Japan-based printed OLED developer JOLED demonstrated several new OLED displays at Finetech Japan last week. We already posted on these new OLEDs, and now we have photos of the new panels.

So first up is JOLED's first OLED TV panel. The 55" 4K (3840x2160, 80 PPI) panel offers a 120Hz refresh rate and a color gamut of 100% DCI (135% sRGB) and is printed on JOLED's Transparent Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor (TAOS) backplane.

Apple recently launched its latest smartwatch - the Watch Series 4. It seems that at least some customers are complaining about a strong blue off-angle blue tint on the new OLED display. Some of these customers say that the tint is stronger compared to previous generation Watch devices - and also stronger than the tint on the iPhone X and LG OLED TVs.

It's not clear whether this is a real issue or not at this stage - we only have heard of a few customers complaining so far. But this is interesting as Apple has adopted its new LTPO backplane technology in the Watch 4, which could be responsible for the stronger tint (Is this the beginning of LTPO-gate?). All previous Watch devices used flexible AMOLED displays made by LG Display. We do not know yet whether LGD is still the exclusive supplier, or whether Apple added Samsung Display as its second source (or even exclusive).

As expected, Apple launched three new smartphones. The 2018-2019 lineup includes the OLED iPhone XS and XS Max and the iPhone XR which uses an LCD display.

The iPhone XS is the successor to the iPhone X - this phone sports a 5.8-inch 1125x2436 flexible notch-type AMOLED display (produced by Samsung Display), 4GB of RAM and 64/256/512 GB of storage.

IHS posted an interesting article which details a new backplane technology that Apple is developing. So-called Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide (LTPO) combines both LTPS TFTs and Oxide TFTs (IGZO, Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide). LTPO is applicable for both OLED and LCD displays.

In LTPO, the switching circuits are using LTPS while the driving TFTs will use IGZO materials. This could lead to a power saving of around 5-15% compared to the currently-used LTPS backplanes. The main drawback of LTPO, however, is that the IGZO TFTs are larger and so the display density may be compromised. IHS says that Apple may introduce this into future iPhones - but it also says that LTPO will be limited to low-density displays at first which is a bit confusing.

US-based Amorphyx develops amorphous-metals based display backplanes, which can be used to drive displays using quantum-tunneling. The company says that such backplanes will enable extremely fast conductivity and thus "unlimited" refresh rates.

Producing such backplanes is also said to be easy as it uses less layers compared to TFT backplanes, using its Amorphous Metal Non-Linear Resistor (AMNR) technology. AMNR backplanes are suitable for LCDs, OLEDs and e-paper displays. This is still an early-stage technology, but the company demonstrated some prototypes at SID and it will be interested to see if this technology can progress in future years.

Taiwan's AU Optronics (AUO) developed a 13-inch 100 PPI transparent OLED display, specifically for AR applications. This is a highly-transparent display - with 68% transmittance.

AUO 6" transparent OLED prototype (2011)

To achieve such high transparency, AUO optimized the TFT array layer stack, the OLED cathode pattern and the encapsulation. This is the first transparent OLED AUO has developed since 2011. It will discuss this new display at SID Display 2018 - and will hopefully demonstrate it as well.

US-based Solar-Tectic has launched a new low-temperature OLED backplane technology that could replace LTPS in future high-end mobile OLED displays and bridge the performance gap between IGZO and LTPS.

Solar-Tectic process, called LT1CS (Low temperature single crystal silicon) is a silicon based technology that creates highly oriented c-axis aligned or "textured" silicon crystals. Solar-Tectic says that the performance of LT1CS backplanes will be higher than IGZO performance. The company says that process is similar to SEL's CAAC-IGZO only based on silicon and not IGZO.

UK-based SmartKem is developing a new class of flexible high-mobility p-type semiconductor inks for flexible displays. The company recently made headlines as it started its commercialization phase and announces advances in its collaboration projects with OLED producers in Asia.

SmartKem's CEO and founder, Steve Kelly, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had on SmartKem's technology and business. Steve is an international business professional with more than 20 years’ experience specializing in technology ventures, particularly early stage. He has extensive experience in Intellectual Property exploitation, VC funding and launching new technology to market.

Q: Steve, thank you for your time and for this interview. Can you first give us an overview of SmartKem’s OTFT technology?

SmartKem’s organic thin film transistor (OTFT) backplanes are designed for both glass and flexible displays. They are compatible with electronic paper displays (EPD), liquid crystal displays (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies. Through our sophisticated modelling and simulation, they have sufficient driving capability for OLED and potentially, microOLED displays which offer increased contrast, response times and energy efficiency.

SmartKem announced that it has finalized an industrial grade 2.5-Gen (400x500 mm) process for the mass production of OTFT backplanes on glass or plastic. SmartKem achieved this step at its pilot line in the UK CPI and its own synthesis and formulation Technology Centre based at Hexagon Tower in Manchester. The approved process is now being transferred to its production partners in Asia. The OTFT backplanes can be used for LCD or OLED displays.

SmartKem's customer will integrate the new process in a pilot line for the manufacture of product prototypes and scaled display production. It is anticipated that the first display products manufactured through this collaboration will hit the Asian market within 12-18 months.

CSEM and Sefar developed low cost flexible, transparent, highly conductive electrodes made of fabric substrates comprising flexible metallic wires and polymeric fibers woven together in a highly transparent and flexible polymer. CSEM and Sefar produced an OLED lighting prototype that uses a backplane based on these new electrodes.

Sefar calls this new backplane a fabric SEFAR TCS Planar backplane. These backplanes are manufactured using low-cost, high-throughput processes under standard ambient clean room conditions. The OLED lighting device prototype was deposited using a coating technology and is made from polymer solution materials.