Sharp Unveiled a New Type of Screens Without Backlight

The Japanese company Sharp held a presentation behind closed doors at CES 2024 of a completely new type of matrix for display production - QDEL. Despite the similarity of names, this technology should not be confused with the already existing QLED.

Employees of the Digital Trends portal were among the small circle of people who were shown the new development. Information about the start of mass production, cost, and especially the timing of appearance on the market is still kept strictly secret. But Sharp did reveal some details of the technology, showing two prototypes with a diagonal of 12 and 30 inches.

QDEL stands for quantum dot electroluminescence. Many might consider this a variation of QLED screens that also use quantum dots, but there are two key differences in Sharp's design. Thus, QDEL screens do not require a separate light source. In other displays, quantum dots absorb light from an energy source and then convert it into color.

The second important difference between QDEL and existing panels is the absence of LED backlight or organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to create color and glow - all this is done by the quantum dots themselves, which include in their structure the same subpixels of red, blue and green colors. Sharp says that due to the lack of backlight, we get the cleanest and most “honest” image.

Sharp also indirectly hinted at the availability of QDEL panels, saying that the methods for producing such screens are no different from creating conventional LEDs.