Seiko Epson today announced that it has developed a new inkjet technology that enables uniform deposition of OLED materials in large size displays. They believe that this is a major step towards 37" (or larger) HD OLED TVs.

Espon 14-inch Inkjet processed OLED

Seiko Epson claim this is the first technology that can reliably form uniform organic materials on large substrates. The most widely used tech today, Vaccum Thermal Evaporation (VTE) is not able to do it because of several technical issues.

Epson has recently developed the long-awaited solution in the form of
an OLED display fabrication process that leverages the company's
proprietary Micro Piezo inkjet technology to achieve markedly greater
accuracy in organic material deposition than the conventional
technology. The process has been used in trial production to fabricate
a highly uniform prototype panel. Extremely uniform layers (volume
error ejection of multi-size droplets of ink material on a substrate so that
only the required volume of material is deposited.

Epson will give more details at SID, together with a 14" prototype display (shown above), that has a HD resolution.

ETRI (South Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) has developed a new white OLED, at 70lm/W. Korea wants to show that they aren't behind the US, Japan or the EU in this field, and in fact has closed the gap on OLED light tech. ETRI will help local companies to produce OLED lighting panels. 

ETRI white light OLED prototype

The Koreans forecast that OLED lights will begin full-scale production around 2015, and start to replace other light sources.

The Science & Technical Research Laboratories (STRL) of Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) showed a new flexible OLED prototype. The 5.8" inch panel has a 213x120 resolution, 60Hz frequency, and was made using phosphorescent materials and vapor-deposition manufacturing.

Last year STRL showed an OLED prototype that was made using an inkjet process. The new OLED has double the luminance and better display uniformity.

A couple of month ago we reported that Irico plans to open a new OLED fab. Now digitimes reports that they plan to invest 75M$ in the new plant, and have started the work already. The construction will take around a year and a half, with annual capacity of 12 million panels (2.2" each).

UPDATE: Indeed you can now buy the OLED walkman, in the UK at least!

The Sony OLED walkman gets a UK release date - May 24th, and will cost 230 pounds for the 32GB. There's no word yet on the US release date, but they say it will be mid-June.

Sony X-series OLED walkman

The OLED walkman has a 3" (432x240) OLED touchscreen display and WiFi support. Sony says it's the best sounding walkman ever... 

The Samsung lucido phone has been released in the UK. It is available unlocked for 230 pounds (around 360$). 

Samsung lucido

The Samsung M7600 Beat DJ phone is now available through Amazon (unlocked for 400$). We do not yet know when it will be released to a US carrier.

Samsung M7600 Beat DJ

The Samsung M7600 has a 2.8" touchscreen 240x400 AMOLED, unique spin-wheel navigation for spinning and mixing tunes, B&O amplifier and surround sound.

Samsung thinks that the mobile phone market will recover in 2010, returning to the level it was in 2008. Samsung are betting on AMOLEDs and touchscreen displays.

OLED production at Samsung should quadruple this year, as demand for AMOLED phones start to rise. They are also considering a new next-gen production line for AMOLEDs. They 'do not have any lifetime problems' now, and rising volumes and lower material cost will mean lower price for the OLED displays.

TechOn reports that OLED displays are being tested in Japan train stations, for advertisements. They are using CMEL's 7.6 OLED panels (like the ones used in Kodak's photo frame). 

OLED Digital signage

Previously they have tested ads using e-Paper displays, but the OLEDs are cheaper than the custom-fit ePapers.

Bouygues Telecom announced that they will ship the Samsung i7500 (with the Android OS) in July, in France. They will also change the name to Samsung Galaxy. The i7500 has a 3.2" 320x480 AMOLED display.

Samsung i7500