Korea-based ETNews reports that Apple has finally committed to adopt OLED displays in future tablets and laptops, and the company has signed a contact with a "local OLED developer" (which means either Samsung Display or LG Dispaly) to develop four different OLED displays.

According to the report, Apple decided to adopt a 10.86" and 12.9" AMOLED displays for future iPad devices, and 14" and 16" displays for future MacBooks. The first OLED iPad will be released in 2024, while the first OLED MacBook will come later in 2026.

Coherent has launched a new Monaco infrared industrial femtosecond laser configuration with 150 W of output power. The company says that the new laser is ideal for cutting of large OLED display glass.

The OLED industry is now entering the IT display market (tablets, laptops and monitors) and this accelerates the demand for laser tools with higher output power that can process larger glass sheets than those currently used in smartphones and wearables. Coherent says that the new Monaco 1035-150-150 outputs more than double the power and pulse energy of existing configurations, enabling high-precision cutting of large glass panels in very high volumes to produce large OLED screens with perfect assembly fit in next-generation IT devices. Coherent says that its new laser is the smallest femtosecond laser of its kind on the market and the easiest to integrate into laser tools.

In the past year or so, much have been said about Samsung's plans to build a 8-Gen OLED IT production line, as the company wants to expand its capacity for monitors, laptops and tablet OLED displays.

Samsung plan for a full-cut 8-Gen line

As this is the first such production line, SDC had two ongoing R&D projects: one with Ulvac, that used full-cut vertical OLED deposition, and another with Canon Tokki, that used half-cut horizontal deposition. According to the latest reports from Korea, SDC decided to prioritize the Canon Tokki half-cut project, as the technology is more mature and is more likely to finish as per Apple's roadmap.

UBI Research says that shipments of medium and large area OLED panels (which the company defines as 10 inches and up) will reach 26.1 million units in 2022. The market is set for fast growth, and shipments will reach 69.5 million units by 2027.

The main application by revenue will be TV panels, over the whole projected period, and OLED TV panel shipments will reach 14.8 million units in 2027, and generate $9.18 billion in sales.

According to UBI Research, Samsung Display has decided to produce QD-OLED panels at its upcoming 8.7-Gen A5 production line. The company IT display strategy will be to produce QD-OLED panels for monitor application (27-inch displays, at first) and tandem RGB panels for smaller IT displays (tablets, laptops).

A 34-inch QD-OLED monitor (Dell Alienware)

Samsung is looking for design wins with Apple for both its display architectures - the larger QD-OLED panels for Apple's monitors and the smaller sized panels for its tablets.

UBI Research estimates hat shipments of OLED panels for IT applications (tablets, monitors and laptops) will reach 48.8 million units by 2027, growing from around 9.5 million units in 2022 (a CAGR of 39%).

In 2022-2024, the main application for OLED panels is in laptops, but this will change from 2025 and onwards as tablets will also become a dominant applications (as Apple will start adoping OLEDs in its high-end iPads).

OLED makers are gearing up to increase production of IT OLED panels, used in laptops, monitors and tablets. Towards that, analysts expects over 10 8.5-Gen OLED lines under consideration now in the industry. This drive is led by Samsung Display that confirmed is is building a 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) OLED production line, that will begin production in 2024.

A 8-Gen (or actually 8.5-Gen) fab uses 2200x2500mm glass substrates. According to a new report in Korea, Samsung actually decided to adopt a larger glass - a 8.7-Gen 2290x2620 mm. The ~10cm increase will increase production efficiency by around 9%, but this means that current 8.5-Gen LCD equipment that Samsung hoped to use will not be usable any more.

Last Month Samsung Display confirmed that Samsung is now building a 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) OLED production line, that will begin production in 2024.

It is expected that the new line will mostly produce panels for IT devices (laptops and tablest) and also for automotive applications. Many believe that these applications will adopt tandem stack structure to increase brightness and lifetime. According to a new report, Samsung's new line will adopt a single-stack structure, and not a dual-stack one.

UBI Research estimates that sale revenues of medium and large OLED displays (UBI defines these from 10-inch and up) rose 22.9% in Q2 2022 compared to the previous quarter and 11.2% compared to last year - to reach $1.67 billion.

In term of sales, UBI estimates that total shipments in 2022 will reach 26.3 million units. Most of the growth in 2022 will come from laptop displays - where shipments almost doubled in the second quarter to 2.18 million units.

Following strong demand for IT devices, and Samsung's success in the OLED laptop market, OLED makers have began to plan building new OLED production lines specifically for IT applications: laptops, tablets and monitors.

Several OLED makers, including Samsung, LG and BOE, are considering building 8.5-Gen production lines for this market. In fact DSCC estimated that there are 11 such lines under development right now. But it turns out that this is not so simple as designing the evaporation equipment for larger substrates is a challenge.