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The SID 2011 conference took place during May, and while we've seen some interesting OLED prototypes and new technologies, OLEDs were missing from both LG and Samsung booths. Obviously the technology is advancing quickly and both companies are pouring a lot of money into OLED production... so where were the panels? Some speculate that because both Samsung and LG are expanding OLED production they do not want to give any details at this stage. They say it is normal for companies to keep quiet before making commercial announcements. We hope that this is true!

Several companies did show some nice new prototypes though:

• Toshiba unveiled a flexible 3" OLED
• UDC unveiled a new efficient OLED lighting panel (58 lm/W and 30,000 lifetime hours) and a new flexible OLED lamp
• Sony unveiled a self-aligned top-gate Oxide TFT OLED and a 3" Hybrid printed prototype
• Corning developed a flexible glass with the same barrier performance as normal rigid glass
• Dupont unveiled a 4.3" OLED panel made by a coating process using solution processable materials

The major news from Samsung in may was that the first production line of their new 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab is now online - which is actually two months ahead of schedule. This is just the first line in Samsung's new fab - which will produce 24,000 substrates a month. The next stage (line 2) is scheduled for the end of 2011 (and will double the capacity to 48,000 monthly substrates). The third line is planned for the first half of 2012, and this will bring monthly capacity to 100,000 substrates. A trusted source tells us that Samsung will start using Universal Display's green PHOLED materials (in addition to green ones) in all AMOLED screens produced in this new fab.

Samsung is having a great success with the Galaxy S II launch. They reported 3 million pre-orders worldwide and managed to sell a million units in Korea in the first month (this is the best launch ever in Korea). The company stated that they plan to sell 10 million units in 2011 - but this seems conservative following the good response so far.

Samsung also unveiled a seamless foldable AMOLED that can fold in half without showing a visible crease. To make the seamless display, the team used two AMOLED panels, silicone rubber, a glass cover and a modular case. Finally, Samsung's Cheil Industries announced a $18 million investment in an OLED material fab to produce Electron Transport Layer (ETL), Hole Transport Layer (HTL) and Organic Insulator (PDL) materials for AMOLED displays.

TDK announced that they began to mass produce transparent PMOLED displays. The first display (code: UEL476) offers 2.4", QVGA (240x320) resolution and 40% transmittance. This is not a big surprise as we already know that Lenovo uses these panels in their S-800 phone.

It turns out that TDK is not using transparent cathodes and anodes: only the anode is transparent, while the cathode is still made of metal. What they did is reduce the line width of the cathode so only a part of the pixel is covered. TDK calls this panel structure "thin-line electrode structure". This is how they achieved 40% transmittance. This also explains why viewing this display from the back side is impossible (it is not clear - although parts are showing). TDK claims this is good because users will not want other people to view their phone display from the other side. TDK uses a white OLED with color filters to bring this to market as soon as possible, even though this uses the brightness of the panel (current brightness is 150 cd/m2).

The big news this month came from Philips which announced that they are investing €40 million ($57 million) to expand their OLED lighting panel production capacity in their Aachen, Germany fab. The additional capacity will be available in 2012. Philips say that the new capacity will support the "rapid growth" of their OLED business. Philips also announced a new 2of3 lumiblade bundle - which can be a big money saver if you want to test drive the company's OLEDs.

In early May Acuity Brands launched their first OLED luminaries, the Kindred and the Revel. Those lamps use efficient (around 50 lm/W) OLED panels made by LG Chem. The lamps will be released in Q1 2011 - which means that LG Chem will start production by then. LG are using green and red PHOLED materials made by Universal Display, and SFC's deep-blue fluorescent OLEDs. WAC lighting also unveiled a new hybrid-OLED lamp, the first one to use color-tunable Velve OLEDs.

There was an interesting announcement from Toshiba that the company will produce 100 portable OLED lamps to donate to quake-hit areas in Japan. This is the first time we see an OLED lighting panel from Toshiba. We knew that TMDisplay is developing OLED lighting equipment, but we did not know that Toshiba is developing OLED lighting panels.

Mitsubishi and Pioneer managed to fabricate a white OLED in which the emissive layer was formed in a coating process. The OLED is efficient (52 lm/W) and the lifetime (D50) is 20,000 hours (at 1,000cd/m2 luminance). The upper layers in this OLED are made using vapor-deposition method. The companies plan to commercialize printed OLEDs at around 2014. Meanwhile Novaled unveiled the world's most efficient fluorescent white OLED. Novaled used their own proprietary organic materials and a new flat light outcoupling method of extraction to achieve 36 lm/W.