OLED-Info is the web's leading resource on OLED TVs, displays and lighting.

DisplaySearch says that current manufacturing costs for OLED TV panels are almost seven times higher than LCD panels. They estimate the total manufacturing cost of a 55" FHD AMOLED panel to be $2,454 in Q1 2013. The high price is mostly due to low manufacturing yields.

DisplaySearch expects these yields to improve, and cost will fall significantly over the next two years, but it will still be much higher compared to LCDs. In fact they think that in the following year the cost will fall by 36%, and so in Q1 2014 the price of producing the same OLED panel will drop to a little over $1,500, or about 4.8 times the cost of an LCD panel.

Novaled and 4JET Technologies has jointly developed a new laser process called SLAM (Selective Layer Modification) for OLED customization and optimization. SLAM allows defined customization or grey scaling and it can also be used to optimize lighting density and to isolate short circuits.

4JET says that SLAM can be used to create OLED signage solutions with individual logos or patterns. Basically this creates structured OLEDs (like we've seen from Philips, Fraunhofer, UDC and others) after the manufacturing process.

The GS4 Zoom is an Android v4.2 smartphone that has a 10X optical zoom and a 16 mp sensor. The display is a 4.3" qHD (960x540) Super AMOLED display. Other features include a 1.5 Ghz dual-core CPU, 1.5 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal flash and a micro SD slot. Despite the S4 in the name, it isn't as powerful as the GS4, but Samsung says it has the "stylish heritage of the latest GALAXY S4 smartphone".

The GS4 Zoom will launch towards the end of 2013, Samsung wouldn't reveal the price yet.

eMagin unveiled the world's brightest full-color OLED microdisplays, the color OLED-XLS series. Those displays offer 1000 nits of luminance, that is four times brighter than "current industry standard".

XGA096 OLED-XL

eMagin are currently offering OLED-XLS displays in sample quantities over their entire product line (VGA, SVGA, XGA, SXGA and WUXGA). They will continue to produce the "older" OLED-XL displays.

Back in February we heard reports that Samsung Display is considering to construct a 6.5-Gen (1500x1800 mm) LTPS AMOLED fab. Now new reports from Korea say that Samsung indeed decided to go ahead with this new line, which is scheduled to begin operation towards the end of 2013. The monthly production capacity will be somewhere between 20,000 to 40,000 substrates.

Samsung's investment in the new line will be around 1.7 trillion Won ($1.5 billion USD), and they will begin ordering equipment in Q3 2013. The new line will produce panels for OLED TVs and mobile devices - we assume not just for mobile phones but also for tablets and perhaps even laptops. This will be the world's largest LTPS line - and an interesting and adventurous undertaking by Samsung.

Digitimes Research says they expect AMOLED handset panel shipments to reach 363 million units in 2015, up 332% from 2011 (110 million units). They expect Samsung and LG to produce 83.7% of the AMOLED market in 2015 (down from 97.7% today).

In 2015, mobile phone panels will account for 88.7% of total AMOLED panel shipments (79.5% of the AMOLED market in terms of value). OLED TV panels will account for 12.4% of the AMOLED market in 2015 in terms of value. Digitimes expects both Samsung and LGD to significantly increase their OLED TV panel output in 2014-2016, and they say the companies will be able to start profiting on OLED TV panels around 2014-2015 as yields increase.

Back in 2011 the University of Florida announced a new organic-TFT backplane technology called CN-VOLET, which is especially suited for OLED panels. Earlier in 2010, the University spun-off a company called nVerPix to commercialize this technology, with funding from Nanoholdings. Now nVerPix sent us some information and updates regarding their technology and business as they are seeking to raise funds (Round A).

CN-VFET is a new carbon nanotube based transistor technology that can conduct electricity about a 1000 times faster than current silicon-based TFTs. The basic transistor design is called CN-VFET (which can be used for logic and memory applications). When they combine the CN-VFET with the OLED stack they call it a CN-VOLET.