According to Reuters, Samsung Display plans to invest $3.6 billion in a new OLED fab from 2015-2017, aiming to make small and medium size displays. Samsung did not release any information regarding the type and capacity of this fab.

One option for Samsung it to build another glass-based OLED fab. The company aims to reach OLED-LCD cost parity for small-sized displays towards the end of 2015. If this happens, it's likely that OLED prices will drop below LCD by 2017 (especially if more capacity is added) and thus demand for AMOLED displays for mobile phones and tablets will soar. Samsung increased their 5.5-Gen capacity from 10K substrates per month to 140K/m from 2009 to 2013.

Samsung will unveil its next flagship device, the Galaxy S6 on March 1st, and at least according to some reports and Samsung's own official teaser, at least some of the variants will sport a curved design.

Today's personal OLED interview features Sri Peruvemba - a personal friend and the CEO at Marketer International and the Head of Marketing for the Society for Information Display (SID). If you wish to be featured on such interview, contact us here.

Sri has over two decades of experience in the global technology industry in various marketing roles. His firm provides marketing services to the high tech industry and Sri also volunteers his time to industry organizations, individuals and start up companies.

SinoWealth, an IC developer from Shanghai, started to develop AMOLED drivers last year, and thec ompany now reports that they supplied AMOLED drivers to EverDisplay's first AMOLED panels.

inoWealth also announced that it received orders for more AMOLED driver ICs in China. As the only AMOLED driver maker in China, the company sees rapid market growth in that segment. The company also reports that their PMOLED driver business is maintaining a steady growth.

Display and digital signage technology developer Planar Systems unveiled a 55" transparent OLED display. According to Planar OLED technology solves most of the issues associated with transparent LCDs, which will enable to unlock applications in retail, museums and corporate settings.

This is the largest transparent OLED ever developed - surpassing Samsung Display's 30" panel shown a few months ago LG Display's 18" T-OLED shown in July 2014. Planar is not the producer of this display, and I'm not sure who actually is. It seems likely that this is made by LG Display, but I also heard a claim that it was produced by SDC.

In July 2014, Taiwan launched the OLED Lighting Commercialization Alliance (OLCA), with an aim to make Taiwan an important OLED lighting player. The OLCA is headed by ITRI institute, and today we hear reports that ITRI is going to recruit OLED engineers to boost the development of OLED technologies.

ITRI will recruit engineers in device design, production management, evaporation process, packaging, lighting module/system and production equipment. The OLCA alliance include members such as Merck, RiT Display, WiseChip, Corning, Tongtai Machine & Tool and the TLFEA (Taiwan Lighting Fixture Export Association).

UBI Research forecasts that the OLED lighting market will reach 82 million in 2015, and grow fast till 2020 - when it will reach $4.7 billion. As prices are expected to drop quickly when capacities expand, this means UBI sees very large OLED lighting panel shipments starting in 2016.

UBI is by far the most optimistic about OLED lighting from all market research we've seen. IDTechEx for example see a $200 million panel market in 2019 that will grow to $1.9 billion in 2025. Cintelliq sees OLED competing with LEDs in 2016, and 500 million 100x100 mm OLED lighting panels produced in 2023.

LG Chem today unveiled the world's biggest OLED lighting "building installation" at Seoul National University's new main library. LG Chem supplied 1,100 OLED panels used for reading lights.

LG Chem says that SNU adopted OLED lighting because they energy efficient, extremely comfortable to the eyes - and they enable modern designs due to their slim profile. LG Chem supplied 550 desk lamps to the University, and next month they will start marketing those lamps to other customers.

Philips announced a new OLED lighting panel, a FL300 variant with a mirror finish. The Brite FL300 wm is not as bright as the regular FL300 (190 lumens only). The panel has an active area of 102x102 mm, and is 1.8 mm thick. The efficiency is 26-30 lm/W, the lifetime is 10,000h (LT70 at 190lm) and the color temperature is either 2,500K or 4000K.

Philips will start shipping the new panel on February 16th, and the price will be between €136 to €156, depending on the integration level (bare OLED or with cables and frame).

DuPont has been working on OLED materials and processes for a long time, but it's been a while since we heard any update. David Flattery, DuPont's OLED unit Director of Operations was kind enough to update us on the company's materials and OLED technologies.

Q: Dave - thanks for this interview. We know that DuPont is focusing on soluble OLED materials and processes. When do you see the OLED display industry starting to adopt such materials?

DuPont is focused on developing OLED materials for evaporation and soluble technologies, as well as working with our partners on our proprietary printing process.

Many in the industry believe that 2017 will be the year of mass production for printed OLED televisions, and while we cannot disclose the manufacturing plans for our partners, we have already seen one large manufacturer announce that they will pilot solution- processed OLED displays up to gen-8 in 2015.