The OLED-Info newsletter, September 2018
Published: Tue, 09/04/18
Sharp starts producing AMOLED displays
In January 2018 Sharp's CEO announced that Sharp aims to begin commercial production of flexible OLED displays for its own smartphones in Q1 2018. A later report from Taiwan suggested that Sharp is converting a third of its 4.5-Gen Taki plant capacity from LCD to OLED. 30,000 out of 90,000 monthly LCD substrates will be converted to 22,000 OLED substrates.
A new report from Japan, citing Sharp's EVP Katsuaki Nomura, claims that OLED mass production at Sharp began in June 2018, and the company wil ship its first OLED Aquos smartphone in Q4 2018.
In October 2016 Sharp announced that it will invest $570 million and build OLED pilot lines at its plants in Osaka and in the Mie Prefecture, with plans to begin (pilot) production in the summer of 2018.
OLED market updates
UBI Research estimates that demand for OLED smartphone displays is now on a gradual increase, and by the end of the year it will return to the levels of the end of 2017, fueled by new Apple OLED phones and SDC's intention to decrease its rigid OLED prices to better compete with LCD displays. Looking further ahead, UBI sees the OLED smartphone market growing from 430 million unit in 2018 to 900 million units in 2022.
DSCC says that OLED area shipments grew 30% in the first half of 2018, mostly driven by strong growth in OLED TV shipments (a 98% increase from last year in term of area shipments). LGD indeed confirms this DSCC report and says that OLED TV shipments more than doubled in H1 2018. LG Display says it aims to improve it production efficiency and sell more 1.6 million OLED TV panels in the second half of 2018. DSCC says that Smartphone OLED shipments stagnated in the first half, but growth will resume in the second half of the year - area shipments will grow 47% compared to H2 2017.
According to IHS, flexible AMOLED shipments reached 157.6 million units in 2018 - about 38.9% of the total AMOLED market (rigid + flexible). Flexible OLEDs will grow at a much faster rate than rigid OLEDs, and shipments will exceed those of rigid OLEDs by 2020 (335.7 million units). In 2022 over 400 million flexible AMOLED panels will be produced, compared to around 340 million rigid AMOLEDs.
JOLED, Panasonic and Screen Finetech to collaborate on OLED inkjet printing
JOLED announced today that it signed an agreement with Screen Finetech Solutions and Panasonic Production Engineering to co-develop, manufacture and sale printing equipment for large-area OLED production (mostly OLED TVs).
The three companies aim to quickly commercialize a new business that will be based on JOLED's manufacturing technology. JOLED plans to license its inkjet printing technology to OLED makers. JOLED has been developing its technology in collaboration with Panasonic since its founding in 2015. JOLED's technology was originally developed in Panasonic at around 2006.
Under the new collaboration, Panasonic will handle the design and development of printing equipment, while SCREEN Finetech will manufacture the printing equipment under license to Panasonic Production Engineering, and will sell it and provide maintenance and other services together with JOLED.
Towards the end of 2017, JOLED started commercial production of its 21.6" 4K OLED panels. JOLED's mass production line will be established in Nomi City, Ishikawa Prefecture. The capacity of the new fab will be 20,000 monthly 5.5-Gen (1300x1500 mm) substrates and the plan is to begin mass production in 2020.
JOLED also confirmed its recent $425 million funding round (from Denso, Toyota Tsusho, Sumitomo and Screen Holdings.
Cynora's CMO talks about TADF, lifetime, color points and more
German TADF developer Cynora presented its latest blue TADF material in May 2018 - with a CIEy of 0.14, EQE of 20% and a lifetime of 20 hours LT97 at 700 nits. Cynora expects to have blue material in the mass production by 2020.
Cynora's Chief Marketing Offer, Dr. Andreas Haldi was kind enough to answer a few questions we had regarding TADF emitters, the differences between next-generation emitter technologies, lifetime, color points and more. You can read the full interview here.
Kyulux collaborates with SDC and LGD, hopes to be ready with HF OLED emitters in 2019
Kyulux announced that it has signed joint-development agreements with both LG Display and Samsung Display. The LGD agreement was signed in January 2018 while the SDC one was recently signed. Both agreements focus on deep blue Hyperfluoresence / TADF emitters.
Kyulux hopes that by collaborating with the two leading OLED producers, it will be able to accelerate its material development - and it aims to have commercial red, green and blue HF/TADF emitters ready by mid 2019.
DisplayMate - the Note 9 has the best mobile display ever
DisplayMate posted a review of Samsung's latest OLED display - the 6.4" 1440x2960 (516 PPI) flexible Super AMOLED used in the Galaxy Note 9. As we've seen many times before, Samsung managed to significantly improve its OLED quality - and DisplayMate says that this is the best mobile display ever tested.
In the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung concentrated on significantly raising the on-screen absolute picture quality and absolute color accuracy by implementing precision factory display calibration. This could have been a response to the excellent calibration done by Apple in the iPhone X.
The Galaxy Note 9 set several new display records - including the absolute color accuracy (at a very impressive 0.5 JNCD - visually indistinguishable from perfect). Other records include the highest peak display brightness (1,050 nits, with 710 nits at 100% APL), the largest native color gamut (113% DCI-P3 and 142% sRGB / Rec.709), the lowest screen reflectance (4.4%) and the highest contrast in ambient light.
Samsung sees stronger demand for flexible OLEDs in H2 2018
Samsung Electronics reported its results for Q2 2018 - revenues reached $52 billion and operating profit grew to $13.3 billion - the lowest growth since Q1 2017 as the company's smartphone sales is under pressure from Chinese phone makers. SDC reports an improved utilization rates at its rigid OLED fabs, but there was a slow demand for flexible OLEDs.
Looking into the second half of the year, Samsung expects increased shipments of flexible OLEDs, while rigid OLEDs will face stronger competition from LCDs. Samsung reitrates its plans to start producing foldable OLEDs by the end of 2018.
Everdisplay starts producing a 2.95" 1K 90Hz VR AMOLED display
China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay has started to mass produce VR AMOLED displays. The company's first such panel is a 2.95" 1080x1200 (547 PPI) panel that features a refresh rate of 90Hz, a maximum brightness of 100 nits and a MIPI Interface.
This new panel is now available through the OLED Marketplace. Let us know if you are interested in acquiring this display and use it in your future device.
Photonics-based solutions provider Coherent says that demand for OLED displays remains robust, but market growth remains hindered by pricing and availability.
The new technology could enable the production of direct-emission OLED microdisplays
Magnachip reported record OLED display driver revenues, announced new design wins and a new 28nm flexible OLED driver under development
According to ET News, BOE is getting ready for trial OLED microdisplay production in early 2019
UDC reports revenues of $56.1 million and a net profit of $10.8 million, and believes that growth will return in the second half of 2018
A report from Korea now suggests that SDC aims to resume flexible OLED production in its A4 line in October 2018 - as the company secured new ordered for smartphone OLEDs from Chinese phone makers.
IHS reported that Apple's is progressing with its project to develop Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide (LTPO) - a new backplane technology that combines both LTPS TFTs and Oxide TFTs.
Visionox announced a complex new restructuring move, that seems to indicate that the company (which recently reversed-merged with Black Cattle Foods) aims to focus on its AMOLED business and sell its PMOLED business.
LG Electronics finally started shipping its flagship 2018 television - the 77-inch Wallpaper OLEDW8. The price of LG's leading OLED TV is around £14,500 in the UK and around €11,700 in Germany.
LG unveiled its first Micro-LED TV prototype at IFA 2018. The large 173" panel uses individual micro-LEDs to create an emissive display, that can rival OLEDs.
Samsung's Galaxy Note 9, its latest flagship large smartphone, features a 6.4-inch 1440x2960 flexible Super AMOLED display
The AF9 is Sony's flagship television, a reference-quality 55-inch and 65-inch 4K WRGB OLED TV
The latest Tizen OS smartwatch from Samsung uses a 1.3-inch 360x360 Super AMOLED display
A large smartphone with a 6.95-inch 1080x2220 AMOLED display
Samsung's flagship tablet for 2018 sports a 10.5-inch 2560x1600 Super AMOLED display
Motorola's last modules phones both feature 6.01-inch 1080x2160 Super AMOLED displays
Sony's latest flagship smartphone features a 6-inch 1440x2880 P-OLED display
The BT-35E is the 2018 edition of the Moverio AR smart glasses platform - with the same 0.43-inch 720p OLED microdisplays
The Focus OLED is a professional DSLR camera 5.5-inch 1920x1080 AMOLED monitor
A high-end smartphone with a 6.4-inch 1080x2280 (394 PPI) notch-type AMOLED
A fitness band with a white touch PMOLED display
An android smartphone with a notch-type 6.21-inch 1080x2248 AMOLED display
A VR headset with dual 4.77-inch 2440x108 90hz AMOLED displays and a wide FOV
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