DisplaySearch released a new mobile phone display report, in which they say that the fastest growing display technology is AMOLED. AMOLED unit shipment in 2011 will be 128 million (a 191% increase over 2010) and 212 million in 2012 (66% increase over 2011). In terms of revenue, AMOLED will reach $4 billion in 2011 and $6.4 billion in 2012.

Most estimates we've seen so far say that total OLED revenues in 2010 were about $1 billion, and that's for both PMOLED and AMOLEDs (not just for phones). So DisplaySearch estimates that the AMOLED market will more than quadruple this year!

Universal Display established a new chemistry lab in Hong Kong - which will perform research and development in OLED materials and technologies.

In the past few months, UDC opened two new subsidiaries - in Japan and in South Korea. It seems that UDC found at least one use for their money - boosting their Asian presence...

eMaginn introduced new low-power/high-contrast 0.5" diagonal VGA OLED-XL microdisplays that feature 15-micron pixels, 10,000:1 contrast ratio, a coltage drive pixel approach and eMagin's True Black technology that uses less than 60mW (which is less than half of the requirement for eMagin's SVGA+ OLED-XL microdisplays). eMagin says that the new display is useful for military, industrial and commercial applications (including thermal weapon sights, laser target designators, and industrial thermal imaging cameras).

The new microdisplays use pulse width modulation (PWM) pixel hold times (a first time for eMagin) to virtually eliminate motion artifacts in video imagery, with the extra benefit of providing better dimming range and gray level response for low light and night vision applications.

Universal Display reports advances in its UniversalP2OLED solution-processable material's performance: lifetime, efficiency and operation voltage. Solution-processable OLEDs can be used in ink-jet printing and other manufacturing techniques that can result in cost-effective production of large-size OLED panels. UDC says that commercial viability is now "in sight".

• The green P2OLED system, which offers a luminous efficiency of 68 candelas per Ampere (cd/A), has now achieved 175,000 hours of operating lifetime. This is a 34% increase over the last reported value (130,000 hours).
• The red P2OLED system, with a luminous efficiency of 18 cd/A, now offers an operating lifetime of 125,000 hours (a 100% increase over the last reported value of 62,000)
• The light blue P2OLED system now offers a luminous efficiency of 29 cd/A and 8,000 hours of operating lifetime (a 60% increase in efficiency and lifetime).

Sharp announced that it will start making IGZO (InGaZnO) based LCD panels for mobile phones and tablets towards the end of 2011. Sharp says that the new displays will be brighter, clearer, thinner and more efficient than existing LCDs. Sharp will make these new displays in their 8-Gen plant using the company's UV²A ultra-violet alignment technology.

IGZO can also be used to for OLED backplanes. Chimei Innolux, for example, announced plans to built a 5.5-Gen OLED plant an IGZO TFT.

Here's a nice video showing Samsung's Super AMOLED display under a 100X microscope (the device is a Samsung Focus phone):

You can see that this display uses a PenTile subpixel matrix (in which the (smaller) green subpixel is shared between two pixels). Samsung's upcoming Super AMOLED Plus no longer uses a PenTile.

eMagin reports that during Q1 2011 the company faced production issues and manufacturing delays, following preventative maintenance in the first quarter. eMagin has been taking a number of steps to restore its production schedule, including running extra shifts on weekends. The company expects that revenues in the first quarter will only be around $5.5 million, but for the whole year they still maintain their revenue guidance of $35 to $40 million.

In August 2010 eMagin announced that they plan to build their own AMOLED microdisplay deposition machine, in an attempt to boost production capacity tenfold.

Back in November 2010 we reported about a new phone by Lenovo which uses a transparent display called the S-800. We thought it might be a transparent OLED, but we weren't sure. Today Dialog Semiconductor reveals that they supplied the driver IC to that phone, and indeed it's a transparent PMOLED. Hopefully the S-800 will actually launch soon, unlike the Samsung IceTouch MP3 player.

Dialog's driver (the DA8620) is the first one to use their SmartXtend PMOLED technology, and it's now shipping. The SmartXtend technology boosts PMOLED displays so they can achieve video quality and performance on par (almost) with AMOLEDs - at a much lower cost. The maximum resolution is QVGA. Here's more technical info on this technology.

LG Display released their quarterly results, and discussed their OLED program in the conference call. The company indeed started small AMOLED production at the end of Q1 2011, and are currently making 4,000 substrates a month (in a 4.5-Gen fab, which is about 500,000 3" displays). This will be increased to 12,000 a month by the middle of 2011. At the moment, LGD does not have more plans for capacity growth (for small-sized OLEDs). This confirms the earlier reports we heard in February.

LGD currently provide AMOLED panels to 'major global customers' (including Nokia, which was more of less confirmed in the conference call). In the middle of 2011 LG Display will also provide AMOLED screens to LG Electronics.

Update: we got some new information regarding Philips and KM cooperation

Philips unveiled their latest OLED lighting panel, the Lumiblade Plus - which is the world's most efficient panel under production (45lm/w). Currently available in one size (Square Tall White - 7x7cm) the panel was developed by Konica Minolta and is produced by Philips, and features full phosphorescent organic materials. The panel is available for €120 (minimum quantity is 100 units though).

Technical details of this new panel:

• Luminous efficacy: 45 lm/W
• Thickness: 1.8 mm
• Lifetime: 10,000 hours
• Luminance: 1,000 cd/m²
• Current/voltage: 71.5 mA / 3.6 V
• Color coordinates (x; y): 0.45 ; 0.41
• Color temperature: 2,800 K