On February 18 LG started shipping the 55EM9700 OLED TV to their Korean customers. LG says they got over 100 pre-orders, which is quite good. The TV is available only in Korea and for $10,000. On February 18 LG also announced that they have decided to install a new Gen-8 OLED TV mass production line in their Paju plant , in a 706 billion Won (about $650 million) investment. LGD will start constructing the new line in Q1 2013 and mass production will begin in H1 2014. The monthly capacity of LG's new line will be 26,000 substrates - or about 150,000 55" panels. Of course this is assuming 100% yield. LG's yields are currently very low - probably at around 30% (at best). If this remains so, the new line's capacity will be around 50,000 55" panels in a month.

Samsung did not start selling OLED TVs yet, but the company did issue a press release saying that they plan to start selling OLED TVs in the first half of 2013. Samsung's F9500 is a 55" Full-HD Real OLED TV. The OLED panel uses direct-emission RGB OLED subpixels, hence the "Real" title. Obviously Samsung finds it very difficult to produce their large OLED panels. The technology they chose (LTPS + direct emission) may be better on paper compared to LG's WRGB, but it's more difficult to produce. The Korea Times claims that Samsung decided to adopt LG's WRGB architecture and the company will start producing such OLED TV panels towards the end of 2013. I'm sure Samsung's communication division won't like this change as the company kept saying how superior their technology is.

The Koreans aren't alone in the OLED TV race of course. During CES 2013 Panasonic and Sony (who collaborate on OLED production technology) unveiled 56" 4K2K OLED TV prototypes. Sony used evaporation materials and processes to deposit the OLED layers while Panasonic used printing technologies. The substrate of these two panels was produced at AU Optronics. Now we hear reports that Sony and Panasonic are planning to setup an OLED TV production joint venture in 2013. There's no production schedule, but it's likely that Sony and Panasonic are aiming to start doing so in 2014 or 2015.

Samsung sent out invitations for their Galaxy S4 unveiling event - on March 14. While most people (including Korean analysts researching Samsung's supply chain companies) expect this upcoming flagship phone to sport a 4.99" Full-HD (440 ppi) Super AMOLED display, some new rumors insist that Samsung actually decided to use an LCD display instead of an OLED. We only have two weeks to wait before we know for sure.

According to our own resources, Samsung is ready to start producing 4.99" Full-HD AMOLED panels (which were unveiled at CES 2013). Samsung will initially produce this display at a rate of about 3 million units per month (this will grow to almost 10 million monthly units in coming months). Samsung will adopt hexagonal pixels in their new AMOLEDs, in addition to finally using green PHOLED materials (which will make this new OLED more efficient - by 25%).

During a financial conference, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, said that OLED displays aren't good enough for Apple - the colors are too saturated and the screen is not bright enough. "If you ever buy anything online and really want to know what he color is, as many people do, you should really think twice before you depend on the color from an OLED display", says Cook. While it's true that Samsung's OLED displays aren't calibrated and show very saturated colors, it's also true that most consumers love those vibrant colors and perfect blacks.

While Apple's CEO has been very clear on OLEDs, we also know that Apple is actually very interested in the technology, and the company already has several patents involving flexible OLEDs, OLED based BLUs for LCDs, OLED control schemes and others. Just last week we reported that Apple has hired a new executive into its Display group - Dr. Jueng Jil Lee, a former research fellow at LG Display, who apparently was involved with OLED TV printing technology research. Later in February a new Apple patent application surfaced , describing a flexible screen that can turn into a warp-around bracelet using a bi-stable spring. The patent specifically mentions OLED technology because in the bracelet state most pixels will be off.

Samsung and LG have been involved in a legal battle over OLED (and other technologies) IP for almost a year now, with both companies filing law suits and claiming breach of patents. In early February it was reported that the two Korean companies have agreed to resolve their OLED dispute outside of the court of law, and indeed later both companies dropped their injunction lawsuits. The two companies plan to begin working-level talks to resolve their legal issues in early March. Samsung Display's Kim Ki-nam said that the two companies are considering cross-licensing patents, but it's too early to decide on that yet.

According to DisplaySearch, a cross-license agreement is possible, and the research company even speculates that the two Korean giants may eventually collaborate on OLED technology. The main reason is fear from Japanese competition, but also because of pressure from the Korean government and their struggle with production issues which may be eased if they work on this together.

LG Chem sure plans an exciting 2013 for us. The company sent us word that they plan to start mass producing the world's first flexible OLED lighting panels in July 2013. Those OLED panels will be 200 x 50 mm in size and will feature 45 lm/W and a color temperature of 4,000K. LG's flexible panels are only 0.2 mm thick and weigh just 0.6 grams (which is great for applications sensitive to weight). LG Chem is using a hybrid structure (a combination of phosphorescent + fluorescent emitters). The substrate is thin glass while the protective layer is metal. LG says they developed their own flexible encapsulation technology, called Face Seal. You can see photos and videos of these upcoming flexible panels here.

But that's not all from LG Chem. In July 2013 the company will also start producing new high efficiency OLED lighting panels (80 lm/W, similar to CFLs). These will be the world's most efficient OLED panels (beating LG Chem's current 60 lm/W panels). Those panels will feature 20,000 hours lifetime (LT70), 3000K color temperature, brightness of 75 lumens (3000 cd/sqm) and a CRI of 85. The first 80 lm/W panels will be 100x100 mm in size and only 1.1 mm thick. LG Chem says that to achieve this new efficiency record, they used their unique stacked structure and the company's own advanced OLED materials and light extraction technology. These panels also use a hybrid OLED structure.

Regarding the company's production capacity, LG Chem tells us that they currently produce all OLEDs in a Gen-2 line that can produce 6,000 Gen-2 substrates (370x470 mm) a month. Back in November we reported that LG has plans to build a Gen-5 fab by 2014 or 2015. LG now tells us that they have indeed finalized the "initial development" required for this upcoming Gen-5 line back in August 2012 (with financial aid from the Korean Government). They are now discussing the timing of this new fab, there is a large investment involved. A Gen-5 will enable LG Chem to reduce their production cost by about 95% and will have a much larger capacity then their current Gen-2 line.

LG Chem are not alone with flexible OLED panels though. Konica Minolta will unveil new flexible OLED lighting panels at the Lighting Fair 2013 exhibition in Tokyo (March 5). Their flexible OLEDs will debut in a "variety of forms", and visitors to KM's booth will be able to experience those new panels. KM wouldn't reveal the technical details of those panels, but in November 2012 they launched a flexible OLED lighting design contest, and the designs had to use a single OLED panel - 60 x 150 mm (0.5mm width) with a radius of curvature of no more than 100 mm. It's likely that this will be one of the panels that KM will unveil next month.

Back in May 2011 Philips announced that they are investing €40 million in a new OLED lighting production line in Aachen. Today Philips inaugurated the new line - which has been producing OLEDs since Q3 2012 in fact (but it's only official now). Philips say that this new line is the largest and "most modern" OLED lighting line in the world. The clean-room is approximately 2,000-square meter in size.

Philips’ panels are made on glass and come in a variety of shapes and colors: squares, triangles, circles, hexagons and custom-made structured panels. The largest panel that is on sale is the Tall Rectangle at 129.4 x 54.7 mm. Philips' most efficient panel is the Lumiblade Plus (45 lm/W, developed by Konica Minolta) and their brightest panel is the 115 lm GL350.

I've been following OLEDs since 1998 or so, and now I'm the owner and editor-in-chief of OLED-Info, the web's leading OLED web site. It seems that a lot of people (more than one, honest) want to know more about me, and how I got interested in OLEDs. It seems like a very strange turn of events for me too, but that's how life goes. If you're interested in my own story, read on...