Sony

In a new report released Wednesday on the characterization of AMOLED display technology, DisplaySearch addressed the Sony XEL-1 TV and the technology’s sub-pixel architecture, micro cavity, and compensation circuits.

Display Bank, a market research company for display, surveyed shipments of AM OLED in the first quarter. The result showed that SDI shipped about 2.56million units, accounting for over 90% of entire market. LG Display produced about 120,000 units. If combining two companies, they accounted for 95% of world AM OLED market in the first quarter.

Sony is showing new 0.2mm thin 3.5" OLED displays, capable of QVGA resolution (320x220). Sony is also showing a 0.3-mm thin, 11-inch OLED with 960 x 540 resolution.

Sony's 11" OLED TV (XEL-1) is now availble to purchase from Amazon. It costs 2,500$, and ships only to the US.

DisplaySearch reports that Samsung SDI drove the market, pushing shipments to 20.2M, which was up 30% Q/Q but down 9% Y/Y. For the year, total revenues grew 6% to US$493.9M (see Table 1) and total shipments grew 8% to 74.7M, according to the DisplaySearch Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report. The report findings also show that the shipment mix is changing, as AMOLEDs had a 9.7% share of total revenues in Q3’07, which jumped to 41% in Q4’07.

According to Reuters, Sony is planning to spend 200M$ (22 billion yen) to develop the production technology to make medium to large OLED panels,

Sony announced their financial reports today. The company will continue its development of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology which is brighter than current technology and provides energy savings.

However, chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda said: "I do not see a rapid growth in production [of OLED TVs] in the future."

Digitimes reports that Sony is looking for partners to cooperate in the production and sales of OLED panels.

Sony shows a stunning 27" OLED TV at CES 2008.

There are several nice photos here at Gizmodo, and there's also a short YouTube video by engadget -

Sony is "encouraged" by the sales of their XEL-1 OLED TV (11") in Japan, and will start to sell those in the US too.