The OLED-Info newsletter (April 12, 2022)

OLEDWorks announced that it is the supplier of the digital OLED rear lights adopted by Audi in its 2022 A8 and S8 cars. These OLEDs are now standard in the new A8.

Customers can choose one of two light signatures on the A8 (the S8 offers three possible signatures). Audi says it will deliver the first cars in Q2 2022.

Smart pen developer Anoto Group announced that it has been commissioned to develop a digital screen pen for Samsung Display's foldable OLED screens for mobile phones, tablets and PCs. SDC will pay Anoto for the pen development (which will be finalized by the end of 2022) and will also pay royalties to Anoto as SDC will produce the pen itself.

Anoto explains that established screen pen solutions cannot be used with foldable OLED displays due to their thinness and size. Anoto says that its proprietary dot pattern technology and pen are uniquely suitable for foldable displays.

Demand for larger mobile OLED displays, for laptops, tablets and monitors is on the rise, and display makers are looking into 8.5-Gen OLED production lines dedicated to the IT market.

According to a new report from Korea, BOE is moving forward with its plans to establish an IT AMOLED production line. The company is aiming to establish a 8.5-Gen (2250x2600 mm) production line at its B16 fab in Chengdu. BOE's goal is to start production by the end of 2024, with an initial capacity of 15,000 monthly substrates.

Last year Samsung Electronics started to adopt AMOLED displays produced by BOE and TCL, as the Korean smartphone makers aims to lower costs and reduce its reliance on Samsung Display.

According to a report from Korea, the company plans to increase these China-produced OLED orders from around 800,000 in 2021 to around 6.5 million in 2022. It seems the main device to adopt these panels will be the Samsung Galaxy A73.

BOE's chairment Chen Yanshun says that the company shipped almost 60 million AMOLED displays in 2021, and the company plans over 100 million such panels in 2022.

BOE also details that its AMOLED monthly output surpassed the 10 million unit mark for the first time in December 2021.

LG Display says that it has no immediate plans to start producing OLED panels for monitor applications (at sizes of around 30-inch), but the company is looking at two different architectures for such panels.

Specifically, LGD is considering whether its WRGB OLED panels, used currently to make TV panels (sizes 42-inch and up) are suitable for 30-inch monitor panels. Another option that LGD is looking into is adopting its RGB mobile OLED (p-OLED) technology to produce monitor panels.

In recent years, we have seen accelerated OLED materials development, aided by software tools based on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. This is an excellent development which contributes to the continued improvement in OLED efficiency, brightness and lifetime.

Kyulux's Kyumatic AI material discover system

The promise of these new technologies is the ability to screen millions of possible molecules and systems quickly and efficiently. Materials scientists can then take the most promising candidates and perform real synthesis and experiments to confirm the operation in actual OLED devices.

Vivo's X Fold is a foldable smartphone that has an inner 8-inch 2160 x 1916 120Hz HDR10+ LTPO AMOLED display, and a 6.53-inch 120Hz OLED cover display.

The X Fold features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, 12 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage and a quad camera setup.

The Vivo X Fold is expected to ship by the end of April 2022.

Poland is aiming to become a major innovation and high-tech hub, and the country is already enjoying a growing industry, focusing on IT, bio-technology, robotics and nanotechnology.

Poland has a strong material science and development expertise, and in recent years we have been seeing OLED and display-related ventures out of Poland. It seems Poland is poised to become an interesting location to watch for future innovation in the OLED industry.

Ergis Group noDiffusion OLED encapsulation film

One such company is the Poland-based Ergis Group, a leader in plastic processing active in markets such as food packaging, industrial, automotive, medical and more. In 2020, Ergis launched its first product for the optoelectronic applications (such as the display market and photovoltaics) - the Ergis noDiffusion films for flexible OLED panels (both displays and lighting) and OPVs. Ergis is using a unique ALD-based technology that enables it to offer high performance films on low cost PET films.

In recent years we have seen AMOLED displays fall out of favor in the VR market, as most devices have opted for high-end LCDs, due to the better image definition, mostly. According to DSCC, this is set to change next year (in 2023).

Sony has already adopted high density (>800PPI) AMOLED displays in the Playstation VR2 , DSCC says that this trend will continue. DSCC also sees OLED microdisplays finally entering the VR market in 2023, with around 15 million such displays shipped in this market by 2024.

Looking at the total VR market, DSCC sees shipments growing at a CAGR of 34%, while panel shipments will grow even faster at 50% CAGR as more and more headsets adopt dual displays rather than a single panel design.