There are some reports that Samsung are delaying their OLED production expansion. While the first line in their new 5.5-Gen fab is almost complete, further expansion in that line will be deferred to the first half of 2012 (instead of the end of 2011). This does not represent a big change in Samsung's AMOLED plans, and total investment is not changed.

The first line will be able to produce 24,000 monthly substrates in Q2 2011. This will grow to 48,000 by the end of 2011. But Samsung's original plans were to produce around 100,000 substrates per month by that time, and now the company decided to defer that further expansion to the first half of 2012.

Samsung is adjusting plans because of equipment shortages from Japan (as was reported earlier) - but also because Samsung feels that the market for small tablets (6"-9") will not be large enough in that stage and they do not want to expand AMOLED production too quickly. Indeed during Samsung Electronic's latest conference call, an official commented that Samsung will not release an AMOLED tablet in 2011.

There were several interesting OLED lighting developments during April 2011. First of all, Philips quietly unveiled their latest OLED lighting panel, the Lumiblade Plus - which is the world's most efficient panel under production (45lm/w). It's available in one size (Square Tall White - 7x7cm). Interestingly, the panel was developed by Konica Minolta and is produced by Philips, and features full phosphorescent organic materials. The panel is available for €120 (minimum quantity is 100 units though). This is the first time we hear of any collaboration between Konica Minolta and Philips.

Verbatim showed demonstrations of their upcoming Velve color-tunable OLED panels. The company says that sample kits will start shipping in May, and they will cost ¥90,000 ($1,050) in Japan. The sample kits include one color-tunable and dimmable OLED module and software that will allow you to program a color sequence.

Lumiotec sent us some interesting updates. It turns out that the company is already producing and shipping their second generation panels (called the 'standard' panels, or Version 2.0). The new panels offer better efficiency and lifetime and come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. They also cost a lot less then the first version - ranging from €115 to €350 (so the large square is down from around €700 to €260!). It turns out that the the the new ver 2.0 panels do not use Rohm's newly unveiled panels (that use red phosphorescent materials) - and aren't very efficient (just a little over 10.5lm/W). Lumiotec says that they consider phosphorescent materials a must for efficient panels and they do plan to go down that route in the future. In any case, Lumiotec's new fab is now operational, and it can make 60,000 panels a year. Actually Lumiotec says that the maximum capacity is 240,000 panels a year (if they'll work 24 hours a day).

More OLED lighting news in April include a 33x33cm OLED lighting panel unveiled by the European OLED100.eu project, a new OLED/LED lamp called Airabesc by OSRAM and the announcement by Jusung Enignnering that they are entering the OLED lighting manufacturing equipment market. Jusung will offer a 'total solution' - from vacuum deposition to encapsulation. The company currently offers 4-Gen OLED equipment. Jusung's CEO Hwang Chul-joo unveiled an OLED lighting panel that measures 730x920mm (we believe that's the largest panel ever unveiled), produced by vacuum deposition on a glass substrate. The lighting panel was produced in the company's pilot production line in Gwangju, Geongi-do. Hwang claims that their production equipment technology is at least one year ahead of the competition.

LG Display released their quarterly results, and discussed their OLED program in the conference call. The company indeed started small AMOLED production at the end of Q1 2011, and are currently making 4,000 substrates a month (in a 4.5-Gen fab, which is about 500,000 3" displays). This will be increased to 12,000 a month by the middle of 2011. At the moment, LGD does not have more plans for capacity growth (for small-sized OLEDs). This confirms the earlier reports we heard in February.

LGD currently provide AMOLED panels to 'major global customers' (including Nokia, which was more of less confirmed in the conference call). In the middle of 2011 LG Display will also provide AMOLED screens to LG Electronics.

LG Display OLED TV plans include a 8-Gen OLED fab ramp-up, perhaps in the middle of 2013. In 2011 they plan to start 'testing their technology for the 8-Gen OLED fab'. They haven't yet chosen the production 'solution' for this fab and they think they might choose towards the end of 2011 and will announce the investment in 2012.

DisplaySearch released a new mobile phone display report, in which they say that the fastest growing display technology is AMOLED. AMOLED unit shipment in 2011 will by 128 million (a 191% increase over 2010) and 212 million in 2012 (66% increase over 2011. In terms of revenue, AMOLED will reach $4 billion in 2011 and $6.4 billion in 2012.

Most estimates we've seen so far say that total OLED revenues in 2010 were about $1 billion, and that's for both PMOLED and AMOLEDs (not just for phones). So DisplaySearch estimates that the AMOLED market will more than quadruple this year!

Back in November 2010 we reported about a new phone by Lenovo (the S-800) which uses a transparent display. Dialog Semiconductor revealed that they supplied the driver IC to that phone, and indeed it's a transparent PMOLED. Hopefully the S-800 will actually launch soon, unlike the Samsung IceTouch MP3 player.

Dialog's driver (the DA8620) is the first one to use their SmartXtend PMOLED technology, and it's now shipping. The SmartXtend technology boosts PMOLED displays so they can achieve video quality and performance on par (almost) with AMOLEDs - at a much lower cost. The maximum resolution is QVGA. Here's more technical info on this technology.

While Dialog wouldn't name the actual PMOLED producer, it is probably TDK. They have been showing transparent PMOLEDs back in October 2010 - and these were indeed driven by a Dialog driver. Back in 2010 TDK said that they can start mass producing these displays - they are just waiting for someone to order them - and it seems that Lenovo is the first one to do so.