Sony caused a worlwide sensation at last year’s CEATEC by introducing the XEL-1 during the event, its mini OLED TV, which boasts a thickness of just 3 mm (1.4 mm at its thinnest part).

This year, the general public gets to see a OLED display that is just 0.3 mm at its thinnest part (otherwise, the 11-inch screen is technically identical to the XEL-1).

In the US, Sony showcased the ultrathin OLED prototype (under heavier security arrangements) during the D6 conference in May. It was also displayed at the Sony Dealer Convention 2008 [JP], which was held earlier this month in Tokyo.

According to information the Nikkei, Japan’s largest business daily, spread today, Sony will finally start selling its XEL-1 mini OLED TV in Europe “sometime next year”. The device made its debut in the US in January, while it hit Japanese stores December 2007.

Sony will become the first company offering OLED TVs in Europe. The price is unknown at this point.

The company is planning to invest over $200 million in the mass production of larger OEL screens by the end of this fiscal year. Sony is not alone: Matsushita (Panasonic) is expected to build prototype 40-inch OLED displays in early 2009, with plans of offering them to Japanese customers in 2011. Samsung plans to roll out 14-inch OLED TVs in 2010.

The American market research firm DisplaySearch recently said they expect about 2.8 million OLED to be shipped globally by 2012.

Today Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization announced it wants to accelerate the commercialization of large-screen OLED-TVs with a $350 million investment to be spent over 5 years.

The public organization plans to cooperate with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and a total of 10 Japanese technology companies. These are:

- Hitachi Zosen
- Sony
- Sharp
- Shimadzu
- Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology
- Idemitsu Kosan
- Choshu Industry [JP]
- Sumitomo Chemical
- JSR
- Dainippon Screen

According to Japanese media, the initiative’s goal is to commercialize 40-inch OLED-TVs by 2018. This seems to be surprisingly late, as Samsung showcased a prototype of such a TV as early as 2005.

Sony plans to sell FED-TVs sized at 26 inches through an affiliate company starting next year. The company’s current OLED-TV, the XEL-1, comes with a screen size of 11 inches.

No one can deny OLED displays are superior in quality to LCD or Plasma screens. One problem which has been constraining the commercialization of large-size OLED TVs, however, is the high level of power consumption.

On Monday however, Sony and Japanese chemical company Idemitsu announced they succeeded in increasing the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) in deep-blue fluorescent OLED devices to 28.5%. I know, right? Until today, 25% was believed to be the maximum level of luminous efficiency achievable. Among the RGB colors, blue OLED devices are the most energy-intensive.

The two companies have been jointly working on the improvement of OLED display technology since 2005. Sony Japan plans to mass-produce big-screen OLED TVs (20 inches and larger) at the end of 2009.

This is definitively good news since Sony’s current OLED TV XEL-1 is cool but simply too small (11 inches) and too expensive.

Sony’s XEL-1 is pretty impressive. It’s only 27 inches wide and costs $1,500, so it’s not that impressive but if you want to be an early adopter and feel like your TV can get blown off the table with a strong gust of wind, this is your device.

OLEDs use less power and are more eco-friendly than plasma or LCD screens. Does this mean you’ll have an OLED in your home next year? Probably not. While it’s an amazing technology, they’ve been harping on this stuff for almost a decade and I can’t see them pumping these out any time soon. It’s nice to see Sony is experimenting and leading the OLED charge, but let’s not hold our collective breath.

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