AUO announced that it plans to hire 2,500 engineers - to work on AMOLED displays, 3D displays and solar panels. AU Optronics is gearing up to start producing 4" to 5" AMOLED panels, aimed toward smartphones. Last week we reported that AUO is joining Taiwan's AMOLED alliance - and will have its initial production capacity secured by ASUS and HTC.

Interestingly exactly 2 years ago on March 11 2010 we reported that AUO is planning to recruit 2,500 engineers to work on OLED, LCD and Solar projects. Hopefully this time AUO is really stepping up its OLED program

Universal Display and LG Display have renewed their commercial supply agreement again. The current agreement will run for 6 months, until June 30, 2012. The companies are still negotiating a long term agreement. LG is using UDC's PHOLED materials in AMOLED displays, and pay them for the chemical sales and a license fee.

UDC signed the original agreement with LGD (then LG.Philips) back in May 2007. In August 2011 UDC finally signed a long-term agreement with Samsung, and hopefully they will sign one with LG Display soon, hopefully before LG's 55" OLED TVs start shipping.

In Q2 2011 Samsung submitted a patent application that describes devices with flexible displays. This patent is now public, and it shows several concepts: A "pen" type device that has a stretchable screen, a bracelet type device and a book like device that can open up.

According to the patent, all sorts of displays may be used to power such a display: including e-paper, LCd and of course OLEDs. Flexible OLEDs are coming in 2012 from Samsung, but don't expect such bendable displays yet. The 2012 crop will be plastic-based displays that will be shatterproof, light and thin - but not bendable...

Market report company UBI Research says that OLED shipments in 2011 reached 130 million units. AMOLED shipments were 89.3 million (up 109% from 2010) and PMOLED shipments reached 41.1 million units. The company forecasts that the AMOLED market will grow by 70% in 2012 to reach 155 million units.

In terms of revenues, AMOLEDs in 2011 generated $2.8 billion (up 108% over 2010). In 2012 AMOLED revenues will reach $4.4 billion (60% growth). Total OLED (PMOLED+AMOLED) shipments in 2012 will pass 200 million units. The market will continue its fast growth and will reach 500 million units in 2015 (25% of the total mobile display market).

Apple announced the new iPad 3 (or the New iPad as they call it), and it's got a new display: a 2048x1536 LED-backlit IPS LCD. Apple brands it as a Retina Display, even though the PPI is lower than the iPhone display (264 in the new iPad vs 326 in the iPhone's display). The new iPad also has a new CPU (dual-core Apple A5X), a new quad-core GPU, a 5mp camera and LTE. it's a bit thicker and heavier than the iPad 2 (9.4 mm and 662 grams vs 8.8mm and 613 grams).

So, no Apple OLED yet. We keep waiting...

DisplaySearch says that the global OLED market is expected to grow to 242.5 million units in 2012, up 128% compared to 2011. Revenue will reach $5.93 billion, up 102% from last year (which means that DisplaySearch sees a rather drastic price drops in OLEDs, as average panel size will most likely go up in 2012 as OLEDs start to appear in tablets and TVs).

Toshiba OLED tablet prototype

DisplaySearch sees 176.5 million OLED for smartphone displays in 2012, up from 81.3 million in 2010. In 2013, OLED for smartphones will reach 261 million units.

There are reports that LG Group's chairman Koo Bon-moo requested LG Electronics for an early release of the 55" OLED TV. Originally LGE planned to release in the second half of 2012.

LG's 55" 55EM9600 is using a WOLED-CF design on an Oxide-TFT backplane. The panel is only 4mm thick, and the whole TV weighs just 7.5Kg. Analysts expect it to cost around $8,000.

Taiwan's government is forming an AMOLED alliance - to compete against Korean makers - mostly Samsung. The alliance will include seven partners: two AMOLED produces (AUO and Chimei Innolux) and ITRI, Acer, Asustek, HTC and MediaTek. It is reported that HTC and Asustek will secure all of AUO's upcoming AMOLED capacity.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), who is coordinating the alliance will invest around NT$10 billion (about $333 million US) in AMOLED R&D (mostly though ITRI). CMI will come up with an AMOLED production plan which will get subsidized by the government. Officials from the MOEA say that AMOLED is "rising as a must for next-gen smart phones", and is also likely to enter into the tablet and TV markets.

Carl Zeiss has been showing their Cinemizer OLED head-mounted-display product for quite some time (since 2008 in fact), but it never actually launched. They even announced a 720p version in 2010, but this one didn't ship as well. The company is now showing yet another version, this time with two 870x500 OLED microdisplays and head-tracking.

Last week we reported about Philips' OLED lighting roadmap - and they mentioned that they already provide structured OLEDs. In this post I'll explain what Philips means by that. A structured OLED is a custom made OLED lighting panel that contains a text or an image, like the ones in the photo below:

Philips claims they are the first company in the world to provide such OLEDs, and they have developed special technology and masks to enable production of these custom-made panels. Philips say they already got several customers buying these OLEDs. It takes them time to prepare the production line, so usually clients buy 100 pieces or more. They wouldn't name any customers, but hinted about automobile makers and "high luxury outlets".