The OLED-Info Newsletter, November 2019
Published: Mon, 11/04/19
Samsung formally announces its $10.8 billion QD-OLED investment
Samsung Display formally announced its decision to invest ₩13.1 trillion (around $10.85 billion USD) in QD-OLED TV R&D and production lines. The investment plan will span 6 years (2019-2025) and the first step will be to convert an LCD production line in SDC's L8 fab in Tangjong, Korea to QD-OLED production.
The Tangjong line will be converted from 125k monthly substrates of LCD production to 30k monthly QD-OLED substrates, and mass production will begin in Q1 2021. In the long run SDC plans to convert all its 8-Gen LCD lines (360,000 monthly substrates) to QD-OLED production (which will yield around 100,000 monthly QD-OLED substrates). Read here for more information on SDC's QD-OLED technology and plans.
OLED revenues to reach $46.2 billion in 2023
DSCC says that OLED panel unit shipments will reach 1.06 billion by 2023. The growth will peak in 2020 (with a 27% unit growth and 25% revenue growth from 2019). Overall revenues for OLED panels will grow from $26.5 billion in 2018 to $46.2 billion in 2023.
DSCC says that it lowered its OLED TV forecast for 2020-2023, as LGD is delaying both its Guangzhou 8.5-Gen fab ramp up and its P10 10.5-Gen line by one year. DSCC further reports that LG Electronics will not be able to reach its 2 million OLED TV goal in 2019 - and have asked LGD to supply it with only 2.5 million OLED TV panels in 2020 (the original plan was to supply 3.5 million panels to LGE).
Japan Display starts to produce OLED displays, probably for Apple's watch
JDI's new CEO Minoru Kikuoka said that the company recently started producing OLED displays - likely indeed this is low volume production for Apple's wearables. Apple's Watch Series 5 (its latest generation) features a 324x394 1000-nits always-on LTPO AMOLED display (368x448 on the 44m model). Apple is currently buying these OLED displays exclusively from LGD.
Kukuoka also updated that its unnamed US-based customer (which is likely to be Apple) will hopefully increase its participation in the JDI's bailout to $200 million, and JDI hopes to close a 50 billion Yen ($467 million) round by the end of October. Read more about JDI's bailout status here.
Wisechip launches the world's first Hyperfluorescence OLED
Wisechip announced that it launched the world's first Hyperfluorescence OLED display - a 2.7" monochrome yellow 128x64 PMOLED. The brightness of this display reaches 220 nits - which is 2.5 times the brightness of Wisechip's fluorescent yellow PMOLED. The lifetime of this display is 50,000 hours.
Hyperfluorescence OLED emitters represent the 4th-generation of OLED emitter systems. HF is an actually a system that combines fluorescence emitters (1st-gen) with TADF (3rd-gen) hosts - to achieve a high efficiency , long lifetimes and narrow-spectrum emission.
The supplier of the HF material is Kyulux, who's been working with Wisechip for a long time. In fact Wisechip originally aimed to introduce its first HF yellow emitter PMOLED by the end of 2017, but eventually the display is only launched now. Wisechip also planned to release a flexible HF PMOLED by the end of 2018 - but we have no news on that display.
Huawei to ship its foldable OLED smartphone on November 15
In February 2019 Huawei announced its first foldable smartphone, the Mate X with a 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display that folds outwards. Huawei hoped to launch it in the summer of 2019, but it faced several delays. Huawei finally announced that the Mate X will start shipping on November 15th.
The price of the Mate X will be 16,999 Yuan (around $2,400) - even higher than Samsung's $2,000 Galaxy Fold. Obviously this is a premium device for early adopters. The Mate X full display is a 8" AMOLED (produced by BOE), and when closed, the Mate X operates as it has two displays - a 6.6" 1148x2480 on the front and a smaller 6.38" 2480x892 display on the back (which makes room for the cameras).
Early-stage startup Noctiluca to commercialize new TADF OLED compounds
A new company has recently been launched in Poland, to commercialize a new family of TADF OLED compounds. Noctiluca, which takes its name from a bio-luminescent marine creature, was established a few months ago with aims to be the world's first company to produce a commercial-ready blue TADF emitter.
The story of Noctiluca begins with an innovative organic DSSC solar cell platform that was developed at Synthex, an organic chemistry development platform company based in Toruń, Poland. A few years ago the researchers turned their attention to light emitting materials (which are quite similar to the light harvesting materials used in solar panels) and intensive research culminated in a promising family of new TADF compounds - which was then spun-off as Noctiluca.
Noctiluca hasn't yet unveiled its materials, but the company says that early synthesized emitters exhibit very promising properties, such as a very low ΔEST (far below 0.05 eV) and good oscillator strength. The company hopes that it will be able to develop commercial-grade TADF emitters by 2022 or even by 2021. Click here to read more about Noctiluca
OLED-Info updates its market reports
On October 7th we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the flexible/foldable, VR/AR, microdisplays, automotive, PMOLED and graphene OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to October 2019.
Read more about our OLED market reports, and download your own copy here. We offer affordable "hands-on" market reports that will quickly get you up to speed with the OLED market.
We are happy to announce that Tianma's 6-inch 1080x2160 smartphone AMOLED is now abailable through our OLED Marketplace
A reports from Korea suggests Samsung is ramping up production, but will negative reviews slow down sales of Samsung's Galaxy Fold?
This new laptop may signal Samsung's first 13.3-inch OLED laptop display panel, which was not announced formally by SDC yet
LGD's new fab still suffers from low yields, but the company hopes that by early 2020 its production rate will be as originally planned
Dell's 120Hz 4K OLED monitor is now shipping in the US for $3,899
According to reports, Apple asked SDC to increase its OLED panel shipments as demand for its latest iPhones is better than expected
A report from Korea suggests that Samsung developed its own type of LTPO technology, and is producing such panels for its latest wearable device
Samsung reports an increased demand for flexible OLED display in Q3 2019
Universal Display reported another strong quarter, and increased its 2019 guidance to revenues of $400 - $410 million.
Click above for our hands-on review of the Fraunhofer's beautiful flexible and transparent OLED lighting demonstrator
Google's fourth-generation Pixel devices sport a 90Hz 5.7-inch 1080x2280 OLED display (90Hz 6.3-inch 1440x3040 on the Pixel 4 XL)
A high-end monitor that sports a 21.6-inch 4K OLED panel printed by JOLED
Meizu's latest smartphone uses a 6.5-inch 1080x2232 Super AMOLED display
A flagship smartphone that features a 90Hz 6.5-inch 1080x2400 HDR AMOLED display
A smartphone with a 6.4-inch 1080x2340 Super AMOLED display
A high-end smartphone with a 90Hz 6.5-inch 1080x2340 Super AMOLED display
A sports-oriented digital camera with a full-frame sensor and a 1280x960 OLED microdisplay EVF
A flagship rangefinder-style digital camera with an OLED microdisplay and a color E Ink panel
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