The OLED-Info newsletter (May 24, 2022)

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin has shown its latest 2.1" 4K (3600×4000) 120Hz OLED microdisplay prototype at SID Displayweek 2022.

As you can see in the image below (click to enlarge), the board says "STEAMBOAT", which lead some analysts to speculate that one of eMagin's VR customers is game developer Valve Corporation (as they publish the STEAM gaming platform).

The boAt Watch Primia is a smartwatch that offers a 1.39" round 454x454 AMOLED display, a heart rate sensor and SpO2 monitor, and a 7-day battery life.

The boAt Watch Primia is now shipping in India for 4,499 Rupee (around $60).

DSCC says that global OLED revenues in Q1 2022 were around $9.5 billion, the same as in Q1 2021, even though unit shipments declined 4%.

Smartphone remained the leading OLED application, with a 79% revenue share, even though shipments decreased 8% (and revenues decreased 3%). The second largest application by shipments is wearables (16% in Q1 2022 by shipments and in 6% market share by revenues).

Acer's Swift 3 OLED (model SF314-71)is the company's first OLED laptop, that features a 14" 16:10 2880x1800 (2.8K) AMOLED display with a 92% screen-to-body-ratio. The laptop is powered by Intel's 12-GenCore H-series pocessors and offers PCIe Gen 4 SSDs and up to 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory.

The Swift 3 OLED laptop will ship globally in July 2022, starting at $899.

HP's 2022 Envy x360 convertible laptops offer either LCD or OLED displays. The Envy 13 has a 13.3" display while the 16 has a 120Hz 16-inch one. The laptop are based on Intel's Alder Lake chipsets (Core i7 or Core i5) and offer a claimed 20.5 hours battery (13.3" model).

The 2022 Envy laptops are now shipping globally, starting at $879 for the Envy x360 13.3" OLED model.

Kyulux gave a very upbeat presentation at SID Displayweek, during which it updated on its latest material specification and its commercialization plans.

Kyulux managed to increase the lifetime of its Hyperfluorescence emitter systems (which features an IQE of 100% and a narrow emission spectrum) quite dramatically in the past year – its green material now offers a lifetime of 59,000 hours (LT95@1000 nits, top emission), while the red material is at 20,000 hours. The blue material has also increase from280 hours to 450 hours in the past year.

HP's premium laptop series, the Spectre x360, offers OLED versions of its 13.3" (3000x2000) and 15.6" di1splays (or an LCD option). The laptops are powered by Intel's 12-gen chipsets and Evo's platform and both offer Gorilla Glass screen cover protection.

HP's 2022 Spectre x360 laptops are now shipping, starting at $1,250 for the 13.3" model (LCD option).

In case you missed it, here are some recent and popular OLED stories that you may find of interest:

• Japan Display announces a breakthrough lithographic-based OLED production method
• BOE showcases a flexible transparent OLED display
• LG to adopt microlens arrays to improve OLED TV light output by 20%
• Apple reduces its OLED orders from SDC for 2022
• DSSC sees a $65 billion OLED market in 2026
• BOE is the latest company to start planning a 8.5-Gen IT OLED production line
• The world's first QD-OLED devices start shipping
• Samsung starts developing a tandem OLED architecture for Apple's future iPads
• UDC says it will have a commercial blue PHOLED emitter by 2024
• The worldwide component shortage is affecting the OLED industry
• Apple to release its first AR headset based on 4K Sony OLED microdisplays?
• Kyulux says it is on track to commercialize green Hyperfluorescence materials in 2023, red and blue in 2024

Qualcomm released a new AR smart glasses reference design, called the "New Wireless AR Smart Viewer" which is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 Gen-1 Platform. The reference design is now being sampled to select OEMs.

Qualcomm's design uses dual 0.49" 1920x1080 90Hz OLED microdisplays, produced by China-based Seeya.

Digitimes has an interesting article, in which it details plans by a company based in India to establish a $3 billion AMOLED fab, in India .

The company, Rajesh Exports, is a gold trading company, that aims to become an EV battery producer, and an AMOLED display maker. The company apparently has launched a subsidiary called Elest for the AMOLED project, and it started talking to three states in India, in order to gain support for its 240 Rupee (around $3.1 billion USD) fab.

China-based OLED lighting developer Yeolight Technology is starting to build a 4.5-Gen OLED lighting production line, in Huaibei City, Anhui Province, China.

The total investment in this new fab will reach 2 billion Yuan (around $300 million USD). Construction at the site has already began. When ready, the fab will have a yearly capacity of around 7 million OLED panels.

Vivo's S15 Pro smartphone offers a 6.56" 120Hz 1500-nits 1080x2376 AMOLED display, a MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chipset, 8/12 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage and a triple camera setup.

The S15 Pro will launch by the end of May 2022.

According to reports from China, TCL's CSoT has finished developing its polarizer-free OLED technology (PLP) as it gets ready to adapt its T4 production line in Wuhan to produce PLP LTPO AMOLED displays.

At DisplayWeek 2022, TCL demonstrated 8" 360-degree foldable PLP-LTPO OLEDs prototypes. PLP technology is especially useful in foldable displays thanks to their thin form factor. The company says that it will soon have a capacity of 15,000 monthly 6-Gen PLP-LTPO substrates at the T4 line.

The story of Royole financial situation continues to unfold. Last month we updated that Royole is in financial problems, and that it needs a new injection of cash in order to continue its operation.

We reported that Royole started to pay salaries for employees (after it did not pay for over 5 months), but according to a new update the company has started to lay off a large number of its employees in several departments, including sales, marketing, product development and more. In some departments, over 50% of the employees have received notices. It is understood that the compensation package for these employees is low.

The ASUS ZenScreen OLED MQ16AH is a portable monitor based on a 15.6" 1920x1080 AMOLED display. The portable monitor includes a mini-HDMI input and three USB-C ports. It also includes a proximity sensor to dim the display when not in use.

ASUS did not yet reveal the price and availability of the ZenScreen OLED monitor.

At SID Displayweek 2022, BOE demonstrated a 95" 8K OLED TV display prototype. This was an impressive display, and according to DSCC, BOE actually hopes to start producing such panels commercially.

BOE, it seems, aims to produce the display at its B5 R&D line, which has a very limited capacity. But as TVs based on this panel will be premium TVs, the limited capacity may be enough.

MSI's MEG 324C is a 34" 75Hz 3440x1440 curved QD-OLED gaming monitor (with a panel produced by Samsung Display).

MSI did not yet launch the monitor officially, but it did demonstrate it at Computer 2022. We do not know the release date or price.