Small OLED display means the size of oled display module is less than 5.5 inch. Because of limitation of technology and cost, OLED displays are mainly in small sizes OLED displays. Small OLED displays are widely used in wearable device, smart phone, industrial display, smart home display, outdoor displays. The interfaces of small OLED displays are simple and easy to use, they are easily to be connected to Arduino, Raspberry PI system or other MCU with single chip system.
Maclight provide various small OLED displays and OLED touch screen modules, wide temperature OLED, round OLED display modules, transparent OLED display modules. We provide high quality small OLED display, with fast delivery time, small quantity order is acceptable, with factory directly price. The sizes of Maclight small OLED displays are from 0.4" to 5.5".
Maclight featured small OLED display modules:
0.49 inch small OLED module(Click the picture to check more)
0.49 inch oled module
64x32 pixels oled
white/blue color oled available
wide viewing angle oled
Driver IC: SSD1306
Interface: I2C
0.66 inch small oled module
0.66 inch oled display
64x48 pixels oled
SSD1306 driver oled
wide viewing angle oled
Interface: Parallel,4-wire SPI,I2C
0.75 inch round oled display mono128x128
0.75 inch round oled display
128x128 pixels round oled module
SPI/I2C in
terface round oled
SSD1327 controller oc round oled
0.96 inch 128x64 OLED display module I2C for Arduino
Display technologies of Small OLED displays: AmOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) and PMOLED (Passive Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diod E) are the two main small OLED display technologies, which have obvious differences in structure, performance, cost and application fields. PMOLED is using passive matrix technology, each pixel is cross controlled through columns selection and rows scan, only the points both selected by column and row, the crossing point would be displayed on. PMOLED is suitable for low-resolution and small-size displays. AMOLED driving is more likely TFT driving method, there are TFT (thin-film transistor) cell to control each pixel display on and off, which is suitable for large-size and high-resolution small OLED display. AMOLED vs PMOLED: Resolution and size: AMOLED supports higher resolution and larger screen size, which is suitable for high-end smartphones and large sizes of TV screen. PMOLED is limited by the complexity of driver lines, and the resolution and screen size are smaller. which is only used in small sizes OLED screen. AMOLED vs PMOLED: power efficiency and image quality: AMOLED usually has lower power consumption and better image quality, it provide higher contrast and brighter colours. PMOLED has higher power consumption than AMOLED, and relatively lower contrast than AMOLED. AMOLED vs PMOLED: Cost and application: Cost: The manufacturing cost of PMOLED is low, which is suitable for cost-sensitive markets; the manufacturing cost of AMOLED is high, but it provides better display effects. Application field: PMOLED is often used in small devices such as smart watches and portable music players; AMOLED is widely used in high-end smartphones, TVs and large displays. Conclusion of AMOLED vs PMOLED: AMOLED and PMOLED have their own advantages and limitations. Which technology to choose depends on the specific application needs and budget. Although AMOLED is expensive, it provides better display quality and greater flexibility, which is suitable for users who pursue high-quality display. PMOLED is more suitable for small OLED displays, which is cost-sensitive applications that do not require large screens.
Why most of OLED displays are small OLED display? The popularity of OLED screens are mainly in small-sized screen, it is due to technology and cost limitations. Technical limitations and costs: When OLED screens are applied to small sized devices, the technology is relatively mature. The production of large OLED screens faces more technical challenges and higher costs, such as short life and uneven brightness. These technical limitations make the production of large-size OLED screens more difficult and expensive.
The manufacture procedure of OLED screen has high challenge to make big sizes OLED, because the luminescent powder (red, green, blue) inside OLED screen, they are evaporated to OLED glass via the metal mask in horizontal. In manufacturing big size OLED screen, the metal mask are big and heavy, therefore, the big metal mask is hard to remain as horizonal as small sizes, the slightly curve of matal mask, it lead to color mixing and high challenge in making big size and high resolution OLED screen. OLED screens in small-size applications, due to the small screen area, even if the panel material unit price is higher, the overall cost is spread out. This is particularly evident in consumer electronics such as mobile phones, which have a small screen size, but the cost of OLED has fallen with technological advances and optimization of the supply chain. Display effect and energy efficiency: Due to its self-luminous characteristics, OLED screen can achieve higher contrast and wider viewing angle. However, on large OLED screens, these advantages may be affected, such as uneven brightness and lifetime problems. In addition, the energy efficiency of large-size OLED screens is not always superior to other display technologies, especially in terms of high refresh rate display and low energy consumption. Market and application considerations: Market demand: Small OLED display devices, such as smartphones and tablets, can make full use of the advantages of OLED, such as thinness, lightness, bendability and excellent colour performance. On laptops or other large devices, users may value the durability and practicality of the screen more, which may affect the popularity of OLED screens in these fields. Small-size OLED screens show unique advantages in smart kitchen appliances, smart home control systems, personal care appliances, environmental appliances and other fields because of their thin, self-lighting, high contrast and other characteristics. These applications are more inclined to use small OLED display because they can provide a more intuitive interface and a better user experience. Application scenarios: In small-size applications, such as VR/AR glasses, medical devices, mobile power supplies, etc., the high resolution and fast response time of OLED screens can provide a smooth user experience, suitable for near-eye displays and portable device needs. Therefore, although OLED screen technology continues to evolve, it still faces cost and technical challenges in large-size applications, and small OLED displays are become more common in the market.
Is OLED better than LCD display?
OLED vs LCD : Advantages of small OLED displays:
Small OLED display module is better in power
consumption saving:
OLED can emitting light by itself and no
need backlight, through the use of phosphorescence (which can convert four
times more electricity into light than other materials), OLEDs are
significantly more power-efficient than LCDs with backlight.
To OLED display module, particularly for
monochrome OLED, the screen's power consumption is related to display content,
the less display content, the lower power consumption.
For example, a 0.96” OLED screen with
128x64 pixels resolution, the operating current for full
display on is 12.3 mA, and the current for displaying on 50% display pixels is only 7.3 mA. These current has been included OLED driver’s current and OLED display
screen’s current. While if we use a 0.96" LCD screen with backlight, the backlight commonly have 2 LED chips, only the LCD backlight's current has been up to 30mA.
OLED vs LCD: The lifetime of small OLED display has been comparable to LCD screen:
OLEDs are emissive, similar to plasma
displays and cathode ray tubes. They degrade over time. LCDs are transmissive
displays that operate by filtering a backlight. LCDs typically last as long as
their backlights, which also degrade over time or can fail catastrophically.
Early in the development of OLED displays, the lifetime (defined as the time it
takes for the display to reach 50% of the original luminance) was lower than
typical LCD lifetimes. However, with tremendous progress in materials
development, small OLED displays have lifetimes comparable to or better than LCDs. Part of small OLED displays have lifetimes exceeding 50,000 hour.
For example, lifetimes for OLED materials being developed by Cambridge Display
Technology, and others have lifetimes 2-3 times greater than
typical LCDs. Some are in products today and more are expected to reach the
market within coming years. Such as Maclight's 0.96” oled in white color, its
lifetime can be 50,000 hours in 60cd/m2 brightness display. OLEDs offer great potential for efficient
lighting solutions with recent reseach achieving 46 lumens per Watt (lm/W) with
lifetimes greater than 10,000 hour (a standard incandescent bulb offers 14 lm/W
with a 1000 hour lifetime). On the other hand, the higher brightness of OLED, its lift time would be reduced accordingly.
Small mono OLED display modules have better contrast and viewing
angle than mono LCD:
Monochrome OLED module has higher contrast than monochrome lcd, OLED screen's background is much blacker than monochrome LCD, monochrome OLED's background is without light leakage as monochrome LCDin non-display area, OLED's contrast can easily reach 10000:1, while LCD screen has more or less light leakage on non-display area, it lead to LCD display can not reach higher display contrast than OLED display. So OLED screen's contrast is much better than
mono LCD in STN LCD or TN LCD
display technology.
In the same time, monochrome LCD (stn lcd or TN lcd technology) have the limited viewing angle, their viewing angles are 120° (max), while OLED screen could be 180°, that is without viewing angle limited.
Therefore, mono OLED displays have better display performances than monochrome LCD.
On the other hand, to color AM OLED display modules, AM-OLEDs offer best video display quality, and AM OLED's color can reach higher NTSC standard, AM OLED display's contrast
ratio can be up to the range of 1,000,000 to 2,000,000:1, it makes those colors looked even
more brilliant theoretically.
However, as the IPS LCD or
LTPS TFT LCD technology are going to mature, color TFT LCD screen is almost
near to the color OLED display module in viewing angle and contrast in display
performance nowadays, because IPS tft panel has outstanding
performance in viewing angle, you would find IPS tft lcd almost has
similar display performance as color OLED display (of course, AM-OLED is
still little better in wide viewing angle and contrast, but not so much). However, the cost of
OLED screen are 2~3 times than TFT LCD screen. Therefore, for color displays, we don't
think it is necessary to choose OLED displays. As TFT LCD module, the TFT LCD glass and backlight can be made more thinner than before, their thicknesses are also close OLED module. Therefore, a better TFT LCD screen is also on a par with small AM-OLED screen nowadays.
Small OLED display has better working temperature performance:
Oled moduel have outstanding temperature performance
than LCD screen, even both OLED module and LCD display module declare they could
support -40~+85°C in their datasheets,
but the LCD screen always has slightly dimmer in low temperature and
fading in high temperature, it is limited by the liquid crystal
characteristics, but the OLED module display performance is consistency
in high temperature and low temperature working.
Transmissive LCD display technologies
are challenged in bright sunlight, because the light reflects off the display.
To mitigate the reflection, the LCDs offer a transflective mode, which is a
combination of a reflective and a transmissive display, to lessen the problem
but compromise on color and contrast performance in the process.
To OLED display, because it has blacker
background in non-display area, and by using specially designed polarizers,
OLED display attain better daylight readability in bright sunshine, OLED display
has better retain their color and contrast performance than LCD screen.
In the same time, OLED module has better
wide temperature than lcd screen, it hasn't response time problem when
in low temperature and display fade in high temperature as comparing to lcd
screen. so small OLED display module is more suitable for sunligh readable display.
Small OLED display has faster refresh time:
OLEDs refresh time is in microseconds grade that
with faster response time, as opposed to LCDs’ milliseconds. In addition, the
OLED refresh time would be same in high temperature and low temperature, while LCD screen, its refresh time become slowly in low temperature.
Small OLED displays could be made in more display types : Flexible or transparent
OLED display can be developed in more display types than LCD display module, such as transparent OLED display module and flexible OLED display technology. OLED can self-luminous, OLED display doesn't require the backlight unit, because of its simple structure, small OLED display is better to make transparent OLED display and flexible OLED display module. Without backlight unit, small OLED display module is thinner than traditional LCD display, OLED screen could be made in flexible or transparent by changing the substrate layers to flexible or transparency. All the newest flexible screen are made by OLED display, it is also because low-temperature processing OLED emit light materials can be evaporated to the flexible substrate, while TFT LCD screen can not make it like that, because the liquid crystal have to be sealed inside the tft lcd cell, the flexible substrate can not provide a reliable sealing condition for flexible TFT LCD screen.
Small OLED display module manufacturers in China:
Small OLED display manufacturers are including OLED panel manufacturers and OLED module manufacturers.
China OLED panel manufacturers have BOE, Tianma, Visionox, EDO, they are tier 1 OLED display
manufacturers in China, they have the newest generation production lines for small OLED display panels, making AM-OLED panels and flexible OLED displays, such as for
smartphone screens. Besides Samsung and LG from Korea, China OLED manufacturers
are the major manufactures for small OLED display market.
For small monochrome OLED panel manufacturers,
there are Visionox, Truly, Wisechips, and RIT, Winstars in Great China area, monochrome OLED panel sources are mainly comes from these OLED panel manufacturers.
Besides bigger OLED panel manufacturers, there are more small manufacturers for OLED display module in China. The production processes of small OLED display module are most likely COG LCD module production, only without backlight assembly. Small OLED display module has intergrated OLED panel, IC driver chip on glass, flex cable, sometimes with PCB adapter. The interfaces of small OLED display modules are available in IIC, SPI, MCU, MIPI interface, that they are easily to be used in common master board, such as Raspberry PI, Arduino, STM32, ESP8266.
Maclight could provide wide range small OLED display module for many applications, welcome to contact us for more information of small OLED displays. email: [email protected].
Small OLED display means the size of 
