August 2014

Samsung Display's CEO, Park Dong-gun, said that the time is not yet ripe for OLED TV panel investment for SDC. While Samsung already have the related production and infrastructure technology to produce OLED TVs, they are still waiting for decisions at Samsung Electronics.

This is of course in stark contrast to LG, who's far more committed to OLED TVs, and it seems that LG's WRGB technology was a better bet (at least for the moment) than Samsung's direct-emission tech.

There's an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal dicussing LG's OLED TV push. According to the WSJ, LG is currently selling more OLED TVs in a month than it did in all of 2013. This is great, of course, but LG probably only sold a few thousand (some estimate around 3,000) OLED TVs in 2013, so monthly volume is still very low.

While nobody expected the OLED TV market to take off in 2014, this will hopefully change in 2015. Towards the end of 2014 LG is expected to bring its M2 production fab online, which should increase capacity dramatically (about 150,000 55" OLED panels in a month at 100% yield) - and bring prices even lower. Even today, LG says that production yields are approaching those of LCDs, which will help them be even more flexible with prices.

Taiwan's ITRI institute demonstrated several new AMOLED prototypes at Touch Taiwan 2014. First up, is Taiwan's first foldable AMOLED, a 6" full-color panel that can be folded inwards over 10,000 times.

The 6" panel can be folded to a radius of 7.5 mm. The whole panel is just 0.1 mm thick and it was developed with ITRI's own FlexUPD technology which can be used to turn an existing OLED glass line to produce polyimide-based flexible panels.

Apple sent out press invitations to an event on September 9th. They did not say anything regarding this event, besides saying "wish we could say more". It is widely believed that Apple will reveal the iPhone 6 in this event. Apple's new phone is expected to come with a larger display (some say Apple will unveil two new models, one with a large 5.7" panel) - and it won't be an OLED.

Apple 2011 flexible OLED watch patent

But Apple may also surprise and finally unveil the iWatch smart watch wearable device. .Rumors have been circulating about this device for almost 2 years now. Most of these "reports" suggest a flexible OLED display, around 1.3 - 1.6 inch in size. LG Display is believed to be the exclusive supplier of this display, although there's some speculation that Apple wants Samsung Display to be its second supplier for those plastic-based flexible AMOLEDs.

Only three days ago I posted that both Samsung and LG are expected to launch new flexible OLED smart watches, and today both Korean companies pre-announced their new devices before the IFA trade show. Indeed they both used plastic-based flexible OLED panels.

So first up is the beautiful LG G Watch R (shown above) - a circular Android Wear smartwatch that use a 1.3" 320x320 (246 PPI) plastic (flexible) OLED panel. The G Watch R will launch in "early Q4 2014", price isn't disclosed yet.

The IFA 2014 event starts next week (on September 5th, in Berlin) and I think it's going to be a very interesting trade show.

We have three confirmed unveiling events for next week. Samsung will show the Galaxy Note 4. It's pretty much confirmed that the new large smartphone will use a 5.7" QHD Super AMOLED display, but some reports suggest Samsung will also show a premium variant with a curved flexible OLED panel (I don't think this is likely, but you never know).

A few days ago it was reported that LG is already developing its second-gen Android Wear smartwatch, this one with a flexible AMOLED panel. Now LG published a teaser that shows a circular smart watch (quite similar to Motorola's Moto 360) that the company will unveil next week at the IFA trade show.

It doesn't seem to use a flexible OLED (it seems like a flat display) - but it makes sense that if LG intends this watch to be always-on, with its mostly black UI, they will choose an OLED display as it will be much more efficient in this mode.

In March 2014, LG launched their 2014 OLED TV lineup in Korea, which includes 55", 65" and 77" 4K and FHD panels. But today the company officially started accepting pre-orders for the world's first 4K OLED TV in Korea, with two models - the 77" 77EG9700 and the 65" 65EC9700.

The 65" model costs 12 million Won in Korea ($11,700), the price for the 77" model was not disclosed. Those TVs will soon arrive in Europe and the US, with the 65" model's price in the UK set at £5,999 (just over $10,000), and price in the US will reportedly be $6,999. LG is now rolling out their Full-HD 55" curved OLED TV in the US for $3,499.

Samsung released fives smartwatches in the past year - and all of them used AMOLED displays: 1.63" 320x320 Super AMOLEDs in all the Galaxy Gear series watches and a 1.84" (432x128) Curved Super AMOLED in the Gear Fit.

Samsung Gear Fit

Now we hear a report saying that Samsung is set to release yet another smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear 3. It will be based on the Tizen OS, and will sport a rectangular curved (flexible) OLED display. This panel will have a very pronounced curve - significantly more curved than the Gear Fit. The report also says that the display will have an impressive brightness and color saturation.

Last month Sony, Japan Display, Panasonic and the INCJ formed a new OLED company called JOLED to focus on medium sized OLEDs. JOLED will be launched in January 2015 and has the potential to become a large OLED player.

A few days later, OLEDNet reported that JOLED is likely to choose small-molecules OLEDs, Oxide-TFT backplanes, Sony's Super Top Emission technology and an WRGB pixel architecture. Today I found Sony's original press release (a month late, actually), and there's some interesting information in there.