Direct emission

OLED microdisplay developer Seeya Information Technology has ordered OLED deposition (evaporation) equipment from Korea's Sunic System, in a deal worth $25.15 million.

Sunic Systems will provide Seeya with 12-inch (300 mm) OLED deposition tools. Sunic is developing direct-patterning deposition equipment, but it is not clear whether this order is for such tools or whether these will be the standard white OLED with color filter deposition.

eMagin announced that it developed (and demonstrated) a 15,000 nits WUXGA (1920x1200) full-color OLED microdisplay, setting a new world record (surpassing eMagin's own 10,000 nits record from 2021).

This new microdisplay was deposited using the company's direct-patterning (dPd) technology, which means that there are no color filters. This is a single-stack device, and eMagin says that in the future it could use a tandem architecture to improve the performance further.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its preliminary financial results for Q4 2022 - the company expects revenues to be in the range of $8.1-8.3 million, up from $7.2 million in Q4 2021. The company says this was a positive quarter with strong bookings. The company's open order backlog at the end of 2022 was $16.7 million.

eMagin says that this was its fifth consecutive quarter in which it achieved year-over-year growth in product revenue. The company was cashflow positive in the quarter and now has $4.2 million in cash and equivalents. eMagin expects the delivery of an advanced, production-capable, dPd organic deposition tool in the second quarter of 2023.

In 2021 The Korean government launched a new project that aims to develop technologies for the production of OLED microdisplays for AR applications. The project is led by AP Systems (APS Holdings), and aims to produce a direct emission OLED microdisplay with a resolution of 4,000 PPI by 2024. Earlier this year APS developed FMM masks that reached 1,000 PPI.

APS now announced that it has produced a 3,000 PPI direct-emission OLED microdisplay, based on its FMM technology. This is very impressive progress.

Reports from Korea suggest that Meta (Facebook) is in talks with both Samsung Display and LG Display, regarding the supply of OLED microdisplays and microLED microdisplays for its future AR and VR glasses.

According to the reports, dozens of executives from Meta have met with executives from LG Display and Samsung Display, and the discussions are still ongoing. According to other reports, Meta plans to use OLED displays in its upcoming VR glasses, and MicroLEDs in AR glasses that will hit the market at around 2026.

KT&T, established in 2020 as a spin-off from INT Tech with an investment of $143 million, has developed an OLED microdisplay that achieved a brightness of 12,000 nits, which is the highest brightness OLED microdisplay ever developed.

The new panel is based on KT&T's own uNEEDXR technology, which is a direct-emission (no color filters) design. The display achieves very high brightness and high efficiency.

Samsung Display has recently launched an OLED microdisplay project, hoping to supply displays to Apple and other AR developers. Samsung is still at an early stage of development, aiming to start producing displays by 2024, with limited capacity.

SDC's first generation displays will adopt a WOLED-CF architecture, which uses a white OLED emission layer with color filters. This is the same design used by almost all OLED microdisplay developers, but one that seriously reduces the brightness and efficiency of the display.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q2 2022, with revenues of $7.2 million (up 14% from Q2 2021). The company's net loss was $1.4 million. At the end of the quarter, eMagin had $4.3 million in cash and equivalents. The company's backlog is $14.3 million.

eMagin says that it achieved increased sales of displays in both the defense sector (mainly the ENVG-B program) and also to the veterinary and surgical markets.

According to SNU Precision's web site, the company is set to release a new tool that will enable the deposition of direct-emission OLED materials on silicon wafers for microdisplay panels.

SNU Precision says that the new tool will support both R&D settings and mass production, with support for 200 mm and 300 wafers. The tool will launch "soon" but SNU does not give more details.

OLEDON says that it has developed a new curved plane-source evaporation shadow mask process that can be used for OLED microdisplay fabrication, with a potential density of 10,000 PPI (minimum shadow distance of 0.18um). Using this technology it will be possible to create direct-emission microdisplays.

In the video above, you can see the lecture OLEDON's CEO gave last month at iMID 2021, that explains the new technology.