Samsung said Wednesday that it has developed a 31-inch AM OLED TV prototype, which will be showcased at CES 2008 in Las Vegas next January.

The korean company said it has applied its own AM OLED technology to this protoype. Samsung has been sharing patents related to the OLED display patents since 2004, when the Korean company signed a cross-license agreement. Sony recently released its first 11-inch OLED TV in Japan.

However, OLED TVs are still expensive and companies are facing technical difficulties to produce them in big quantities and of course, in larger display sizes. Samsung claims that it has the technological ability to produce 40-inch AM OLEDs, but mass production is schedulled in 2010, when the investments in the new technology will allow Samsung to offer the TVs at lower retail prices.

AM OLEDs (active matrix-based) consists of two glass substrates and light-emitting fluorescent organic compound which fills the gap between two substrates. AM OLED TV is much slimmer than LCD TV and much better than LCD TV in terms of video quality, response time, contrast, and power consumption. However, they still have a product life less than existing LCD TVs.

It is not the first time Samsung announced AM OLED TV prototypes. The company drew global attention by developing a 40-inch AM OLED panel in 2005, but it failed to commercialize it.

Samsung SDI Co has also recently announced that it would double monthly output capacity of active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AM-OLED) displays to 3 million units by 2008 from 1.5 million now. The company has also succeeded in the development of 31-inch OLED panels.