At SID Show Week 2025, Samsung is showcasing two new micro-OLED panels that may ship brighter 4K per-eye headsets with richer colours and no movement blur.
Micro-OLED shows are fabricated straight onto silicon wafers, a distinctly completely different manufacturing course of to common OLED, and provide a lot larger pixel density than another production-ready show know-how. Micro-OLED shows thus allow excessive decision headsets with comparatively slim designs – and naturally OLED’s signature infinite distinction with wealthy colours and true blacks.
At the moment 2.5K micro-OLED shows from Chinese language provider SeeYA Know-how are used within the Bigscreen Past collection, whereas 4K micro-OLED shows from Sony are utilized in Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, and BOE’s 4K micro-OLED shows are utilized in Play For Dream MR and Shiftall MeganeX superlight. Extra headsets utilizing a brand new Sony 4K micro-OLED are set to launch later this yr, from Samsung, Sony, and Pimax.
Again in 2023, Samsung acquired US micro-OLED firm eMagin for $218 million, and the brand new shows the corporate is exhibiting at Show Week 2025 are seemingly primarily based on eMagin’s know-how.
Samsung Buying OLED Microdisplay Firm eMagin For XR
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Whereas the 4K micro-OLED panels in these present headsets reportedly have a uncooked brightness of roughly 5000 nits, the 2 new shows Samsung is exhibiting output 15,000 nits and 20,000 nits respectively.
However if you happen to’re at the moment questioning “why on earth would anybody need or want a show that brilliant close to their eyes?” there’s one thing very essential to grasp right here.
For all their advantages, the pancake lenses wanted to enlarge shows this small to an appropriate area of view have extraordinarily poor optical effectivity. Meaning nearly all of the sunshine passing via them is misplaced, considerably decreasing the seen brightness. For right this moment’s pancake lenses, this loss is on the order of 90%.
Worse, to keep away from the notion of movement blur all XR shows deliberately solely illuminate for a fraction of every body, often known as the responsibility cycle, remaining pitch darkish the remainder of the body, and with OLED shows this makes the efficient brightness even decrease. This method is commonly referred to as low persistence.
When each the poor optical effectivity of pancake lenses and intentional low persistence of the shows are taken under consideration, the seen brightness of the present 5000 nit micro-OLED shows is simply round 100 nits.
That signifies that Samsung’s shows in an analogous optical setup might obtain round 300 nits and 400 nits seen brightness respectively, on the similar responsibility cycle and refresh charge. Alternatively, headset makers might use a decrease responsibility cycle to cut back and even eradicate the movement blur we criticized in our Imaginative and prescient Professional overview, attaining a stability between elevated brightness and improved movement readability.
Along with a lot larger brightness than the micro-OLED shows of right this moment, Samsung can be claiming larger decision and wider shade gamut. One panel proven is 3888×3888, whereas the opposite is past 4K, and each have 99% DCI-P3 protection. That compares to 3660×3200 and 92% for Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
| Measurement | Decision | Uncooked Brightness (learn article) | Shade Gamut (DCI-P3) | Refresh Fee | |
| Sony’s Previous (Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional) | 1.41″ | 3660×3200 | 5000 nits | 92% | 100Hz |
| Sony’s New (SRH-S1) (Pimax Dream Air) | 1.35″ | 3552×3840 | 5000 nits | 96% | 90Hz |
| BOE’s (Play For Dream) (MeganeX superlight) | 1.35″ | 3552×3840 | 6000 nits | 92% | 90Hz |
| LG’s (Show Week 2024) | 1.3″ | 3840×3840 | 10,000 nits | 97% | 90Hz |
| Samsung’s 5000PPI (Show Week 2025) | 1.4″ | >4K | 15,000 nits | 99% | 120Hz |
| Samsung’s 4200PPI (Show Week 2025) | 1.3″ | 3888×3888 | 20,000 nits | 99% | ? |
The a lot larger brightness and wider shade gamut of Samsung’s shows are potential as a result of they use true purple, inexperienced, and blue OLED subpixels, constructing on eMagin’s know-how. In distinction, current micro-OLED shows use white OLED subpixels with RGB shade filters on prime.
Direct emission RGB is considerably extra environment friendly, and affords higher shade saturation, enabling the larger brightness and wider shade gamut with out growing energy draw. Nevertheless, what this know-how will not assist handle is arguably the most important challenge with micro-OLED right this moment, the fee. Micro-OLED shows with white subpixels are already tough and costly to fabricate, and true RGB subpixels are much more so.
As such, Samsung is at the moment describing these superior micro-OLED shows as falling beneath analysis & growth.
For Samsung’s first standalone headset, set to introduce Google’s Android XR platform later this yr, the corporate will reportedly use Sony’s new micro-OLED show, the identical being utilized in Sony’s personal SRH-S1 headset coming this yr too.
