May 2020

Doosan Corp does not manage to find buyers for its stake at OLED host maker Doosan Solus

In 2019, Doosan Corp spun-off its OLED materials unit, which is now called Doosan Solus (and is listed on the Korean stock market). Last month it was reported that Doosan Corp aims to sell its 51% stake as it needs to raise funds to bail out its troubled Doosan Heavy I&C company.

According to a new report from Korea, Doosan Corp demands 1 trillion Won for its Doosan Solus stake (around $810 million USD), but at this price it did not manage to find any buyers.

Read the full story Posted: May 27,2020

The Elec: LG and Samsung will supply AMOLEDs to Apple's iPhone 12

The Elec reports that Apple ordered around 55 million AMOLED panels for its iPhone 12 smartphone series, which will be announced later this year. LG Display will supply around around 20 million AMOLEDs - which is a big increase from the 5 million OLEDs LGD supplied for Apple's previous generation phones.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro photo

According to The Elec, LG will supply the panels for Apple's iPhone 12 Max (6.1"), while Samsung will supply all the panels for the iPhone 12 (5.4"), iPhone 12 Pro (6.1") and iPhone 12 Pro max (6.7").

Read the full story Posted: May 26,2020

LGD pushes back production at its Guangzhou OLED TV fab to Q3 2020

LG Display's original plan was to start producing OLED TV panels at its 8.5-Gen OLED fab in Guangzhou in October 2019, but the company faced technical issues, pushed back production to the end of January 2020 - but fixing these issues took longer than expected.

The CoronaVirus outbreak caused LGD further delays, and mass production was again delayed to 'early' Q2 2020. The latest news from Korea suggests that now LGD has pushed back production in the Guangzhou fab to Q3 2020. The cause of these delays, is again yield issues, slow engineering work due to the Coronavirus isolation - and lower demand in the market (which seems to suggest that LGD is not in a rush to begin production).

Read the full story Posted: May 21,2020

DSCC details the iPhone 12 screens and OLED suppliers

DSCC posted an interesting blog post, in which they detail what they believe to be Apple's iPhone 12 smartphone family specifications.

Apple iPhone 12 range - specs and OLED suppliers (DSCC May 2020)

So we start with the iPhone 12, which will use a 5.42" 2348x1048 (476 PPI) flexible AMOLED display, produced by Samsung Display. DSCC believes the iPhone 12 will use a Y-OCTA integrated touch. DSCC believes that while BOE did not manage to get its panel to the iPhone 12, it may become a supplier in 2021 to the iPhone 12s - if all goes well with the iPhone 12 Max (see below).

Read the full story Posted: May 21,2020

ePaper displays in 2020 - a market snapshot

Most people when they think about ePaper displays immediate think about E Ink. E Ink Holdings (EIH) has been indeed very successful in bringing its electrophoretic displays to the market, but the company is not alone - there are other display technologies and many companies that develop ePaper displays - including MIP LCDs, competing electrophoretic displays and Electrochromic displays.

E Ink and Innolux, 28'' color epaper display

Our sister site E-Ink-Info published an interesting article that details the current state of the ePaper market and its main players. Read it here!

Read the full story Posted: May 16,2020

eMagin reports its financial results for Q1 2020

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q1 2020. The company's revenues increased 10% from last year to reach $6.7 million, exceeding the company's prior expectations - primarily due to contract R&D from designing a direct patterning display for a Tier-One customer in the consumer space. eMagin also reports a slight increase in military R&D contracts.eMagin XGA096 OLED-XL photo

eMagin's operating loss in the quarter was $1.3 million. At March 31, 2020, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $3.1 million.

Read the full story Posted: May 16,2020

A Q&A with Dr. York Tsai, Wisechip's Vice President of R&D

WiseChip Semiconductor, based in Taiwan, is one of the world's leading PMOLED maker (in fact in 2015 Wisechip said it's the world's second largest). Wisechip is developing next-generation PMOLED displays, including flexible panels, transparent panels and Hyperfluorescence/TADF PMOLEDs.

Wisechip headquarters photo

WiseChip recently announced its first, and the world’s first, Hyperfluorescence display, using TADF materials provided by Kyulux. Can you tell some more about this display and its properties?

This 2.70 128x64 product is adopted mostly in industrial products. The size matters in such market but the main problem was to increase the brightness due to the limited efficiency of the fluorescence emitters. The Hyperfluorescence technology helps to settle the problem and can reach up 2.5 times brighter. It performs much better readability so users do not have to stand right in front of the device. This feature adds to the value of the end product.

Read the full story Posted: May 14,2020

Sony starts shipping its A8H OLED TVs

Sony started shipping its 2020 OLED TV range, the Bravia A8H. The 55" model's price is $2,299 while the 65" one is $3,299 - the TVs are now available on Amazon.com.

The A8H series is based on Google's Android smart TV platform and features support for Apple AirPlay 2 and Homekit and Amazon Alexa. The A8H features Sony's Acoustic Surface and the company's X1 Ultimate picture processor, Pixel Contrast Booster and X-Motion Clarity. The A8H supports Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision standards.

Read the full story Posted: May 13,2020