Japan Display aims to start eLEAP laptop OLED production by 2025

Japan Display (JDI) plans to start producing medium-sized OLED displays, to be used in tablets and laptops. The company hopes to start producing the first panels (which will be around 14-inch in size) by 2025.

Asus ZenBook 17 Fold OLED photo

Asus ZenBook 17 Fold OLED (BOE panel)

Up until now, JDI focused on the production of wearable OLED displays, selling its panels for Apple's smartwatches since 2019. The company's production volume was limited, and so was its technology capabilities to increase production panel sizes. It will be interesting to see whether JDI hopes to also supply its future laptop/tablet panels to Apple.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 18,2023

Apple cancels BOE's iPhone 15 panel orders, orders more displays from Samsung

In March 2023 we reported that BOE is developing smartphone OLED displays for Apple's iPhone 15 range, but it is facing technical hurdles, and Apple has yet to approve BOE's displays (the main problem seemed to be around the punch-hole and selfie camera and FaceID sensors).

Apple iPhone 14 photo

Today Korean media says that Apple decided to cancel all of BOE's iPhone 15 display panel orders, and has moved all these orders to Samsung Display. Meanwhile LG Display has been approved as a supplier to only some of the iPhone models (specifically not the iPhone 15 Pro Max phone), and Samsung Display remains the only company that provides the displays for all of the iPhone 15 models.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 12,2023

Apple may use an MLA AMOLED display in future iPhone devices

According to reports from Korea, both Samsung Display and LG Display have approached Apple, offering to produce MLA (Multi-Lens Array) AMOLED displays for a future iPhone device. Applying the MLA panel will increase the light output, but will carry higher costs and may also reduce the viewing angles (or actually reduce the side-view brightness).

Apple iPhone 13 photo

It is not clear what kind of effect will MLA offer in Apple's case. When LG applied MLA to its TV panels, the company says it improved the brightness by 60% (it also stated that viewing angles actually increased by 30%). Apple will not be the first one to apple MLA to smartphone displays - Samsung itself adopted MLA panels in some of its high-end models (Galaxy S Ultra phones) and so did some other vendors.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 03,2023

Apple aims to adopt lower-cost OLED microdisplays at future Vision Pro products, in talks with BOE and Seeya

Apple first VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro, adopts dual 1.3" 4K OLED microdisplays made by Sony. According to reports, Apple is looking to replace Sony as its supplier and is testing displays made by Seeya and BOE. Apple seems to be aiming to adopt these in its next-gen Vision Pro model - and also in a future low-cost mixed-reality headset.

Apple Vision Pro

Sony officially launched its 1.3" 4K OLED displays last week, with an official price of $1,000 per unit. Some reports suggest that Apple is paying $350 per display - which is still very expensive, as the two OLED displays cost almost half of the total production cost of the Vision Pro (estimated at $1,500).

Read the full story Posted: Aug 30,2023

Sony officially launches its 1.3 4K OLED microdisplay product

Back in 2021, Sony unveiled a 4K OLED microdisplay prototype. In June Apple announced the Vision Pro headset, which uses two Sony-made 1.3" 4K (3,552 × 3,840) OLED microdisplay, made by Sony. And today Sony finally officially introduced its ECX344A display, targeting VR and AR devices.

Sony says that in order to develop the new display it developed new miniaturization processes as well as a new pixel drive circuits and a high-speed driver circuit. Sony says that the display will ship by the end of 2023 and its price is set at 150,000 Yen, or just over $1,000 USD (it is estimated that Apple pays around $350 for each panel).

Read the full story Posted: Aug 24,2023

Samsung advances towards its under-display-camera solution and a bezel-less OLED display

During a trade show, Samsung Display discussed its zero-border, or full-screen OLED technology. Samsung is developing several technologies to enable this kind of display - including 3D bonding, edge brightness control, and an under-the-display camera (Samsung calls its UPC, under-panel-camera). 

Placing the camera under the OLED is a critical part of this solution, and Samsung said that it is developing the technology to enable this - including an increase of 50% in the light transmission of its OLED displays and a new sub-pixel structure that improves the display quality.

Read the full story Posted: Aug 21,2023

LGD reports its financial results for Q2 2023, is on track in its 6-Gen line, but delays plans for an 8-Gen laptop OLED line

LG Display reported its financial results for Q2 2023, with revenues of 4.74 trillion Won ($3.7 billion USD) - up 7% from last quarter, and an operating loss of 881 billion Won ($690 million USD). LGD says that demand for display panels increased during the quarter.

LGD is on track to begin mass production of medium-sized panels in the first half of 2024, building a new 6-Gen production line, that is reportedly aimed to supply for Apple's iPad Pro, the first Apple tablet to sport an AMOLED display.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 27,2023

Samsung and LG are developing bezel-less smartphone OLED displays for Apple

According to a report from Korea, Apple approached both LG Display and Samsung Display, asking its suppliers to develop a completely bezel-less AMOLED display for future iPhones.

Apple iPhone 13 photo

Designing an OLED without a bezel is a challenge, mostly because of the encapsulation layer that has to protect the OLEDs. Using an under-the-display camera is also said to be a problem for the OLED makers in such a design.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 27,2023

Omdia: the OLED market by area will grow to over 30 million sqm in 2030

Market research firm Omdia says that according to its latest forecast, the OLED market will grow at a CAGR of 11% from 2022 to 2030, by total display production area.

The main OLED application is smartphone displays, and Omdia says that in 2022 the penetration of OLED displays into that market reached 42%. The market share of OLED smartphones will rise steadily in the future. The OLED TV market is experiencing a slowdown, but Omdia says it will resume growth in 2024.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 27,2023

New laser repair system developed to fix AMOLED smartphone screen defects

An interesting video review shows a new repair system, based on lasers, that can fix defects in smartphone AMOLED displays. The system uses optical microscopy to find defects in operating OLED displays, and then a laser is used to fix the problems:

Such systems can be useful, but of course won't be able to fix all problems and defects in AMOLED displays, only ones that were caused by physical problems in conductive lines in the OLED module, that can be fixed by lasers. It will be interesting to see if these machines will truly find a place in the OLED repair aftermarket scene.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 26,2023