LG steps up its OLED program, and the company had some exciting OLED announcements in the past month. First of all, LG Display hosted a press conference in its Paju complex to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary, in which they announced a shift of investment focus to OLED displays - and LGD invest $8.5 billion in the next three years to expand OLED production.

LG Display plans to develop OLED panels to be used in televisions, wearable devices, automobiles and foldable devices. LGD is currently producing OLED TVs in the M2 fab in Paju, that will reach a capacity of 34,000 monthly Gen-8 substrates (together with the smaller pilot line, that is) by the end of 2015 (which will enable LG to produce 1.5 million OLED TV panels in 2016, up from 600,000 in 2015). According to a report from Korea, LGD is considering a 10-Gen OLED TV fab.

LG Display also has a smaller Gen-4.5 fab used to produce plastic-based OLEDs - with a monthly capacity of 14,000 substrates. LG recently announced plans to build a new 6-Gen (1500x1850 mm) flexible OLED fab in a $900 million investment. The new E5 line will have a capacity of 7,500 monthly substrates - or 1.5 million 5.5" panels, and will begin operation in the first half of 2017.

In September, LG finally launched flat 4K OLED TVs - the 55" and 65" EF9500. Those TVs already arrived at Amazon.com, at $6,999 for the 65" models and $5,499 for the 55" models - as per LG's official prices. It's likely that the TVs, once shipping, will drop in price to match the street price of LG's curved OLEDs: the 65" for $5,999 and the 55" one for $3,999. LG recently lowered the prices of those curved OLEDs.

Finally, towards the end of August LG launched two new curved ultra-slim (4.8 mm) OLED TVs. First we have the 55EG9100, a 55" curved Full-HD OLED TV that will launch soon for $2,299 (so it costs $300 more than the 2014-model, the ;55EC9300 which is now on sale for $1,999). The second TV is the 55EG9200, which seems to be quite similar to the EG9100 - but with 4K (UDH) resolution. We do not know the price of this TV yet.

Everdisplay developed a 6" 4K AMOLED display - achieving 734 PPI. This is the first 4K 6" AMOLED prototype to be demonstrated. Everdisplay says that emerging applications such as virtual reality will demand such high-resolution displays. The world's highest density display in production is Sharp's 5.5" 4K IGZO LCD display (2160x3840) - that achieves 806 PPI. The highest density AMOLED in production is SDC's 5.1" QHD (577 PPI) Super AMOLED. Last month Samsung Display launched a new project to develop the world's first 11K mobile display, that will achieve 2250 PPI(!).

Everdisplay started mass producing 5" 720p AMOLED displays towards the end of 2014. The company is also developing 5.5" and 6" panels for mobile devices, a 1.4" 400x400 circular AMOLED for the wearable market and an 8" AMOLED for the automobile market.

Samsung announced two new phones, the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+. Despite the confusing naming, both phones share the same display (5.7" Quad-HD, or 2560x1440, 518PPI Super AMOLED) and hardware - with two differences: the S6 edge+ uses a flexible OLED that is curved around the edges, and the Note 5 has the S-Pen.

The rest of the features are similar - an Octacore 64-bit CPU, 4GB of RAM, 32/64GB storage, a 3,000mAh battery, 16MP camera, NFC and several sensors. Both phones will be available globally on August 21st, 2015.

DisplayMate already posted an in-depth review of the displays used in these phones, and unsurprisingly they found that these are the best mobile displays they ever tested - there are many significant improvements over both the Galaxy Note 4 (which was previously crowned as the best mobile display) and the Galaxy S6. The most impressive improvements are in peak brightness, screen readability in high ambient light and the power efficiency.

The OLED Association says that in Q2 2015 OLED shipments reached 63.1 million units - up 7% from Q1 2015 and 28% from Q2 2014. Most of these displays went to smartphones (91%), followed by wearables (7%) and finally tablets (1%).

In Q2 2015, OLED displays reached $3.1 billion in revenues - up 15% from Q1 2015 and up 12% from Q2 2014. The OLED Association estimates that revenues will reach $12.5 billion in 2015 - or up 40% from 2014 mostly due to increased OLED TV sales by LG and the increase in smartphone displays.

IDTechEx Research have recently revised its forecast for OLED displays - saying that glass-based OLEDs are not growing as fast as they expected (mostly because of Samsung's disappointing high-end AMOLED mobile phone sales) while the company is more optimistic regarding the flexible OLED market. IDTechEx sees the glass-based AMOLED display market reaching $22.7 billion in 2022 previous estimates were at $28.2 billion while the flexible OLED market will grow from $1.5 billion in 2015 to almost $3 billion in 2016 and over $16 billion in 2020.

IDTechEx further forecasts that glass-based OLED prices will fall faster now that several China-based producers are ramping up AMOLED production. In fact IDTechEx sees a danger of OLED being commoditized fairly quickly (following the same pattern of what happened with LCD panels).

AU Optronics unveiled a new 5" bendable AMOLED prototype with an integrated touch sensor that can detect when user bend the panel. The idea that detecting the size and direction of the manipulation can help create a user interface that complements regular touch functions.The new panel is a 5" 720p (295 PPI) AMOLED display on an LTPS backplane. The frontplane is a top-emission AMOLED and the substrate is a plastic film, encapsulated using a thin-film barrier film. The whole panel, including the "film-type" touch sensor, is 0.2 mm thick.

This is the first time we hear of an OLED display maker that is going to present such a prototype - but the idea is not new. Nokia demonstrated a similar device back in 2011 - the so-called Kinetic phone concept used a 4" OLED that was bendable, and bending the device could be used to select an option or zoom an image.

In 2012 LG was awarded with a patent that describes a mobile device that uses two displays - a regular rigid one and a bendable one that can be bent to react with the device. In 2013 Apple patented a similar idea - a flexible OLED with integrated touch sensors to.

China's display maker BOE Display aimed to start mass producing AMOLED displays at 5.5-Gen LTPS OLED fab in Ordos in the second half of 2015, but according to a new report from Digitimes it is still struggling with low yields, preventing it to actually starting to ship any panels.

BOE is also constructing a Gen-6 LTPS LCD/AMOLED production line in Chengdu, China - with a projected investment of about $3.5 billion. The fab is scheduled for production in the first half of 2017, with a capacity of 45,000 monthly substrates (both OLEDs and LCDs). Digitimes says that BOE aims to produce flexible OLEDs at that new fab, and will purchase flexible OLED production equipment from Korea and Japan.

In May 2015, BOE demonstrate several new AMOLED prototypes - including a 9.55" 640x432 flexible transparent panel, a 4.8" 480x800 flexible AMOLED and regular glass-based 5" FHD and 13.3" WQHD (2560x1600) AMOLEDs. Besides the Ordos and Chengdu fabs, BOE is also planning a 8.5 OLED TV fab in Hefei Xinzhan, with an estimated investment of $1 billion. BOE already has a Gen-8.5 pilot line in place that was used to produce 55" 4K OLED panel prototypes demonstrated back in 2014.

When Apple adopted a flexible OLED for the Watch, it immediately sparked the discussions of whether - and when - they will finally adopt an OLED display for the iPhone. Apple is set to unveil the iPhone 6S next month (on September 9) - and new rumors suggest that it will use motion-wallpapers for the lock screen, like the ones used in Apple's Watch. Some see it as a sign that the new iPhone will also use an OLED display.

Apple iPhone OLED rumors never die. The time will come for Apple to adopt an OLED for their most popular device, but I do not think it will come in next month's new device. OLED production it still dominated by Samsung, which means that there is only one supplier (which Apple will not accept for the iPhone) and even Samsung's own capacity will not be enough to satisfy Apple.

I would guess that the earliest year for a possible OLED iPhone is 2016. Some estimate that it won't happen before 2018.

In July Samsung launched two new AMOLED tablets, the Galaxy Tab S2 9.7-inch and Galaxy Tab S2 8-inch. Those two high-end tablets will started shipping on September 2nd, and you can already pre-order those tablets: the 8" one for $399.99 and the 9.7" one for $499.99 (those are the Wi-Fi only, 32GB models).

Both tablets adopt QXGA (2048x1536) Super AMOLED displays (263 PPI on the 9.7" and 320 PPI on the 8"). Other features include an octa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32/64 GB of internal storage, 8MP rear camera, LTE (on some models), Android 5.0 and a 5,870/4,000 mAh battery. Those are the thinnest (5.6 mm) and lightest (389/265 grams) metal-framed tablets on the market.

Taiwan's ITRI demonstrated several new flexible OLED prototypes at Touch Taiwan. As promised a few weeks ago, ITRI demonstrated a 7" flexible OLED touch panel prototype. The panel has been developed in collaboration with Heraeus which integrated its Clevios PEDOT conductive polymer based touchpanel.

ITRI also exhibited a z-fold 7.1" Full-HD (310 PPI) AMOLED prototype that can be folded both inward and outward. The bending radius is 5 mm. Other panels on display include a rollable AMOLED that is only 0.06 mm thick and can be rolled (bending radius also 5 mm) and a flexible on-cell touch AMOLED that was developed in collaboration with Japan's packaging material developer LINTEC.