Samsung announced it has sold over 30 million Galaxy S3 phones. The S3 is probably Samsung's best selling smartphone ever (in June Samsung said it sold over 28 million S2 phones, so it's probably close - but the S3 will surely overtake the S2 in sales if it didn't already).

Samsung's Galaxy S3 has a 4.8" 1280x720 HD Super AMOLED (306 PPI, with Pentile), a quad-core 1.4Ghz CPU (dual-core 1.5Ghz in the US models), 1GB of RAM (2GB in the US models) and an 8 mp camera (1080p video). The phone weighs 133 grams and is only 8.6 mm thick. In the US it costs around $150 with a contract and is being offered by AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. You can also get it unlocked for $799.

The Printed Electronics USA 2012 conference, organized by IDTechEx will take place on December 5-6, in Santa Clara, USA. The event includes world class speakers, several masterclasses and an investment summit, and is also co-located with the graphene-live and photovoltaics USA 2012 conferences.

We're happy to announce that IDTechEx now offers a 35% discount for OLED-Info readers. Simple use the PEU-OLED when you register.

Sony's OLED professional monitoring technology was honored with a technical Emmy award (for outstanding achievement in engineering development). This is rather cool - and I think it's the first OLED that wins an Emmy...

Sony offers OLED monitors in several sizes (from 7.4" to 24.5") and in several series (BVM-E,BVM-F and PVM). Sony's OLED monitors provide a superior image quality compared to LCDs, and the cost difference is not so large because in these premium products the cost of the panel itself is a small portion of the total product cost. Sony already sold over 15,000 professional OLED monitors.

Display Central posted an interesting article (update: it is no longer available, sadly) discussing Samsung's Gen-8 AMOLED fab plans. They say that the company is still on track with their original plan - to start with LTPS production and later on switch to Oxide-TFT (IGZO). Samsung seems to think that IGZO is not ready yet for OLED mass production.

The article quotes Barry Young from the OLED Association saying that Samsung has managed to scale up LTPS for their Gen-8 pilot line and have now ordered high-volume Gen-8 production tool from APS.

Yole Développement released a new report (OLED for lighting 2012-2020) in which they forecast that the OLED lighting market will kickstart in 2014, and grow to $1.7 billion in revenues by 2020. Growth will be driven mainly by General Lighting applications, representing more than 70% of the overall OLED lighting business in 2020.

Yole says that traditional lighting makers will not choose to invest in OLED mass production - as the costs are high and the production difficulties are numerous. OLED lighting development will therefore depend on bottom of the supply chain companies that will need to offer more vertical integration.

Japan Display unveiled their first OLED prototype, a 4.5" 1280x720 (326 ppi) panel at the FPDI 2012 exhibition. JD is using an WRGB architecture (white OLEDs with color filters) and a top-emission device structure.

JD says that mass production of this panel will begin in fiscal 2014. Back in April 2012 they announced plans to start OLED mass production by March 2013. In any case, it's great to see their first OLED prototype.

Applied Materials announced two new film deposition systems, used to make high definition televisions and high-resolution mobile device displays - both OLEDs and LCDs. First up is the AKT-PX-PECVD system (shown below) that can be used to deposit LTPS films on large glass substrates (sized from 1.6 m² to 5.7 m²).

The second system, the AKT-PiVoT PVD system is used to deposit metal oxide-based TFTs (IGZO in particular). Applied says that this new system is capable of overcoming "mura effects" that reduce the quality of the display. It also offers "breakthrough" stability which makes is suitable for OLED displays and TVs.

Samsung announced that they sold over 3 million Galaxy Note II phones - only 37 days after its release. This is three times faster than the previous Galaxy Note (which sold over 10 million units in 9 months). The Note II has a 5.5" HD Super AMOLED display (1280x720, non-Pentile), a quad-core 1.6Ghz processor and a large 3,100mAh battery. The Note II is only 9.4mm thick.

The Note 2 started shipping in September 2012. It is available unlocked in the US for $775 (international version), and it's also being rolled out by AT&T and others.

MagnaChip launched a new WXGA (1280x768) AMOLED driver IC (model EA8061) - targeted for smartphones. MagnaChip is already mass producing the EA8061 and is delivering it to a "major Korean electronics manufacturer" (probably Samsung) for use in selected Android-based smartphones this year.

The EA8061 supports high-definition video based on RGB stripes and features MIPI DSI interface, Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC), Automatic Current Limit (ACL) and Multi Power Saving (MPS).