November 2007

The Nikkei Electronics Breakdown Team from Tech-On got their first OLED TV. It's interesting and somewhat exciting to read how the TV is opened and first connected. Sony is commited to OLEDs which is being positioned as the symbol of Sony's revival. Also in the XEL-1 manual they give a description of the OLED technology. Nice!

Read the four parts of the article - part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Competitive Technologies and Articulated Technologies today announced that they have signed an agreement for CTT to license and commercialize Articulated's patented OLED technology for adaptation to solar power. The agreement provides for revenue sharing between CTT and Articulated of royalty and licensing payments.

In addition to the solar panel technology, Articulated is the innovative leader in logical, yet truly disruptive, technologies for roll-to-roll LED solid state lighting, OLED manufacturing, and device structures of thin film, flexible, light emissive materials in ILED (Inorganic Light Emitting Diodes) and OLED applications. These applications include lighting, signage, displays, and backlighting, and medical, automotive, architectural and safety products. Articulated also holds IP on new methods of packaging microelectronics and semiconductors, and on printed electronics.

In what was expected to be a strong quarter with Samsung SDI reaching their full production goal of 1.5 million AMOLED displays per month, the company barely reached the 100K mark down from 350K in Q2’07 as reported in DisplaySearch’s latest Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report.  The low production level left the OLED display industry with revenues of only US$78.3M in Q3’07 down 38% Y/Y and 31% Q/Q.  Shipments were 15.5M for the quarter, down 32% Y/Y and 22% Q/Q.  The low production for the industry was also impacted by LGE, one of the industry leaders, shifting resources from PMOLEDs to AMOLEDs and shipping only 310K units vs. 3.1M in the prior quarter and Sony with no AMOLED production as the company prepared to begin shipping the XEL-1, the world’s first AMOLED TV in December ’07.  The news was not all bad as:

• RiTdisplay had a record quarter and led in revenues with US$31.0M and units with US$6.4M.


• Pioneer was #2 in units and #3 in shipments, while Samsung SDI, the only company shipping both PMOLEDs and AMOLEDs, was #3 in units and #2 in shipments.


• Samsung SDI has already upped its production and expects to ship >2M units in Q4’07, while RiTdisplay should continue its explosive performance with shipments of more than 7M units, a new record for one supplier.


• Chi Mei EL also started production of AMOLED displays with volume of 16K, a number they expect to double in Q4’07.


• MED joined eMagin as the only two companies shipping microdisplay-based OLEDs.

Samsung SDI was able to announce a number of design wins with the Japanese mobile phone carrier AU  announcing AMOLED main display mobile phones by Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sanyo.  Previously, Samsung SDI announced design wins with Nokia and Kyocera.  The new AMOLED main displays are all in the 2.8 category, which should help the mobile phone makers recover the premium prices charged for AMOLED displays. 

Sony has started to sell the XEL-1, the world's first OLED TV in Japan - for ¥200,000 (or about $1,800). This is actually a few days sooner then expected. The XEL-1 has a 11" 960x540 OLED panel and it's only 3mm thick. It features 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, a terrestrial digital tuner, speakers, HDMI, USB and Ethernet jacks. It weights 2 kg.

Sony plans to make only 2,000 units a month, and has no plans to up the production at this stage. The company regards the XEL-1 is a "technological demo" more than a real product.

The Australian government is proposing regulations that would ban most plasma and LCD HDTVs by the year 2011.

After commissioning a report that found the popularity of high power-drawing TVs like plasma and LCD TVs is growing. The bigger and brighter screens get, the more power is required, and Australia is trying to crack down on energy consumption. This is the government that was looking into banning incandescent bulbs in favor of fluorescent bulbs earlier this year.

By 2011, plasma and LCD TVs could be replaced with less energy consuming technologies like SED TV and OLED TV. But for now, the planet heats up because of our TVs.

The results show record revenues with year-over-year results improving by 121% for the quarter and 130% for the first nine months of 2007.

Financial Summary:

• Revenue for the three and nine months ending September 30, 2007, of $5.1 million and $12.9 million represent increases of 121% and 130% from $2.3 million and $5.6 million in 2006.
• The company achieved quarterly operating profit for the first time with $14,000 of operating income during the third quarter as compared to an operating loss of $3.5 million during the third quarter of 2006. For the nine month period operating loss declined 73% to $3.7 million in 2007, down from $13.5 million in 2006.
• During the quarter the company completed a deferral of approximately $6 million of secured notes.

With third quarter’s strong operating performance revenue for the full year ended December 31, 2007 is expected to comfortably exceed our projections of more than $16 million or an increase of more than 100% over $8.2 million in 2006.

OSRAM has recently stopped making PMOLED modules, and several companies have been looking for replacement modules. Yesterday we reported that OSD is offering replacement PLED modules, and now we are told that Batron also offer replacement modules - LCD ones. Batram offers replacment for the Calgary (2.7"), Stockholm (1.54") and Rio (3.2").

Thanks Philip for the update!

Sony are starting to take pre-orders of the XEL-1, the 11" OLED TV.

The price is set to 200,000Yen (~1,800$), on sale in Japan only.

The pilot fabrication system consists of clusters combining thermal evaporation and organic vapor phase deposition (OVPD) modules. The usable substrate size is 370 x 470 mm² on glass substrates and foils. The targeted tact time is three minutes, resulting in an annual capacity of approximately 13,000 m². The system is designed for efficient materials usage and flexibility in substrate format and organic stack. It is one of the worlds first pilot production systems for OLED lighting and organic based solar cells.

The order of the fabrication system is the first step to establish COMEDD at the Fraunhofer IPMS. To speed up the time to market for OLED lighting, organic solar cells and OLED-on-CMOS-devices, the Fraunhofer IPMS is building three pilot production lines. Germany’s state and federal government, as well the EU, are investing € 25 million into COMEDD to establish the leading European institution for R&D and pilot production of small-molecule organic devices.

The order of our tool is for us an important step to OLED lighting fabrication machine market. says Dr. Hoon Lim, CEO of Sunic Systems.

The integration of an OVPD® module is a milestone for our business to integrate next generation fabrication technology into new market segments. notes Dr. Bernd Schulte, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at AIXTRON AG.

Read more here (Azom)

OSD has recently released a new small-molecule PMOLED display that is compatible in size and format to the OSRAM Calgary model. This display features an overall panel size of 73.00 x 41.86 x 7.00 mm. This display features the same 30 pin interface using the Solomon Systech SSD1325 driver IC. This display supports 68xx, 80xx, and serial interface standards. This display features a contrast over 1000:1 and over 160 degree viewing angles.

In Recent weeks, OSRAM has given final purchase options to their PLED flat panel display customers. OSD Displays has worked with several key customers to tool new solutions to assist customers and is now ready to debut our new solution.