PMOLED

PMOLED is Passive Matrix OLED — Passive Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode. Passive Matrix refers to the arrangement of the driving electrodes in the OLED display.

In PMOLED displays, there is an array of horizontal conductors and an array of vertical conductors, with the OLED material between them. A pixel is formed where the vertical and horizontal conductors intersect.

Detailed Definition

This is a magnified image of a few pixels of a monochrome passive matrix OLED (PMOLED) showing an alternating checkerboard pattern. (Crystalfontz 128×32 OLED series)

Single Pixel Monochrome PMOLED - www.crystalfontz.com

Passive matrix OLEDs can also be full color. A single full-color pixel is made of red, green, and blue sub-pixels. Here is a magnified image of the CFAL9664B full color OLED.

Single Pixel RGB PMOLED - www.crystalfontz.com
Single Pixel RGB PMOLED

Passive Matrix displays — both PMOLED displays and passive LCDs — are limited in how big they can be by their duty cycle.

On a 256×64 OLED display module, only one of the 64 rows is active at any one time. So to make an average brightness of 80cd/m2, each pixel would have to be instantaneously driven to emit 5120cd/m2 along with the correspondingly high instantaneous current.

Short Exposure OLED Showing Partial Update - www.crystalfontz.com
Short exposure OLED showing partial update.

For higher resolution OLED displays, an AMOLED (Active Matrix OLED) design is used.

Crystalfontz Catalog of OLED Modules

Crystalfontz carries a full line of PMOLED modules.

For assistance in determining what module is the best one for your application, please contact our knowledgeable and friendly support staff by email, phone, or chat. We are here to answer any questions that you may have about OLEDs and all available modules we carry.

Related Entries