Battery not lasting through the day? This new display tech could be a game changer

The rivalry between LCD and OLED displays is mostly a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean that mobile display technology stands still. Today, we’re firmly in the territory of different varieties of OLED technology vying for top spot, whether that’s the dynamic refresh rate of LTPO or the brightness perks of white-OLED subpixels.

LG Display is introducing a new contender with its latest Hybrid Tandem OLED structure, which promises 15% lower power consumption than conventional OLED panels. This is great news for smartphones, where displays are among the largest battery drainers during screen-on time. If your phone is still struggling to make it through a full day, this could be a key spec to keep an eye out for in your next smartphone.

But how does LG Display plan to squeeze yet more power efficiency out of the already frugal OLED? It all comes back to one of OLED’s lingering challenges: the blue subpixel.

If you’re unfamiliar, OLED panels make color from red, green, and blue light-emitting diodes. The blue emitter has long been the problem child; it emits light at a much higher frequency, which requires more power for a given luminosity, causing it to degrade faster than red and green emitters. This is partly why older OLED panels suffer from color tinting and burn-in over time.

This has become less of an issue in more modern panels, which use more power-efficient phosphorescent materials (PHOLED) for red and green emitters. Still, blue emitters have traditionally relied on older and less efficient fluorescent materials for stability reasons, but blue phosphorescent OLED is beginning to address both efficiency and stability challenges.

This is precisely where LG Display’s new technology comes in; it revisits the pros and cons of fluorescent and phosphorescent materials for blue light, using both in its new hybrid OLED stack. Put simply, the fluorescent layer offers an accurate blue light and long lifetime like current panels. The added phosphorescent layer helps capture energy (specifically triplet excitons) that would otherwise be wasted, boosting efficiency without compromising the fluorescent blue emitter’s stability. Combined, they consume 15% less power overall for an equivalent level of stability and lifespan as current panels.

Aside from that engineering feat, the other half of the trick is building this into a single LED construct that can be manufactured without defects or issues. Promising tech in a lab is one thing, but mass-manufacturing it is another. Fortunately, LG Display has already reached the commercialization stage of its two-stack Tandem technology, and will be showing off smartphone and tablet-sized panels at SID Display Week on May 11. Of course, we’ll have to see how well the technology pairs with current high-end trends like LTPO and extreme peak brightness as well.

In any case, the biggest win for smartphone users is longer battery life. While there are plenty of power-hungry components in high-end smartphones, like a 5G modem or GPU during gaming, the display remains one of the biggest consumers, especially at high brightness levels. Advances like dynamic refresh rates have helped in certain scenarios, but the reality is we need our screens on for several hours a day, making them a primary source of battery drain.

Ballparking the display as accounting for around 30-50% of a phone’s active power usage, a 15% reduction in display power consumption could translate into a real-world battery saving of 5–10%. That might mean an extra 30 minutes of screen-on time for typical daily workloads, or up to an hour in lighter-use scenarios. That would undoubtedly be a meaningful improvement, though the actual benefit will depend on the device’s battery capacity, display settings, and how you use your phone.

Paired with other recent advancements like silicon-carbon batteries, LG Display’s Hybrid Tandem OLED technology should lead to next-gen smartphones that last much longer on a single charge. There’s no word on commercial products yet, but hopefully, the first smartphones sporting LG’s new OLED tech will appear on the market in the next year or so, when we can test out the claims ourselves.