OLED is an emerging display technology that is fast becoming the mainstream display technology in many markets, as OLED enables display panels that offer the best image quality and free design as they can be made flexible and transparent. The Samsung OLED displays are considered to be the best in the industry and the Korean company is the clear lead in AMOLED production for mobile devices.
Over the pay years Samsung invested billions of dollars in OLED research and production facilities as the company sees OLEDs fast replacing LCD displays in all mobile applications.
Samsung is currently producing over 300 million AMOLED displays in a year, used mostly in smartphones - such as Samsung's own Galaxy S7 (and S7 edge ) - but also in smartphones from Gionee, Meizu, Acer, HP, Vivo, Microsoft, Lenovo, ZTE, Hisense, Konka and others. Samsung also produces large mobile OLEDs for tablets, laptops and monitors.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge
In August 2013 Samsung launched the company's first OLED TV, the KN55S9C, which used a curved 55" OLED panel. The TV was priced at around $8999 in the US and Korea, but is no longer in production, and was never in real mass production. Samsung has yet to return to OLED TV production.
Following its initial flexible OLED production launch in 2013, and the huge success of its edge-type phones, Samsung is currently producing around 9 million flexible OLEDs each month to satisfy demand for the Galaxy S7 edge and its other flexible OLED products. Samsung has reportedly been chosen to supply 100 million flexible OLED panels to Apple's future iPhones.
Samsung is developing several next generation display technologies based on OLEDs. Samsung has been developing a foldable OLED device for a long time - which may dramatically change the mobile device market as it could enable smartphone to turn into tablets or phones that can be folded into smaller devices.
Samsung is also developing transparent OLEDs (see the company's 55" FHD transparent and mirror-type OLEDs here) for retail application, and also readies next generation displays for the automotive industry.
Several years ago Samsung released the following video, showing a concept transparent flexible AMOLED tablet device. It will be years before Samsung can commercialize such a display, but it's nice to see what the future holds:
Latest Samsung OLED news
Samsung has published a video showing how 12 hours of gaming effects different TV technologies. Samsung compare's it's own Q-LED (quantum-dots enhanced LED LCD TV) with LG's OLED TVs (the 2017 OLEDB7).
The video shows that following the extensive gaming run, Samsung's TV shows no image retention (burn-in), while some problems are clearly visible on LG's TV.
Samsung Electronics released its preliminary Q3 2017 financial results. Operation profits rose 15% from last quarter to reach 14.5 trillion Won (around $12.8 billion USD). Samsung's memory business enjoyed strong pricing, and while the company did not detail its smartphone sales breakdown, it said earlier that initial pre orders for the Galaxy Note 8 were the highest ever for any Note device.
Samsung Display had a disappointing quarter - with profit falling 53% over last quarter. LCD panel pricing was lower in the quarter, and OLED sales were lower than expected due to delayed shipments of its flexible OLEDs to Apple.
A report from Korea suggests that Samsung is accelerating its effort to develop a Micro-LED based TV. The company is currently focused entirely on QD-LEDs for its premium TVs but is looking for alternative technologies as it fails to increase its market share in this segment.
Samsung is said to be looking at several alternatives - one of which is to acquire Taiwan-based PlayNitride - a deal that was first reported on OLED-Info in April 2017. Samsung aims to first use micro-LED technologies for its cinema LED screens, and then apply it to home-based TVs as well.
Market research company DSCC has updated their OLED models, as the company sees more capital spending then before and a larger OLED market going forward.
The OLED market in general will grow 57% in 2017, according to DSCC, to reach $23.2 billion. Growth will continue to be strong with a 50% increase in 2018 (to $34.9 billion) and a CAGR of 27% from 2016 to 2022. In 2022 the market will surpass $60 billion.
Google announced its 2nd-generation own-brand smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. The Pixel 2, produced by HTC, sports a 5-inch FHD (441 PPI) AMOLED display (made by SDC), a Snapdragon 835 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64/128 GB of storage and a 12 MP camera.
The Pixel 2 XL, manufactured by LG, has similar features, but with a larger 6" QHD+ (537 PPI) OLED display. This screen is a flexible P-OLED produced by LG Display.
Samsung has been developing foldable display technologies for many years, and it seems that a foldable phone/tablet is always just around the corner. Samsung is getting closer to a commercial release, though, and earlier this month Samsung's Mobile Business group President says that it hopes to have a foldable phone in the market in 2018.
One of the interesting questions is what kind of device will Samsung launch? In 2016 we heard that Samsung is developing two basic device types - a phone that turns into a tablet and a phone that turns into a smartwatch. The focus currently seems to be on a phone/tablet device. But will it be out-foldable or in-foldable?
Our display supplier in China has just received a large quantity of 4.95" 960x544 (222 PPI) AMOLED displays, produced by 2011 in Samsung. These AMOLEDs are now offered at around half of their regular price.
The supplier has over 100,000 units - and this may be a great opportunity to get these panels at a low cost - contact us for more details. These 4.95" AMOLED displays 3-wire SPI and MIPI DSI interfaces, a size of 116.54 x 73.92 mm (active area 109.44 x 62.02 mm) and a thickness of 1.6 mm. You can find more information over at the OLED Marketplace.
A few days ago, Cynora hosted the 2017 International TADF Symposium in Frankfurt, Germany. Cynora reports that about 150 attendees from all over the world listened to experts from the industry and academia and were updated on the latest news regarding TADF OLED emitters.
Cynora itself showed an update on its latest blue emitter. The company now has material that features a CIEy of 0.18 (target - 0.1), EQE of 14% (target 15%) and a lifetime of 10 hours LT97 at 700 nits (target is over 100 hours). Cynora says that development is progressing well and it is confident it will reach its target material performance by the end of the year.
Cynora announced that it finalized its Series-B funding round. Both Samsung (via Samsung Ventures) and LG Display participated in this round which totaled €25 million. Both LGD and samsung will also establish separate joint development efforts to assist in advancing Cynora's R&D.
Cynora did not disclose how much did each company invest, although earlier reports suggested that LG invested €15 million while Samsung invested €10 million.
Samsung has been developing foldable display technologies for many years, and it seems that a foldable phone/tablet is always just around the corner. At a recent press event, Samsung Electronics' Mobile Business group President Koh Dong-Jin updated on the company's foldable smartphone plans.
Foldable OLED concept (2013)
According to Mr. Dong-Jin, Samsung Electronics hopes to release a phone with a bendable display in 2018. However Samsung still faces some technical challenges to overcome so this is still not a hard set target.
