Apple OLEDs, iPhone OLED, iPod OLED, OLED tablet

There's a very interesting discussion over at ArsTechnica about OLEDs and Apple's upcoming new device. They are talking to Barry Young from the OLED-Assocation, and he says that no one is making any 10" OLED panels, so it's not possible that Apple are 'hoarding' up all the available panels....

Barry says that Samsung, the most advanced OLED manufacturer, can produce about fourteen 10.1-inch panels per substrate. That means that they could produce around 150,000 10.1" panels a month, but they currently cannot meet their small-panel demand, so it's not likely they are producing any larg displays. 

LG is even less likely, as they have 10%-15% of Samsung's capacity. LG has a new plant that's coming online later in 2010, but Barry says that it'll be mostly dedicated to their own 15" TV panels. LG would have to hurt their own TV business in order to supply panels to Apple.

"The best case is that if Apple announces an AMOLED with a 10.1-inch display, it would have much higher price and have very low volumes," Young concluded. Maybe Apple will announce an OLED device that will only be available much alter in 2010.

Barry says that the future for OLEDs look bright. Samsung are preparing a new 8G fab that can produce both LCDs and AMOLEDs. This can be used to 42" OLEDs. Samsung has doubled their capacity in 2009 and will do so again in 2010. The only bad news come from Sony - who has gone back to an R&D phase.