September 2020

Researchers at Universal Display, developed an OLED device with plasmonic decay rate enhancement that dramatically increase device stability. By including a nanoparticle-based out-coupling scheme to extract energy from the plasmon mode, the researchers managed to maintain the device efficiency.

The device used an archetypal phosphorescent emitter to achieve a two-fold increase in functional stability at the same brightness as a reference conventional OLED device and extracted 16% of the energy from the plasmon mode as light.

DSCC says that the foldable/rollable smartphone market will be one of the fastest growing consumer electronics market - and sales of such smartphones will grow to $105 billion by 2025, in a CAGR of 80%.

The display area used in such devices will grow a 93% CAGR, to reach 1.2 million square meters by 2025. In terms of units, 74.4 million rollable/foldable smartphones will ship in 2025.

In March 2014 Konica Minolta announced that it is starting to construct a R2R flexible OLED lighting fab, hoping to start production in the fall of 2014. This fab entered production later than planned, and took a long time to reach real mass production capabilities. KM has been producing panels for quite some time, but finally it is offering its panels to global customers.

Konica Minolta is currently offering four different modules - two white panels, sized 43x15 mm and 15x15 mm and a red 15x15 mm panel. The red panel can be integrated with an NFC Antenna. The panels can be flexed (40mm radius) and they all offer a brightness of 500 nits.

Notion Systems and M.Braun announced a strategic partnership in OLED processing equipment. The two companies will combine their best-in-class OLED production technology to improve the production process offers and enhance market access in Asia.

M.Braun is a developer of glove boxes, inert gas purification and automation solutions while Notion Systems is a leading developer of industrial inkjet-printing systems for functional materials, and both companies already enjoy the growing demand of OLED manufacturing in Asia.

BOE says that its current flexible OLED market share is around 20%. The company says that it plans to increase its market share to 40% by 2024 - and become the world's leader in flexible OLED production by then. BOE estimates that the flexible OLED market will generate $49.7 billion in revenues in 2024.

Earlier this month BOE announced that it shipped 16 million flexible OLEDs in the first half of 2020, and the company expects to ship over 40 million panels in the whole of 2020. BOE main problems currently lie with its Huawei account - the Chinese smartphone maker is expected to producing only 50 million smartphones in 2021 - down from 190 million in 2020. BOE hopes to recoup some of its Huawei orders by becoming an OLED supplier to Apple.

Hyundai unveiled a new Ioniq EV concept cabin, which includes several new technology. The new cabin design was made in collaboration with LG Electronics, and includes a 77-inch curved OLED display on the ceiling.

The new cabin also includes other innovative technologies, such as automatic shoe cleaning and cloth cleaning - and even includes a floor cleaning robot.

The OLED Association reports that Kaneka is seeing a market for OLED lighting panels in manufacturing sites, for visual inspection. The company is currently marketing such solutions in Japan, and the company says that OLED lighting can help detect defects on surface of parts, and it helps to lessen the burden on inspector eyes.

Kaneka says that it has seen defects reduced by 50% by using an OLED system instead of an LED system - at a brightness that is only 10% compared to the brightness of the LED system. It is seeing success in this market and the company's Q2 2020 panel output volume (at its OLED Aomori subsidiary) was up 10X compared to Q2 2019. The company is producing 3.54x3.54 inch OLEDs for this market.

This is a sponsored article by Park Systems

AFM equipment pioneer Park Systems announced the final call for abstract for the upcoming Virtual NanoScientific Symposium for a Changing World (NSCW), which will be a live, interactive virtual event held on Oct. 14-15, 2020 NSCW focuses on the field of nanometrology.

Attendees who wish to demonstrate their work in the form of an oral or poster presentation can send their abstracts until Sept. 30, 2020. Each accepted abstract will receive $100 and prizes totaling $5,000 will be awarded in several categories.

In July 2020 LG Electronics announced that it aims to be the first company to introduce a rollable OLED smartphone - as early as the beginning of 2021.

LG seems to be progressing in this project, and the company released this teaser that shows what could be the next Explorer Project smartphone - and the one with the rollable OLED as the video shows a sliding-extending design.

In October 2019 Samsung Display formally announced its decision to invest $10.85 billion in QD-OLED TV R&D and production lines. The company is already starting to produce prototypes, and is on track to start mass production in Q3 2021.

But SDC is facing a problem it probably did not anticipate - Samsung Electronics is hesitant about the adoption of QD-OLED panels, and may not ship QD-OLEDs in 2021 - or maybe even at all. Apparently Samsung Electronics wants to focus on microLEDs for next-generation displays as it finds QD-OLED TVs to be not bright enough - and also because it suffers from burn-in issues.