According to Universal Display, LGD's current production capacity in its 4.5-Gen fab is 14,000 monthly substrates, more than double its capacity (6,000 substrates/month) that was reported in the middle of 2014.

LGD indeed said they expect to double their capacity towards the end of 2014, and that's great news. Some of that capacity will go to LG's own flexible products (such as the G Flex 2 and the G Watch R) - and reportedly also to support Apple's Watch which will launch in April.

LG Display also announced that it will grow its OLED TV capacity in 2015 from 14,000 monthly substrates to 34,000 monthly substrates. Reports from Korea suggest that that capacity expansion will cost $915 million. LGD will be able to produce 600,000 panels in 2015 and 1.5 million in 2016.

Meanwhile, LGD's Korean rival Samsung Display plans to invest $3.6 billion in a new OLED fab from 2015-2017, aiming to make small and medium size displays. Samsung did not release any information regarding the type and capacity of this fab, and its' not even clear whether the new fab will produce glass-based or plastic-based OLEDs.

UBI Research forecasts that the OLED lighting market will reach 82 million in 2015, and grow fast till 2020 - when it will reach $4.7 billion. As prices are expected to drop quickly when capacities expand, this means UBI sees very large OLED lighting panel shipments starting in 2016.

UBI is by far the most optimistic about OLED lighting from all market research we've seen.IDTechEx for example see a $200 million panel market in 2019 that will grow to $1.9 billion in 2025. Cintelliq sees OLED competing with LEDs in 2016, and 500 million 100x100 mm OLED lighting panels produced in 2023. Some believe OLED lighting will never really manage to take off. IHS for example estimates that the market will only reach $26 million by 2020.

Konica Minolta recently started mass producing flexible OLED lighting panels, and the Japanese company now announced that it ships 15,000 flexible OLEDs to a Japanese Tulips Festival - by far the largest OLED installation to date. There are 5,000 tulips, each with 3 petals (and an OLED panel in each petal).

These are the first OLED panels that were produced at Konica' new $100 million R2R flexible OLED lighting fab. This breakthrough fab, will have a monthly capacity of a million panels at full capacity, and it produces both white and color-tunable flexible panels. The white panel is 150x60 mm in size (0.35 mm thick) and weights 5 grams. The color-tunable is smaller (50x30 mm, 0.29 mm thick, 0.6 grams). Both panels are flexible with a curvature radius of 10 mm.

DuPont has been working on OLED materials and processes for a long time, but it's been a while since we heard any update. David Flattery, DuPont's OLED unit Director of Operations was kind enough to update us on the company's materials and OLED technologies.

We discuss DuPont's nozzle-printing process, their soluble and evaporable OLED material status, the company's recent OLED activities and more. Read the full interview here.

LG Electronics officially announced their spring 2015 TV lineup, launching several new TVs. Unfortunately, while LG announced six new models during CES, currently they announce just one - the 65" EG9600, which will cost $8,999. LG also said that they will continue to offer the 55" FHD 55EC9300, with the official price set at $3,499 (some retailers now offer it for less than $2,400!).

According to an earlier report, LG's first OLED to launch in 2015 was supposed to be the 55EG9600 (for $5,499), and a total of four new models were supposed to ship within weeks.

Display and digital signage technology developer Planar Systems unveiled a 55" transparent OLED display. This is the largest transparent OLED ever developed - surpassing Samsung Display's 30" panel shown a few months ago LG Display's 18" T-OLED shown in July 2014. Planar is not the producer of this display, and we're not sure who actually is. It seems likely that this is made by LG Display, but We also heard a claim that it was produced by SDC.

Japan-based Ason Technology unveiled their first OLED lighting panel in 2013, and last year we featured an article discussing the company's technology and business.

In a recent interview, the company's CEO reported that Ason developed an OLED with twelve (!) emitting layers, which enables it to reach a high brightness of 50,000 cd/m².Ason currently has a small pilot production line, with a annual capacity of a few thousand panels (at 72x72 mm). While the company first planned to operate in a fabless model (outsource commercial production), it seems that they decided to start production in house. They are working to raise 800 million yen ($6.7 million) to build a mass production fab in Japan that will be able to produce 350,000 20x20 cm panels annually. If all goes according to plan, production at that fab will begin in the Spring of 2016.

Read more about Ason's OLED lighting technology and business plans here.

Last month we upgraded OLED-Info to a new, faster server. Hopefully this new server will enable faster page loading - and less down times (as we had some issues lately, mostly due to increased web traffic which is obviously a good thing). We are also launching a new branding drive, and it starts with a new logo which you can see below. The new logo is based on our old logo - which has been around for ten years exactly!