During November we heard several reports regarding Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone (which will probably be called the S4). It seems that Samsung will use a Full-HD display (probably around 4.5 to 5 inch in size) - after all HTC and LG already have Full-HD phones. Some reports claim that Samsung will have to use LCD technology because they cannot produce such high resolutions yet. It doesn't seem likely though and we heard several reports claiming that Samsung in fact managed to modify the FMM process to achieve high resolution - over 400 PPI.

On November 18 we heard that Samsung plans to unveil their new Full-HD OLED panel at CES 2013 (January 8-11). The panel's size is 4.99" which means 441 PPI (at 1920x1080). It'll probably use PenTile. Samsung will probably unveil the S4 itself in the first half of 2013 - so we do not have a lot to wait...

Interestingly, Samsung has apparently managed to scale up LTPS for their Gen-8 pilot line and have now ordered high-volume Gen-8 production tool from APS. Samsung's current OLED TV production plans are to to start with LTPS production and later on switch to Oxide-TFT (IGZO). There are some rumors that during CES Samsung will also unveil new OLED TV models.

In the beginning of November, Samsung announced it has sold over 30 million Galaxy S3 phones. The S3 is probably Samsung's best selling smartphone ever (in June Samsung said it sold over 28 million S2 phones, so it's probably close - but the S3 will surely overtake the S2 in sales if it didn't already).

Samsung also announced that they sold over 5 million Galaxy Note II phones. In the beginning of November they announced 3 million units sold - so it means they sold 2 million in less than a month. The Note II has a 5.5" HD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280x720 (non-Pentile).

During November Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL) started to offer OLED lighting kits. For ¥78,500 (about $950) you get three OLED lighting panels (with different light temperatures) , two stands (which including dimming controls) and an AC adapter. The OLED lighting panels are 97x90 mm in size (2 mm thick), offer a lifetime of 10,000 hours (LT70) and an efficiency if 26-30 lm/W. PIOL's panels have a high CRI (over 90) and they target museums and exhibitions. Panasonic made panels have already been used in at least two museums: Kyoto's MOMAK musuem and Panasonic's own Shiodome museum.

LG Chem are currently producing OLED lighting panels in an Gen-2 fab (370x470mm) that can produce 7,000 substrates a month. They are producing the LG-OLED-041 is a 100x100 mm square panel that features 4,000K, CRI>80, 45 lm/W and 10,000 hours lifetime (LT70) at 3,000 nits. Now we hear that the company plans to build a Gen-5 fab by 2014. They actually planned a Gen-4 line but decided to go for a larger fab to achieve higher volume and lower cost (and because Gen-5 tools are now available). The Gen-5 fab will be able to produce 135 lm/W 300x300 mm panels - and price per lm will drop 95% when compared to 2012.

Heraeus is introducing new polymer OLED materials. The HIL-E grades is a combination of Hole Injection Layer and a high conductive electrode - and so provide an economic ITO alternative for OLED lighting. Earlier in November Konica Minolta and NEDO unveiled a new 130x130 mm OLED lighting panel prototype that uses a transparent conductive film instead of ITO. KM says it's highly conductive and has a lower resistance compared to ITO.

Japan Display unveiled their first OLED prototype, a 4.5" 1280x720 (326 ppi) panel at the FPDI 2012 exhibition. JD is using an WRGB architecture (white OLEDs with color filters) and a top-emission device structure. JD says that mass production of this panel will begin in fiscal 2014. Back in April 2012 they announced plans to start OLED mass production by March 2013. In any case, it's great to see their first ever OLED prototype.

Colnatec say that they have developed the world's first ultra-high flux OLED deposition sensor for high-speed, continuous run manufacturing. This new sensor promises to dramatically change the economics of OLED thin film manufacturing - as OLED makers will be able to maintain continuous runs over extended periods of time - which will result in higher yields and decreased operating costs. Without this new sensor, manufacturers had to contend with reading fast at slow deposition rates or coating fast with no deposition measurement, resulting in lower total yield.

Colnatec lists Samsung as a customer since the company started producing sensors in 2010. They also say that the received orders for advanced sensor technology from seven major OLED manufacturing organizations, research institutions, and system builders in Europe and Asia.

UDC's lost $5.5 million in Q3 and lowered their 2012 guidance to around $80 million (down from $90 million to $110 million). The OLED market hasn't been growing for a while - both Samsung and LGD delayed their OLED TV launches, Samsung hasn't added more OLED capacity and have yet to start using green PHOLED in mainstream products. In addition the two other OLED producers which were expected to enter mass production in 2012, AUO and Innolux, kept delaying mass production. Finally, flexible displays were expected (from Samsung) in 2012, but this has been delayed, again, to 2013 .

While this was a very bad quarter, it seems that most of the fault is timing. UDC is still positive that the OLED industry will exhibit strong growth from early 2013 onwards. In fact if we disregard green emitter and host sales, then red emitter sales grew 89% compared to Q3 2011. The company also announced a $50 million share buyback program. Disclosure: the author of this newsletter personally holds shares in UDC.

Taiwan's ITRI announced it has developed a full roll-to-roll process on 100um flexible glass substrates - they say they're the first in the world to do so. ITRI has been collaborating with Corning on this technology, and they are using Corning's flexible Willow glass, a flexible display-grade glass substrate, unveiled at SID 2012. The two companies developed specially designed R2R machines that produce touch panel modules and ITRI is now looking for companies that sell this technology - which can be used for OLED display and lighting panels, solar panels and more applications.

ITRI claims that Taiwan can still compete with Korean panel makers (Samsung and LGD) in the flexible AMOLED market. The institute says that help from the Taiwanese economics bureau will be required. Upstream suppliers will need to ramp up their development effort and boost production facilities and materials.