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LG starts mass production at its 5-Gen OLED Lighting fab

In what could be a watershed moment for the OLED lighting industry, LG Display announced that it has started mass production at its new 5-Gen OLED lighting fab in Gumi, Korea. The 5-Gen line (1100x1250 mm substrates) has an initial capacity of 15,000 substrates per month - about 30 times the capacity of LG's previous 2-Gen line that had a monthly capacity of 4,000 substrates. LG hopes that the new line will enable it to produces OLED lighting panels at a much lower cost (initial estimates suggested a 95% cost reduction!) which it hopes will trigger the widespread adoption of OLED lighting globally.

LG Display has launched its new OLED lighting brand called Luflex, a portmanteau of lux and flexibility, which is a core characteristic of LG's OLED lighting. LGD is currently targeting high end applications - such automobiles, museums, and hotels - but it hopes that OLED lighting will enter more mass markets now that prices can be lower.

JOLED starts printing OLED monitor panels, progresses with funding goals

In June 2017 JOLED announced that it started to sample 21.6" 4K OLED panels, with plans to initiate low volume production at its 4.5-Gen pilot inkjet production line. JOLED announced in early December that it has began commercial shipments of these panels. We do not know JOLED's first customer but it is likely to be Sony.

JOLED says that it has now achieved the necessary product quality and production yields. The product was already selected for use in medical monitors (again, we believe this is Sony, who we know received JOLED's first samples and already has its own 25-inch OLED medical monitor that uses Sony's own OLEDs). JOLED also aims to ship these panes to other OLED monitors applications. JOLED's first OLED panels are 21.6" in size and feature a resolution of 3840x2160 (4K, 204 PPI). The brightness is 350 cd/m². The whole panel is only 1.3 mm thick and weighs just 500 grams.

Japan Display recently decided to halt its plans to turn its minority stake at JOLED into a majority one, and so JOLED is now seeking to raise $900 million to support its plan to start mass producing OLEDs in 2019 at the JDI plant in Nomi, Ishikawa. Recent reports suggest that Sony, Sumitomo and Panasonic will participate in the round (with an investment of $45-90 million each) while Japanese automobile parts producer Denso is considering a $440 million investment as well.

The OLED market continues its rapid growth

Display analysts from DSCC say that OLED revenues reached over $5 billion for the first time in Q3 2017, and revenues are expected to jump 88% in Q4 to $10 billion Samsung starts to supply flexible OLEDs to Apple. Most of the growth will come from flexible OLEDs, as shipments will surpass rigid OLED shipments for the first time in Q4 2017. According to UBI, by the way, flexible OLEDs will only overtake rigid ones in 2019.

Looking further ahead, DSCC sees OLED revenues dropping 11% in Q1 2018 and a further 10% in Q2 2018 - mostly due to seasonal weakness and a low demand in China due to high prices. Growth will return in the second half of 2018, and altogether 2018 OLED revenues will be 56% higher than in 2017 and will reach $37.7 billion. By 2022 the market will reach $80 billion.

Financial analysts from CLSA, reporting from Asia, say that spending in the OLED industry has peaked and OLED producers are not expecting to place any new equipment orders in the near future. This coincides with IHS estimates of over supply in the flexible OLED market in 2018. According to CLSA, Samsung has a current capacity in its A3 and A4 (which should be ready by Q2 2018) OLED fabs to produce about 330-385 million OLED displays per year which SDC expects to be enough to satisfy Apple's and Samsung Electronics' demand. SDC does not see a strong demand from China's smartphone makers, surprisingly, due to the high cost of OLED displays.

Samsung to ship 180-200 million OLEDs to Apple in 2018

According to Business Korea, Samsung Display will ship 50 million flexible AMOLED displays to Apple in 2017. Next year that amount is set to quadruple to 180-200 million panels, as Apple aims to adopt OLED displays in more iPhone models. Samsung will produce all of these OLEDs bound for Apple at its A3 fab. Initially SDC aimed to construct a new fab for Apple (the A5 fab) but earlier reports suggested that these plans have been delayed. Samsung managed to increase the yields at its A3 line from 60% in early 2017 to around 90% today.

It is estimated that the iPhone X AMOLED displays cost around $110-120 each. If Samsung will indeed supply almost 200 million OLEDs to Apple in 2018, this means around $20 billion in revenues from Apple alone for SDC.

Apple is obviously not happy to rely on a single supplier for such a critical component as the display, but it has no choice as no other display maker will be able to supply quality OLEDs at such quantities. Apple is reportedly in talks with other companies (most notable LG Display and BOE) but such supply deals will not be possible in 2018.

DisplayMate: LG's 2017 OLED E7 TV is unquestionably the best performing TV

Display measurement experts DisplayMate posted a review of LG's latest OLED TVs, specifically a 65" OLEDE7 model. DisplayMate performed an extensive set of tests and LG's OLED performed exceptionally well throughout all of the Lab Measurement Tests and Viewing Tests. DisplayMate says that "it is unquestionably the best performing TV that we have ever tested or watched".

LG's 2017 OLED TV is "visually Indistinguishable from perfect" and it breaks many TV display performance records. It is far better than the best Plasma TVs ever tested and is even better than the $50,000 Sony Professional CRT reference studio monitors that up until recently were the golden standard for picture quality, according to DisplayMate.

This is not a surprise as LG's 2016 OLED TV achieved similar praise from DisplayMate last year. But LG in fact improved its OLED panel since 2016 and the new panel improves several records indeed including the absolute color accuracy, the luminance accuracy, the absolute contrast accuracy and more. It has a 50% higher cinema mode peak luminance (330 nits) than LG's 2016 TVs and a 20% higher HDR peak luminance (750 nits).

Korea approves LGD's plan to build an OLED TV fab in China

In July 2017 LG Display announced that it has decided to build a 8.5-Gen (2200x2500) OLED line in Guangzhou, China, to make OLED TV panels. The Korean government hesitated whether to approve this plan, as it sees OLED as a strategic technology Korea' economy and this is the first time a Korean company plans to build an OLED fab outside of Korea.

Reuters reports today that LGD's plan was officially approved today. The Korean government did LGD committed to increase its use of Korean materials and equipment, invest more in Korea and strengthen security checks at its production fabs.

The new fab, according to the initial plan at least, will be a joint-venture with the local government and LGD will hold a 70% share. The total cost for this fab will be KRW2.6 trillion ($2.3 billion USD). Building a fab in China has several advantages - China has lower wages compared to Korea, and the fab is located very close to the very large and important Chinese market. But the main advantage is the government subsidies - according to DSCC this could mean the difference between profit and loss in this fab for LGD.

The best of 2017 - top OLED stories

2017 is soon over - and this has been a great year for the OLED industry. Apple finally released an OLED iPhone, AMOLED sales are increasing, several companies (including BOE and LGD) started producing flexible mobile OLED displays with more expected to join soon, OLED TVs are gaining in popularity and LGD started production at its 5-Gen OLED lighting fab.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on OLED-Info in 2017, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. LG aims to adopt a blue TADF emitter in its 2018 OLED TV stack (Jul 6)
2. Updates on LG's 2017 OLED TV lineup release dates and prices (Feb 24)
3. Dell brings back its UP3017Q 30" 4K OLED monitor and slashes the price by $1,500 (Apr 13)
4. Samsung rumored to acquire Micro-LED developer PlayNitride (Apr 30)
5. LG officially unveils its 2017 OLED TV lineup, including the OLEDW7 Wallpaper Signature TV (Jan 5)
6. Amazon reveals the price of some of LG's 2017 OLED TVs (Feb 17)
7. Digitimes: Chinese OLED makers to more than double their OLED capacity each year between 2016-2020 (Feb 5)
8. LG's wallpaper OLEDs also coming to its commercial OLED signage range (Jan 1)
9. LGD still struggles with very low yields at its E5 flexible OLED line, will not start mass production for at least 6 months (Aug 30)
10. You can pre-order LG's 65" OLEDW7 Wallpaper OLED TV for $7,999 at BestBuy.com (Jan 8)

You can see that OLED TVs are dominating our top stories list in 2017. Interestingly, Apple's OLED iPhone did not make it to our list, but it was obviously a very important moment for the entire industry. 2017 was indeed an excellent year for the OLED industry and it seems like the future will be bright indeed. Here's for a good 2018!

According to reports, Philips (TP Vision) is set to launch four new OLED TVs in 2018, including higher-end and lower end modules.

Under the new agreement, UDC will supply phosphorescent OLED materials to BOE.

A 3-year ขใ4 million OLED lighting project is coming to end, with new technologies that increased light output by 50%

In a recent filing, LG Display hints that it is indeed talking to Apple regarding an OLED supply agreement for future iPhones.

Inkjet printing developer UniJet says that printing will be a viable technology to produce small and medium-sized OLED panels by 2020.

Konica Minolta Pioneer OLED demonstrates simple flexible OLED lighting panels integrated in packaging

CSoT finished building the building of its future 6-Gen flexible AMOLED T4 fab, which will begin production in Q2 2019

The new high resolution round AMOLEDs are aimed towards smartwatch applications, and are now shipping

Conferences are a great place to learn about new development in the OLED industry and meet with fellow display professionals. There are many excellent OLED events coming up in 2018 in the USA, Europe and in Asia.

Samsung's new high-end large smartphones that use 5.6-inch 1080x2220 (6-inch on the A8+) Super AMOLEDs

A high-end VR platform based around a headset with dual 5.7-inch 2560x1440 VR AMOLED displays

A wearable smart display button that uses a 1.4-inch 400x400 round AMOLED display