June 2021

Omdia says that according to its estimates, LG Display will produce 8.3 million OLED TVs in 2021, a 86% increase from 2020 (4.5 million units). The company increased its estimates slightly (previously Omdia said that in 2021 LGD will produce 8.1 million panels).

LG Display's own target for 2021 is 8 million units. Demand for premium TVs is on the increase, and LG Display increased its production capacity, mostly at its Guangzhou line. LG Display's production of 48-inch and 42-inch panels may also decrease its average panel size which may increase total unit shipments.

DSCC says that smartphone OLED shipments have increased around 50% in Q1 2021 compared to last year, and the growth will continue - around 30% in Q2 2021 and over 40% in Q3.

The market share of flexible AMOLEDs out of all OLEDs (rigid + flexible) continues to rise, and in Q1 2021 77% of all smartphone OLED displays were flexible ones. Samsung is still the largest producer by far, holding a 75% market share in Q1 2021. LG Display holds a 8% share and BOE 6%.

Researchers from the University of Michigan developed a new electrode design for OLED devices, that can increase light output by up to 20% compared to current electrodes. The new electrode is compatible with current production processes.

The new design helps to minimize the waveguiding effect, which traps around 80% of the light produced by the OLED emitters. The researchers used a modal elimination approach, which involves optimizing the organic stack and the replacing the ITO anode with a thin film of silver deposited on a layer of copper. This kind of approach can be applied to other light emitting structures such as inorganic LEDs, perovskite LEDs, quantum dots and more.

Kopin Corporation announced it has produced a new 1" SXGA (1280x1024) green OLED microdisplay, that offers 35,000 nits of brightness. Kopin says that this display is the world's brightest OLED developed to date.

The display, which is still in development, uses Kopin's duo-stack OLED structure and a unique patent-pending pixel structure and backplane architecture for super-high dynamic range operation (14 bits).

Earlier this year OLED driver IC developer MagnaChip announced that it is being acquired by China-based Wise Road Capital, for $1.4 billion. A few days ago, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) issued an interim order that blocks the deal.

This is just an interim order, but according to reports it is unlikely that the US and Korea will allow the deal to go through, at least in its preset form. The US is expanding its fight against Chinese companies acquiring technologies. Korea is also worried as MagnaChip's OLED drivers are seen to be strategic to the country's OLED industry.

Flexible OLED producer Royole announced a new development kit, called the Royole RoKit, an open platform for designers to develop products based on flexible electronics. The RoKit is now shipping in the US, Europe, Japan and China.

The RoKit includes a 7.8" 1440x1920 60Hz flexible OLED display with touch input (Cicada Wing foldable OLED), Royole's fully-flexible sensor module, an Android 10 motherboard that includes HDMI to MIPI, Wi-Fi, USB and more and more accessories.

In 2021, LG Display started shipping a new 83-inch 4K OLED TV panel, and LG Electronics is now shipping the 83-inch OLED C1 in the US and Korea. The 83-inch C1 is now shipping $5,999. The 48-inch C1 model costs $1,399.

The 2021 C1 OLED TV range features LG's 4th generation a9 AI processor, the company's latest webOS v6 and supports HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos. For gamers, the TVs offer HDMI 2.1, G-SYNC, FreSync, VRR and ALLM.

Market research company Omdia says that flexible OLED shipments in Q2 2021 reach 57 million units,a 54.1% increase over Q2 2020 (but a 35% drop compared to Q1 2021, due to seasonality and lower orders by Apple). Rigid OLED shipments will reach 53 million units in Q2 2021.

The leading flexible OLED maker is Samsung Display, which will ship 39.1 million flexible OLED panels in Q2 2021 (a 61.6% increase over Q1 2020). LG Display will ship 10.6 million units of flexible OLEDs, an increase of 55.9% over last year. The third largest producer, BOE, will ship 7.9 million units, a 31.9% drop from last year, as orders Huawei are shrinking.

Inkjet system developer Notion Systems announced that investment company RSBG Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (RSBG AMT) has acquired 75.1% of Notion Systems.

RSBG competed against other interested parties, and it says Notion System has attractive growth prospects and a market-leading product range.

OLED lighting developer OLEDWorks announced that was awarded with a new US federal SBIR grant to develop OLED technologies.

Under this new project, OLEDWorks will develop new OLED automotive taillights composed of multiple stacked layers of red and white OLEDs. This technology can also be applied to indoor lighting to provide greater efficiency, a broader intensity range, and the ability to communicate safety information.