Since its recording business was bought by Imation in late 2007, TDK didn't have too many reasons to step into the spotlight lately, but their latest OLED prototypes are really something apart and deserve our full and undivided attention, TDK managing to build a see-through OLED panel that has 50% transmittance.

What this basically means is that half of the light present behind the screen passes trough it, allowing you to see objects placed behind it.

This comes as a pretty important advancement in OLED transparent displays, besting Samsung's active matrix panel that featured only 38% transmittance, as well as LG's offering thanks to the passive matrix technology used by TDK that enables pixels to retain their state until they are refreshed again.

This see-through 2 inch panel features a rather low 320x240 (QVGA) resolution, but TDK says it can be mass-produced right now if device manufacturers place orders for such a display.

Moving on, the Japanese company also demoed a flexible panel prototype that was as thin as 0.3mm and weighted just 1.11 grams in its color version, a monochrome model that weights an astounding 0.96g being also available.

Because of the resin substrate used by TDK this panel can be bent to a curvature radius of up to 25mm without breaking while also featuring similar contrast ratio and brightness to its glass substrate counterparts, although its resolution is, for now, limited at just 256x64 pixels.

Similarly to its transparent sibling, TDK also has plans of mass-producing this panel at the end of 2011.

All in all, I would say this comes as great news to OLED screen lovers (myself included) and certainly manages to lift our spirits after Toshiba's depart from the OLED scene. (via Tech-On)