Samsung AMOLED

Samsung is one of the leaders in OLED display research and the clear leader in AMOLED production. OLED Displays are thinner, more efficient and offer better picture quality than LCD or Plasma displays.

Samsung's curved OLED TV prototype



Samsung are confident that OLED displays is the best future technology. In fact Samsung claims that by 2014, 50% of cell phones might have AMOLED displays, and by 2015 it could become the main TV panel technology.

Samsung AMOLED mobile products

Samsung is the using AMOLEDs in many of their gadgets - in fact they are the leading company with regard to OLED adoption. Today Samsung is using OLED displays is most of their new phones, including the Galaxy S3 and the Note II.  Samsung also has several AMOLED cameras available such as the B850F, NX200, TL350 and others.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.7" Android Tablet has a 7.7" Super AMOLED Plus panel - and this is the largest mobile product with an OLED display.

Samsung Display's most advanced AMOLED mobile display is the 4.99" Full-HD (440 PPI) panel unveiled at CES 2013, which will go into production in Q1 2013. Samsung is offering several AMOLED types for mobile devices. Super AMOLED displays embed the touch panel inside the display and feature Samsung's PenTile matrix technology. These displays offer a great performance outdoors and are considered by many top mobile displays on the market. Super AMOLED Plus displays are newer and use a regular RGB matrix. Samsung also offers "regular" AMOLED displays without an embedded touch layer (also with PenTile)

Samsung Real OLED TVs

In January 2013 Samsung unveiled the F9500 55" OLED TV. Samsung is yet to announce launch dates and prices, but it seems that they intend to release the F9500 OLED TV in 2013.

Samsung OLED TVs use 'Real OLED' RGB subpixels, as opposed to LG Display's WRGB color-filter based architecture and LED TVs which use LC and color filters..


Samsung OLED production

Samsung Display is the number one producer of AMOLED panels (they make over 90% of AMOLED panels worldwide) Samsung currently makes displays sized 2" to 7.7" and has two AMOLED fabs (a 4.5-Gen and a 5.5-Gen that began operation in May 2011).

Samsung is investing a lot of money in AMOLED capacity. 2012 investment alone was around $6 billion.

Samsung OLED Research

Samsung has an extensive OLED research program. The company is currently mass producing small (up to 7.7") AMOLEDs and will soon start making larger 55" OLED TV panels. The company is always working to refine the manufacturing process - to improve yields and cut costs.

Samsung are also working on next-generation flexible OLEDs - and the company launched their plastic-based YOUM flexible OLED panels at CES 2013, and they aim to start producing products based on those displays in 2013. Samsung also unveiled curved 55" OLED TV prototypes - and they say that curved TVs offer a better viewing experience. 

Samsung are also advancing quickly with transparent displays. In 2010 they actually announced a product with such a display (the IceTouch, an MP3 player with a 2" full-color transparent AMOLED) that was never released sadly. They are also working on larger transparent displays such as an OLED 'window' and an OLED laptop:

Samsung Transparent AMOLED laptop

Here's a nice video, showing a concept transparent flexible AMOLED tablet device. It will be years before Samsung can commercialize such a display, but it's nice to see what the future holds:

Further reading
OLED News and Information Copyright 2004-2013 Metalgrass software