Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has signed a technology development agreement with Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) regarding the development of Oxide-semiconductor backplane technology for next-generation displays, including OLED displays.

SEL's backplane technology is called c-axis aligned crystal (CAAC), which has been co-developed with Sharp. CAAC is based on an IGZO thin-film that has a novel crystal structure.

We are happy to announce a new Metalgrass knowledge hub, RRAM-Info.com, that focuses on RRAM, or Resistive RAM technology. RRAM is a promising next-generation storage-memory candidate, based on memristors - materials that change their resistance.

RRAM-Info will bring you daily news, commentary and updates about RRAM memory technologies. You can subscribe to our weekly RRAM newsletter here - and if you have not done so already, be sure to also subscribe to the free OLED newsletter!

Universal Display developed a new AMOLED structure that is a sort of WOLED - RGB hybrid structure. The idea is to use a large blue sub-pixel and a large yellow sub-pixel that is split into three areas - unfiltered and red and green filtered.

This structure is easier to deposit compared to a true RGB AMOLED (that requires very fine patterning of red, green and blue subpixels) but increase the aperture ratio compared to a WOLED architecture (which LG for example uses in its OLED TVs) - which increases the lifetime and color gamut of the display.

Researchers from St. Andrews University in the UK used a micro blue OLED display to active individual live cells from a human embryonic kidney cell line that were tweaked to produce a light-sensitive protein.

The researchers say that this ability to use OLEDs to activate individual cells may enable cell-specific optogenetic control in cultured neuronal networks, brain slices, and other biomedical research applications. They say that OLEDs are an "ideal platform technology for investigating and controlling biological processes with single cell resolution".

Today we published new versions of all our market reports - that cover the transparent, automotive, microdisplay and flexible OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to May 2016.

The Flexible OLED Market Report:

• Why flexible displays and lighting panels are so exciting
• What kind of flexible displays are currently on the market
• What the future holds for flexible OLEDs
• How to acquire flexible OLEDs for your products

The report package provides a good introduction to the flexible OLED market - present and future. It details both flexible displays and lighting technologies. Read more here!

As LG rolls out its 2016 OLED TVs, deep discounts are offered for its last year models. First up we have the 55" 4K curved 55EG9600, which is sold for $1,899 on Amazon.com - down from $2,999. The EG9600 features HDR support (via a firmware upgrade to existing customers), a new anti-glare filter, WebOS 2.0 and quad-core CPUs.

Adorama offers the flat 55" 4K 55EF9500 for $1,949 on ebay. The EF9500 is similar to the EG9600 and normally sells for $2,999.

Researchers at Canada's Queen's University Human Media Lab developed a prototype phone called HoloFlex that use a holographic lightfield 3D display that can "project" 3D images.

The HoloFlex uses a flexible 5.5" Full-HD (403 PPI) OLED display (seems to be the same LGD panel used in the G Flex 2) with a 3D-printed flexible lens-array on top, that forms a 160x104 matrix (16,640 lenses). Each lens projects the 12 pixel-wide circular area directly underneath it out into space.

The following premium article takes a look at the current markets for OLED displays - including smartphones, wearables, VR / AR, mobile PCs and TVs. We will then summarize OLED market forecasts by leading analysts.

In recent weeks, we heard very strong indicators from OLED equipment and component makers. Coherent, Orbotech, Colnatec and MagnaChip all reported significant OLED orders, and are very optimistic about the OLED market going forward.

Those suppliers report sales mostly to Korea, of course, but also to Japanese and Chinese display makers, as these new players ramp up their OLED production and begin to compete with Samsung and LGD.

MagnaChip reported its financial results for Q1 2016, and the company says the demand for AMOLED drivers is "exceptionally strong". There was a surge in AMOLED display driver demand in Q4 and this carried over to Q1 - and continues to gather momentum.

MagnaChip's AMOLED revenue in Q1 grew 42% from Q1 2015 and 63% from Q4 2015. This was driven from demand by smartphone makers in China. Magnachip believes it is the world's second largest AMOLED display driver supplier, and its AMOLED drivers has been designed into 28 smartphone models. The company is also starting to produce AMOLED drivers for two VR headset makers.

Universal Display reported Q1 2016 financial result, with a net income of $1.9 million on revenues of $29.7 million (down from $31.2 million in Q1 2015). Commercial emitter revenue grew 8% and royalty and license fees increased 22% (to $5.3 million). The decrease in revenue is due to a decline in host material sales. UDC has $395.7 million in cash and equivalents as of March 31 2016.

UDC did not change its guidance for 2016 of $220 million (a 15% increase over 2015) plus or minus 5%.