Universal Display announced today "significant advances" in the performance of its UniversalP2OLED solution-processible, phosphorescent OLED material systems. UDC reported that the solution-based system now approach the performance of vacuum-evaporated PHOLEDs.

The new green system feature 66 candelas per Ampere (cd/A) and 130,000 hours lifetime at 1000 nits luminance. That's about two times improvement from a year ago. The new red system offers 15 cd/A and 62,000 hours, and the light blue offers 18 cd/A and 5,000 hours. UDC has also demonstrated ink-jet printing with comparable performance to devices made by spin-coating.

Densitron is introducing new industrial TFT-LCD displays that are mechanically compatible with AMOLED displays. Densitron also says that the performance is similar to AMOLEDs. The displays come in three different sizes (2.4", 2.8" and 4.3"), and offer 800:1 contrast ratio. They use Fringe Field Switching (FFS) which gives up to 170° viewing angles (both horizontal and vertical). There's also resistive touch versions.

There's a shortage of AMOLED displays, and many manufacturers are moving to LCDs instead. Samsung plans to get their 5.5-Gen AMOLED plant on line by 2H 2011, but reports suggest that they actually sold all capacity to Apple already... so supply issues may last a while.

iSupply has performed a teardown of Nokia's N8, and they say that the most expensive part is the display which costs $39.25. This includes the 3.5" AMOLED and the touch overlay. The whole phone costs $187.47 to build (and it costs $549 to buy unlocked...). The AMOLED is made by Samsung of course, while the touch layer is made by Synaptics.

Back in July, iSupply estimated that the 3.7" AMOLED in the Droid Incredible costs $31.2. We're not sure if that included the touch overlay, but in any case it's strange - the price has changed considerably. Perhaps Samsung is now charging higher prices for AMOLEDs...

Elbit Systems announced that it has won a 5-year $68 million contract from the US Army. Elbit will supply the Army with AN/AVS-7 Head-Up Display components. The new display units increase situational awareness and safety by allowing pilots to fly "head out of the cockpit" during day and night operations.

Elbit's AN/AVS-7 HUDs include an eMagin OLED SVGA+ microdisplay.

LG Business Solution has performed a survey in the UK about consumer awareness of LED and OLED technologies. While 59% said they are aware of at least some features and benefits of LED, 80% said they have never heard of OLEDs before.

Actually the fact that 20% of the population has heard about OLEDs is rather good news, considering that OLEDs are only used in mobile devices (and in LG's own EL9500 15" TV, which isn't really a commercial product).

Microsoft officially launched the Windows Phone 7 OS yesterday. They announced 10 phones from HTC, Dell, LG and Samsung. Three of those phones use AMOLED displays: the Samsung Focus (with a 4" Super-AMOLED (leaked back in July as the Cetus), the Samsung Omnia 7 (with the same 4" Super-AMOLED display) and the Dell Venue Pro (leaked back in April as the Lightning).

Samsung Omnia 7

There were reports that Microsoft expects most WP7 phones to have AMOLED displays, and even designed the UI so it'll suit those displays (with black background to conserve power). It's great to see that even today, with AMOLED supply issues, 3 out of 10 WP7 phones use AMOLED displays.

There are reports that SonyEricsson's LiveView will launch next month and will cost €69 ($97). The LiveView is an Android accessory - it has a small (1.3") PMOLED display and can communicate with Android 2.x devices (and also control them).

Nokia announced that the C7 smart phone has started shipping for €335 ($430) around the world. The Nokia C7 is running on Symbian^3, and has a 3.5" AMOLED display and a 8mp camera that can record 720p video. Other features include 8GB of memory, GPS and Wi-Fi.

Samsung has just launched a new Galaxy-S variant in Korea for the KT network, calling it Galaxy K. It seems to have the same spec of all Galaxy-S phones (1Ghz processor, 3G, Wi-Fi and 8GB of memory). Interestingly, the 3.7" AMOLED display is described as AMOLED-Plus (the same as in another variant, the Galaxy U for LG's U+ network). We're pretty sure this is a super-AMOLED display, not sure why Samsung calls it AMOLED-Plus in Korea.

Interestingly, the Galaxy K comes with Android v2.2 - the first Galaxy S phone variant to come with the new OS (which will hopefully be available for all Galaxy-S phones soon).

Update: There are reports that Nemoptic declared bankruptcy, and the web site is now down. That's a shame, they seemed to have very interesting technology. Hopefully someone will pick it up and continue development...
 

Nemoptic has developed the world's first display that combines a color OLED with a monochrome Bistable Nematic LCD (Binem). The idea is that you can choose whether you want to have an OLED displays, or a e-paper like display, depending on the application and lighting condition (this somewhat reminds us of Pixel-Qi displays).

A Binem display, which is patented by Nemoptic offers the optical performance of a normal Nematic display but is still retains the image even without any power (i.e. it is bistable, like e-paper). Nemoptic displays are suitable for e-readers and other applications. Nemoptic claims that their displays offer a very high reflectance, a good contrast and good colors. They can also be made on flexible substrates - which means that the OLED/Binem display can probably be made flexible, too.