October 2009

LG Display has revealed their OLED TV roadmap: 15" displays in 2009, 20" in 2010, 30" in 2011 and 40" or larger panels in 2012. The 40" panels in 2012 will be "fairly expensive", but they will be available in the market. These details were given by Won Kim, LG Display's OLED sales and marketing VP.

Kim says that the technical challenges for large-size OLED panels are:

• driver elements (Kim says that LG Display will probably use a TFT based on low-temperature polycrystal silicon, or an oxide-semiconductor such as IGZO).
• Organic materials and film forming process (LG will use fluorescent materials until 2011 and phosphorescent materials afterwards. LG are considering using printing technologies).
• Sealing process  (LG believes that solid sealing is desirable for TV panels).

Idemitsu Kosan is showing some new OLED lighting prototypes using their own fluorescent and phosphorescent OLED materials. Phosphorescent OLEDs are more efficient than fluorescent ones. In the following photo, the panel on the left has a high-color temperature, and uses both fluorescent and phosphorescent materials (it is targeted mainly for the EU market). The other 3 panels use just fluorescent materials, and have a low color temperature.

Idemitsu has already commercialized their red phosphorescent, and almost commercialized the green one. They still do not know when they'll be able to release a blue color material, currently the lifetime is about 10% of what the clients need.

Here's the data sheet for the OLED materials, where you can see the lifetime and efficiency of each color:

There are rumors that Sony Ericsson are working on a new Symbian mobile phone (the Kurara) with a 3.5" touch AMOLED display, to be released in the first half of 2010. It will also have a 8.1mp camera. We don't have any more details...

About a week ago we reported on a rumored Blackberry OLED watch. It turns out that this is true, although the maker is not RIM but Allerta. The inPulse allows you to view key information from your BlackBerry on your wrist: incoming emails, SMS and calls. It's got a 1.3" full-color OLED.

The inPulse used to cost $149, but it's no longer available.

Samsung is showing a couple of new OLED laptop prototypes. The first is a 7" OLED WSVGA (1024x600) with a brightness of 300cd/m2 and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

Samsung 7-inch OLED laptop prototype

The second prototype is a hybrid laptop-desktop system, with a 14" WXGA (1366x768) OLED. It also features 300cd/m² and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The monitor's width is 2.7 mm.

Samsung 14-inch OLED hybrid prototype

Here's a short video of the 7" laptop:

Samsung is showing a new 30" 3D AMOLED panel. It's got Full-HD resolution, and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The width is 2.5 mm. It uses Samsung's SEAV (Simultaneous Emission with Active Voltage) 3D technology. To view the 3D image, one must use special glasses.

UPDATE: DisplaySearch says that the display is not stable, and SMD only showed it for a few hours and then moved it to another location.

IGNIS Innovation, in partnership with Kodak and Prime View International (PVI), has developed a 5" segment of a 32" OLED HDTV AMOLED display, using industry standard amorphous silicon thin film transistors (TFT). The prototype uses IGNIS' MaxLIfe solution, which compensates separately for both the TFT and LED degradation using only an electrical feedback - an industry first. This technology does not use any optical sensors which are unreliable.

IGNIS reports 20 years lifetime (when watching 12 hours a day), there is no burn-in images (the MaxLife technology keeps differential aging to 3% or less). The prototype was built using an amorphous silicon backplane from PVI using their standard a-Si LCD mass production process while the frontplane uses Kodak's long life and low power RGBW technology that delivers a vivid and outstanding viewing experience. They say that this combination provides the first reliable, low ost and scalable architecture.

IGNIS has also shown a 2.2" QVGA (181ppi) display module, using their AdMo (Advanced Mobile) compensation platform. They report over 50,000hrs lifetime (in house testing), large temperature range (-30c to 80c), suitable for automotive applications. The sophisticated compensation technology is built entirely in-pixel, meaning low-cost driver ICs are used, lending itself to a simple ‘drop-in’ display that is easily swappable into devices using legacy LCDs. The AdMo prototype use an amorphous silicon backplane, the standard TFT of the LCD industry that has traditionally been regarded as unusable for AMOLED displays. However, through its patented technology IGNIS is able compensate for the low mobility and in-stabilities of amorphous silicon, and as a result, for no additional capital investment costs, enables the manufacture of AMOLED backplanes at existing TFT plants.

AU Optronics are showing a new 14" OLED panel, with full HD resolution at 157 ppi. The brightness on an all-white image is 200cd/m2, the contrast is 100,000:1, the frequency is 120Hz and they say it's shows 72% NTSC color gamut. 

AUO claims that this panel are ready for mass production. They are using an evaporation method with a metal stencil mask.

Riber announced a "significant" contract to supply equipment for two new OLED production lines (730x920 mm panels) in Asia. The client will use this to produce "large size screens".

Samsung Mobile Display say that they have achieved 90% yield in their AMOLED plant (4th generation), and they are working 24 hours a day.

It's not clear from the translation, but it seems that current production volume is 3 million displays a month (previously we heard that they shipped 2 million displays in July). Samsung are also planning a new AMOLED plant.

Samsung's vice president (Kim) says that OLED TV (40"-50") panels will compete against LCD in 4 to 5 years. The lifetime of their new AMOLED is around 50,000 hours.