OLED displays
emit their own light, they don’t need back-
lighting like today’s thin-fi lm transistor (TFT)
displays. Consequently, OLED displays should
require less power and result in longer bat-
tery life for portable devices. As if this weren’t
enough, the research and white papers we’ve
reviewed seem to indicate that the real advan-
tage of the technology is its potential to reduce
screen thickness and weight. This means digi-
tal cameras with bigger displays, thinner PDAs,
portable video players no bigger than an iPod,
and desktop monitors one-third the thickness
of today’s LCDs.
While we don’t expect to see an affordable
20-inch OLED display on our desktop this year,
we do anticipate portable electronics with 16-
bit color OLED displays to show up by the holi-
day season.
JANUARY 2005 MAXIMUMPC 33
Dual-Core Processors
AMD and Intel race to give you two CPUs for the price of one
OLED
Thin is in, and bright is right
It’s not quite the photo-printer you have
at home, but Philips’ PolyOLED uses
similar inkjet technology to squirt red,
green, and blue sub-pixels onto a rigid
surface.
DDR3 (and faster DDR2) Our prognosis: RAM upgrading continues to be murky
If you’ve been a PC geek long enough to remember the original
release of DDR RAM, you probably remember that it was a wild
ride that left consumers dazed and confused as speeds jumped
from DDR166/200 to DDR266, DDR333, and DDR400. That’s not
even counting dual-channel iterations. Because each bin speed
required a new chipset, you had to toss your motherboard if you
wanted to use the faster RAM to its full potential.
It looks like DDR2 will suffer the same problem this year as
we see the release of DDR2/667 and DDR2/800 versions. But to
confuse (and tantalize) you just a little more, the organization
that homologates RAM specs and speeds is expected to unveil
DDR3 at the end of the year. Not much is known about DDR3,
but we expect it to continue the trend of lowering voltage and
increasing speed. That’s a good thing.
One of the interesting byproducts of this rapid evolution is
that in 2005, AMD should fi nally be forced to switch to DDR2
in its Athlon 64 CPUs. Because the memory controller is inte-
grated into the CPU and only supports DDR, there’s been no
way to build a DDR2 Athlon 64/FX system. We’re predicting that
AMD will add DDR2 support later this year once the spec settles
down at the DDR2/800 speeds.
Finally, to add even more chaos to the situation, we’ve
heard talk of an attempt to get an offi cial DDR500 spec pushed
through. Although it’s a commonly held belief that DDR400 was
the absolute end of the line for DDR, several DRAM manufac-
tures are producing chips that can reach the higher margins.
Popular among overclockers, it remains to be seen whether the
obsolete tech will receive continued support from the industry.