Oxide TFT News

Corning announced their new, second-generation Lotus XT glass for high performance displays (LCDs and OLEDs). The Lotus XT offers better dimensional stability and can withstand higher temperatures compared to the previous version.

The new glass features better total-pitch variation (the distance features move during panel processing). All this means that using the new glass shall increase production yields and result in more precise manufacturing. The new glass can be used as substrate for LTPS and Oxide-TFT backplanes.

SID 2013, the world's most prominent display conference will take place next month (May 19, in Vancouver, Canada) - and they now published some technical papars that will be discussed during the conference. And there's some interesting stuff in there.

First up is AU Optronics paper, describing how the company developed the world's largest OLED panel: a 65" direct-emission Oxide TFT one. This panel, that was produced using an FMM process, features a long-range threshold voltage uniformity of 0.34 V, and the dam and fill encapsulation process is simple and highly stable.

According to Japan Economic Newswire, Sharp decided to launch a three-year project to develop OLED mass production technologies. Sharp's mass production technology will be ready by 2016 and then the company will decide whether they will build their own OLED fab or outsource the production to other makers or even license or sell the technology. It's not clear whether Sharp aims to make OLEDs for mobile displays, flexible OLEDs or OLED TV panels.

According to JEN Sharp will release its 3-year business plan on May 14, and then we'll know whether the OLED project is indeed included in their plan. The report says that Sharp plans to use "unique materials" that will make "clearer OLED images". Perhaps they mean SEL's and Sharp's new crystal structure innovation, used in the company's latest OLED prototypes.

Update: the deal is now official, new insights below

Samsung has bought a 3% stake in Sharp in a $112 million investment. Sharp is already providing LCD panels (small, medium and large-size ones) to Samsung and this will "further strengthen the alliance" between the two companies. According to some reports Samsung is interested in Sharp's IGZO technology and the two companies may also collaborate on AMOLED and Full-HD LCD technologies.

Other reports and analysts say that this may sign that Samsung intends to divert more energy and finance into OLED TV production and that they seek to outsource more LCD panels from Sharp during the market transition from LCD to OLED. LCD aren't making money anymore and a deal with Sharp may be a good idea for Samsung.

We all know that LG Display managed to beat Samsung and be the first company to actually produce and ship OLED TV panels. Today the Korea Times claims that Samsung decided to adopt LG's own WRGB architecture and the company will start producing such OLED TV panels towards the end of 2013.

Samsung and LG have taken different paths towards large sized OLED panels. Samsung is using an LTPS backplane and a direct-emission (or side by side) architecture which means that there are three sub pixels for each pixel (red, green and blue). Samsung's design does not use any color filters. LG's OLED panels use an Oxide-TFT backplane and white sub pixels with color filters (this is called WRGB because there are four subpixels: red, green, blue and one white, non filtered. Is is also referred to sometimes as WOLED-CF).

CES 2013 was exciting - what with the new OLED TVs and Flexible OLED prototypes and launches. Barry Young from the OLED Association, one of the world's top OLED experts, gave us his views on the new OLED developments from Samsung, Sony, LG and Panasonic. Thanks Barry!

Sony and Panasonic both showed 4K2K 56" OLED TVs, with some parts jointly developed. How close are these two companies to actual mass production?

A couple of weeks ago we reported that LG Display will make a final decision on its OLED TV panel production capacity investment by early February. According to KoreaTimes, LGD has decided to go ahead with an ambitious plan (an "all-out effort") to dominate the OLED TV market. This new report correlates with earlier KoreaTimes reports.

LGD's 2013 investment will be 3.8 trillion won ($3.6 billion USD), and most of it will be used to increase LG's OLED TV capacity and improve the technology, followed by investments into Flexible OLEDs and Oxide-TFT LCDs. The investment amount is about the same as in 2012, but this time the focus is different.