Guangzhou New Vision Optoelectronics (NVO) developed a flexible 4.8" AMOLED display. This full-color panel is only 100 microns thick and weighs just one gram. This panel uses an Ln-IZO backplane and a Polyimide substrate.

NVO developed their own Ln-IZO (Lithium-Niobate Indium-Zinc-Oxide) technology and they say that that it performs better than IGZO as it has higher electron mobility and stability and it is easier to process.

In February 2013 LG Chem unveiled their flexible OLED lighting panels, with plans to start producing them in July 2013 (they now aim to do so in September 2013, a slight delay). Those panels use a thin-glass substrate and a metal protective layer with LG Chem's Face-Seal encapsulation.

Today LG Chem announced that they developed new plastic-based (transparent polyimide) OLED lighting panels (shown in the photos above and below). These panels are more bendable (see photo above) than the current metal/glass ones, and LG Chem refers to them as "Plastic Film type Truly-Flexible OLED Panels". The company aims to mass produce these new panels in H1 2015. The new panels are even lighter than the current ones (which are only 0.33 mm thick and weigh under 8 grams).

LG Display unveiled a 5" plastic-based bendable flexible AMOLED panel at SID 2013. LG did not release any technical details. As far as we know this panel uses polyimide coated substrate and direct-emission RGB sub-pixels (as opposed to LG's OLED TV which use an WRGB technology - white OLEDs with color filters).

Earlier this month LG Electronics reiterated their plans to release a phone with a plastic based OLEDs by the end of 2013, and it seems that at SID the LG Display officials say this is still on track. LG Display is currently using their 4.5-Gen OLED fab in Paju to work on these flexible displays, which won't provide them with a a lot of capacity. LG Display may covert its 6.5-Gen LTPS line in Gumi to flexible OLED production, but that hasn't been decided yet.

Yoon Bu-hyun, LG Electronics's mobile business VP said that LG plans to launch a mobile phone that has an unbreakable flexible OLED display in Q4 2013. LG Display started working on these flexible OLEDs in late 2011 and they consider those displays to have a real value for the mobile solution (as opposed to glass based OLEDs which LG considers inferior to LCDs for mobile applications).

LG/UDC flexible OLED panel prototype

The last time we heard from LG Display regarding their flexible OLED was in January 2013. Back then the company said it was on track to start mass production of plastic based flexible OLEDs in H2 2013. The capacity will be "very limited" and they expect to be able to support just one or two customers. LG Display's flexible OLEDs will use polyimide coated substrate and direct-emission RGB sub-pixels (as opposed to LG's OLED TV which use white OLEDs with color filters).

The OLED Association posted an interesting article today in which they say that Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 3 phone (phablet?) will use a YOUM display (a plastic-based unbreakable flexible OLED). Samsung will unveil the new phone at IFA 2013 (September) and will launch it in Q4 2013.

Galaxy Note II

Samsung YOUM displays use a plastic (Polyimide) substrate, an LTPS backplane, direct-emission RGB patterned OLED sub pixels and thin-film encapsulation (using Vitex's multi-layer technology). It's not known yet what the size and resolution of this particular display, but the OLED-A estimates it will be at least 5.9" in size, but probably will not achieve Full-HD resolution. The Note 3 will also not use a curved display.

Samsung has officially launched their YOUM flexible OLED technology. While the YOUM brand was shown back in April 2012, it is now officially the name of Samsung's plastic-based flexible OLED panel products. The company didn't reveal any new technical details, nor did they say when they'll start shipping products based on those panels (or ship panels to other customers) - but it seems that they are getting closer and closer to mass production. Personally I think we'll still have to wait a year (at least) for them to overcome all technical issues with production.

While we don't have any interesting facts to tell here, we do have some cool videos - showing a bendable panel and also devices that use curved YOUM displays. One of those devices (shown below) has a 5" curved YOUM panel.

ETNews reports that Samsung decided to postpone its flexible OLED production to 2013, and will use those pilot lines to produce regular glass-based OLEDs. Samsung has to delay flexible OLEDs because of technical issues (low uniformity and slow encapsulation) - but also because they need more OLED capacity because of high demand for larger AMOLED displays.

Samsung Display can currently produce 56,000 5.5-Gen (1300x1500 mmm) glass substrates a month. The pilot lines used for flexible OLED development can produce 8,000 more substrates monthly, bringing the total to 64,000.

LG Display's CEO Han Sang-beom said that the company plans to start mass producing flexible OLED panels in the second half of 2013. He wouldn't say whether they got any orders for the next-gen flexible panels, but obviously there are speculations that Apple is behind those orders. It's probably unlikely as capacity at first isn't likely to be enough for Apple.

This actually marks an expediation of LG's flexible OLED plans. In January 2012 the company said that they will start constructing a new pilot line in Q3 2012, which will become active by the end of 2012 and the company will need 1-2 years to develop and verify the process before producing at mass volume. 

Samsung already announced that the Note 2 will be launched on August 29, and today they have released a short teaser video towards the event:

The video doesn't show much beside the stylus, and the saying that the new device will be "a small and light thing". Rumors on the web suggest that the Note 2 may be the first device with a flexible YOUM plastic-based AMOLED display.

There are reports suggesting that the upcoming Galaxy Note 2 will feautre a 5.5" YOUM flexible OLED panel. The display will not be bendable though. It will be based on a plastic (polymide) substrate and will be virtually unbreakable. It will also be thinner than current AMOLEDs by around 0.4 mm - which will enable Samsung to use a biggest battery.

We do know that Samsung has plans to launch flexible YOUM panels by the end of the 2012, I'm not sure if the first screen they'll produce will be a large 5.5" panel. In any case, we don't have a lot to wait - Samsung confirmed that the new Note will be announce on August 29.