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For some, OLED displays seem like just another future-tech promise that, like jet packs, flying cars, and domestic robots, has never been fulfilled.

Sure, Sony put out one OLED TV this year - the $2,500 11-inch XEL-1 - but who can afford it?

Now comes a hint from General Electric that we all might get our hands on OLEDs-those bright, shiny and efficient images-sooner than expected due to a new manufacturing process that prints OLED displays like rolls of newspaper.

GE wants to use the new process - called roll-to-roll - to make cheap OLED lighting products by 2010, but the technique can also be used to make display banners, electronic newspapers, posters and computer screens. We imagine it could also be used to make flimsy, quasi-disposable TV screens. According to GE, the small screen display market is worth about $1 billion.

Sony's pricey technology found in the XEL-1 doesn't hold that kind of promise. According to Anil Duggal, manager of GE's Advanced Technology Program in Organic Electronics, Sony's technique, called "batched semiconductor process," costs far too much for these industrial display uses.

"Relative to the expense of making these OLED TVs [our roll-to-roll process] is 1,000 to 10,000 times less cost," Duggal said. "They talk about dollars per square inch when [TV manufacturing companies] talk about OLEDs. We need to be talking about dollars per square meter." -Rachel Rosmarin

BusinessWire