China's BOE, the display panel maker, has announced the successful development of a 55-inch electroluminescent AMQLED display with 4K resolution, the first of its kind in the world.

A true QLED display
Not to be confused with existing "QLED TVs" that are conventional LCD TVs, BOE's AMQLED is electroluminescent QLED, meaning that clusters of quantum dots, acting as pixels, emit light when an electric current is applied – much like OLED and microLED.

- "Quantum dot technology has made its way into display products including photoluminescent quantum dot-based backlight unit (QD-BLU) and electroluminescent AMQLED. AMQLED displays do not require a backlight; instead, quantum dots can emit light themselves when stimulated by current. AMQLED displays present a variety of advantages such as self-emitting, a wide color gamut, and a long lifetime, representing the development trend of quantum dot displays," explains BOE.


 BOE's 55-inch AMQLED. Photo: PJTime

BOE said that its "world's first" 55-inch AMQLED display has a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels (4K), a color gamut of 119% NTSC, and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1.

The Chinese display panel maker claims to be "a world leading player in the field of quantum dot electroluminescent research and development". Back in 2017, the company showcased 5-inch and 14-inch QLED prototypes, fabricated by inkjet printing, which it sees as the ideal manufacturing method for mass-producing QLED displays in the future. These displays won Best in Show at the 2017 SID Display Week.


 BOE's 55-inch AMQLED. Photo: PJTime

Today, QLED has a bad name because Samsung, TCL and Hisense, founding members of a promotional group called QLED Alliance, are selling conventional LCD TVs as "QLED TVs". Perhaps someday the acronym can regain its original meaning. True QLED display technology, which BOE refers to as AMQLED, is also known as QD-LED, EL-QLED, ELQD and QDEL.

BOE announced that its 55-inch AMQLED was "recently released". However, BOE is a display panel maker, not a consumer brand, so in this context "released" is more likely to refer to the first step after the prototyping stage. It may still take years before we can find QLED TVs in our local stores.

- Source: BOE, PJTime