According to Sony Gulf managing director Osamu Miura, the company plans to launch consumer OLED TVs within 3-4 years. It's been a while since we heard any Sony executive discuss OLED TV plans. The company is also working towards glasses-free 3D TVs and 4K technology products - which will also be introduced within the next 4 years.

Back in CES 2011, Sony has unveiled a new OLED TV prototype - a 24.5" panel that supports glasses-free 3D. It was reported that this Sony will launch this product for the professional broadcasting market in 2011, which didn't happen (although Sony does offer 24.5" 2D OLEDs for this market).

Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs (MOEA) Shih Yen-shiang says that the local display makers need to work together to deal with weak consumer demand and rising competition. Shih especially wants to help Taiwan's largest display makers - AUO and Chimei Innolux. The MOEA is already in talks with the two companies to help them shift towards OLED production. The government wants to invest money from its National Development Fund (NDF).

AUO transparent OLED prototype

Back in August it was reported that Taiwan's government wants to establish an AMOLED R&D alliance and that AU Optronics (AUO) has volunteered for the plan. AUO was facing technical issues which forced them to delay OLED production, but now the company is already shipping 4" AMOLED samples and mass production will begin in Q2 2012. CMI is facing both technical and financial problems and their OLED plans aren't clear.

Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies says that he believes that Apple decided to buy iPad 3, iPhone 5 and TV display panels from Sharp. At first these will be IGZO based LCDs - which will be brighter, clearer, thinner and more efficient than existing LCDs. But Misek also believes that Sharp and Apple will jointly develop OLED displays (probably IGZO based as well) within 1-2 years which will be used in future iPhone and iPad generations. OLED TV panels aren't expected until 2015.

Misek says that the two companies are working towards a new printing technology for producing these small/medium OLED panels - and that a pilot line will be in place by middle 2012 for testing purposes. Full production will be possible in 2013. The new technology, according to Misek, is a combination of inkjet printing and a daisy wheel. The daisy wheel is an impact printing technology and I'm not sure how it relates to OLEDs.

A few weeks ago we reported that Sumitomo Chemical began construction of a PLED material factory (which will be operational in 2012) in a several billion yen investment. These materials are aimed towards large panel (OLED TV) production. Today we have a new report that say that Sumitomo made a breakthrough in its PLED material technology - which will eventually enable production cost to be slashed by up to 50% (compared to SM-OLED based displays).

Sumitomo 6.5-inch AMOLED prototype

The annual output of their new Osaka plant will be enough to produce 4-5 million 40" OLED TVs. Sumitomo plans to offer these materials to TV makers in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. PLEDs (or Polymer-OLEDs, sometimes called PLED too) are OLED devices made from polymer (large-molecules) materials and are more easily adapted for printing (solution-processable) compared to Small-Molecule OLEDS (SM-OLEDs). Some companies believe that PLEDs are the best way to create large OLED panels using printing methods. You can read more about PLEDs here.

IHS iSupply says that AMOLED unit shipments will jump 110% in 2012 and reach 154.7 million units. iSupply estimates that 2011 shipments will total 73.7 million (55% increase over 2010's 47.4 million units). The AMOLED display market will continue to grow quickly and reach 297.3 million units in 2015 (claiming more than 10% of the total handset market). This is quite in line with iSupply's earlier estimates that 2015 shipments will reach 271 million units. iSupply seems to be talking about handset displays only, and they are counting the number of units - it's important to know that mobile displays keep getting larger and more expensive.

Currently, Samsung is the clear market leader, while LG, AUO and CMI are also advancing thier OLED programs. While iSupply says that Chinese makers (BOE display, Irico and Tianma) are ramping up investment to catch up with the Korean makers, they also predict that they will find it very difficult to surpass Samsung.

Korean research firm DisplayBank says that the AMOLED market will grow from about $1.4 billion in 2010 to $12.8 billion in 2015. The growth will be led by small and medium AMOLED panels - and production technology will become more stable. OLED TV shipments, starting in 2012, will also help the market exhibit fast growth rates.

Back in April, DisplaySearch predicted that AMOLED for mobile phones sales will reach around $10 billion in 2015 (that's without the tablet, laptop, monitor and TV markets). iSupply meanwhile are much less optimistic - they estimate that the total AMOLED market will reach $3.6 billion in sales in 2015.

According to reports both Samsung and LG Display plan to introduce 55" OLED TVs at CES 2012 (January 10). This is not surprising as this was announced before. According to the new reports, both companies want to introduce the products before the 2012 Olympics (which is a big event towards which many consumers buy a new TV) - which means we can expect those OLED TVs shipping at around July 2012.

LG OLED TV prototype

The same reports re-iterates the old rumors regarding an Apple OLED TV. I'm still skeptical on this because in 2012 OLED TV capacity will be low (LG for example says it will be able to produce around 30,000 panels per month) - not enough for Apple. Samsung will also be producing their large panels in a pilot line and will not be able to mass produce these panels.

Last week we reported that Japan Display (the new small/medium display maker that merged Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba's businesses) may consider to accelerate OLED mass production in a $2.7 billion investment in R&D and production. JD also bought Panasonic's Mobara 6-Gen a-Si LCD plant.

Today we hear reports that JD will convert the new plant to LTPS, and will later use this plant to produce AMOLED displays. It seems that those plans aren't final, but JD's CEO said that the company could start mass producing OLEDs by 2013. If JD does decide to convert that 6-Gen plant to AMOLED production, this will be the largest AMOLED plant currently planned for small/medium panels (Samsung and LG are both building 8-Gen plants, but these will be used for OLED TV panels).

We haven't heard anything regarding Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.7 since they announced it back in September - so it's good to hear that the Super AMOLED plus packing Tablet has arrived at the FCC for testing and approval. We still do not have any release date (or price information, for that matter) and hopefully this means that the Tab 7.7 is coming soon.

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 is the world's first tablet with an OLED display, a 7.7" Super AMOLED Plus panel, offering 1280x800 resolution. Other specs include Android v3.2, Dual-core 1.4 Ghz processor, HSPA+ radio, 16GB to 64GB internal storage and a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, GPS and two cameras (3MP and 2MP).

Update: we have posted our review of the new Lumiblade panels...

Philips were the first company to release sample OLED panels, back in April 2009. In May 2009 they sent us a few Lumiblade panels for a review. Now I'm happy to report that they will send us new Lumiblades for a 2nd review shortly. These will be larger panels and it'll be interesting to see how they compare with panels from Lumiotec, Osram and Blackbody.

Philips also released a new video showing their OLEDs (see above). You can see the Edge and O’Leaf OLED lamps, the Mimosa Installation and the Living Shapes OLED wall.