The OLED-Info newsletter (September 14, 2021)

An AILU (Association of Industrial Laser Users) webinar, scheduled for September 15, will introduce the basics of OLED lighting, discuss the choice for the right substrate and encapsulation material as well as the current status of roll-to-roll processing. The webinar is sponsored by 3D Micromac, the industry leader in laser micromachining and roll-to-roll laser systems.

The webinar will also show results from the EU-funded LAOLA project, which is a collaboration between German and Japanese companies and research institutes. The LAOLA project, led by the Fraunhofer FEP, develops the use of ultra-thin flexible glass as a substrate and encapsulation material in roll-to-roll technology for this purpose.

HP's Envy x360 13T features a 13.3" 1920x1080 touch-enabled AMOLED display, a choice of an Intel i7 chipset or an AMD Ryzen chipset and a 10-hours battery.

The Envy x360 13T is now shipping, starting at $1,299.

LG's UltraFine OLED Pro 65EP5G is a large professional monitor that features a 65-inch 4K OLED display. The 65EP5G features DisplayHDR 400 True Black certification, a brightness of up to 1,000 nits, a 0.1 ms GtG response time, and a color gamut of 98.5% DCI-P3.

The monitor offers several connections - including dual HDMI 2.1, quad loop-thru SDI (BNC) and IP (SFP+ & RJ45). The monitor is based on LG's WebOs software (V5, not its latest V6, strangely).

The 65EP5G will start shipping in Europe soon, with a price tag of over $13,000.

LG Display announces a collaboration with smart glass developer Gauzy. The two companies will showcase 55-inch FHD transparent OLED displays at the International Motor Show (IAA) 2021 (which started yesterday in Munich, Germany).

LG Display will cooperate with Gauzy to replace windows in various types of transportation vehicles to enable smart and dynamic transparent displays.

LG Chem announced that it has developed a new PET-based foldable OLED cover film. LGC says its new film is thinner and more durable than both polyimide films and Ultra-Thin Glass, currently used in foldable OLEDs.

LG Chem designed new materials, which are coated on both sides of the PET film to strengthen its heat resistance and mechanical properties. The company says the new film withstands over 200,000 folding cycles.

Samsung Display has demonstrated a new stretchable AMOLED display. The 13-inch panel (we do not know the resolution) was shown in a unique 3D demo.

The idea behind the demo is that the panel reacts to the video content (flowing lava), so it changes the height of parts of the screens to make the experience more realistic, a sort of volumetric display.

Lenovo's Yoga Slim 7 Carbon (IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon in the US) is a light Windows 11 laptop that features an SDC 90Hz 14-inch QHD+ DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500 AMOLED display (no LCD option), an AMD Ryzen chipset (up to Ryzen 7 5800U), integrated NVIDIA chipset, up to 16GB of LPDDR4x and 1TB of SSD storage.

The Yoa Slim 7 Carbon will ship globally by the end of October 2021, starting at $1,289.

Researchers from Jilin Univeristy in Changchun, China, have managed to improve the brightness of OLED devices by 25% (21 enhancement in current efficiency) by applying corrugated alloy (Ag-Al) electrodes.

AFM images of the corrugated alloy electrodes

The researchers say that the periodic corrugations were precisely tuned based on the composition ratio of the alloy to efficiently recover the photons trapped in surface plasmon-polariton resonance.

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 (also called the IdeaPad Duet 5) is a ChromeOS laptop that features a 13.3-inch 1920x1080 AMOLED display, a 2.5Ghz Snapdragon 7c Gen-2 chipset, up to 8 GB of RAM, up to 256GB of eMMC SSD storage, and a 15-hours battery life.

The Chromebook Duet 5 will start shipping in October 2021,starting to $430.

LG Display announced a new partnership with Korea's Kakao Mobility, to adopt transparent OLED display at Seoul's Trade Tower's parking lot.

LGD and Kakoo will install 55" FHD transparent OLED displays at the six main entrances to the Trade Tower ships. The panels will show entertaining content, and visitors can interactwith these touch-enabled displays. LG says that "these unique panels add a vibrant and futuristic feel to an otherwise ordinary parking garage".

Lenovo's Tab P12 Pro is an Android tablet that features a 12.6-inch 120Hz 2560x1600 AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 870 chipset 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The Lenovo Tab p12 Pro will start shipping in October 2021, starting at around $600 for the Wi-Fi model.

OLED-Info is proud to announce an important update to our Transparent OLED Market Report, which now adds a transparent microLEDs section. MicroLED technology holds great promise to enable high-brightness, high-efficiency and high transmittance displays, and many display makers are already developing and demonstrating transparent MicroLED prototypes. The report now include details on all transparent microLED developers and has also an updated structure and information.

The report package provides all you need to know about transparent the OLED and MicroLED industries and the current market status. This is a great guide if you're considering to adopt transparent displays in your product and if you want to understand this industry better.

In February 2019 LG Display started producing its 55" FHD 38% transparent commercial OLED displays, and the company recently announced several projects that utilize its 55" transparent OLED displays - on subway train windows in China, in Seoul's Trade Tower parking and in an unmanned coffee shop in Singapore .

Cho Min-woo, head of LG Display’s Transparent OLED business, says that LG's is just "sowing seeds" in this market, which it expects to grow quickly. In fact, LG Display, together with a global consulting firm, looked into the potential of transparent OLED displays, and estimated that the market will grow to around $8.5 billion in the next 10 years.

According to a report from Korea, Facebook recently hired a large number of OLED engineers, in Korea, through Facebook's Reality Lab. The company is now hiring more OLED experts to work at its Reality Lab US offices.

Facebook new job openings includes many roles in OLED display technologies. The company does not aim to start producing OLED, of course, but to secure technology to develop innovative OLED displays and applications in VR and AR devices.

Korea-based OLUM Material announced that it is starting to develop fine metal masks (FMM) for 8.5-Gen (2200x2500 mm) OLED production. Current FMM technologies are limited to 6-Gen substrates (1500x1850 mm).

As demand for larger mobile OLED displays, for laptops, tablets and monitors is on the rise , OLED makers aim to start making these panels on larger substrates. Samsung Display is considering, according to reports, a 8.5-Gen AMOLED fab dedicated for laptop and IT displays.