Samsung Display announced that it is beginning to produce touch-enabled OLED displays for the laptop market. These panels will adopt the company's latest OCTA (on-cell touch) technology, and will support a 120Hz refresh rate and will offer a 3K resolution (the company did not detail the size).

Samsung says that the first laptops to adopt the new panels will be Samsung's own 2023 Galaxxy Book notebooks, but the panels will also be offered to other laptop makers.

As we reported a few days ago, The Korean government has officially designated five display technologies as "national strategic technologies", which gives tax breaks to display makers and developers.

The five display technologies include three specific display technologies - AMOLED, microLEDs and QD displays, in addition to deposition technologies materials and TFT equipment and materials. As strategic technologies, the government gives generous (30-50%, depending on the company size) tax credits for R&D and 8-16% tax credits for building production lines for materials, equipment or displays. The government is also considering increasing the tax credits for production lines up to 25%.

Korea-based ETNews reports that Apple has finally committed to adopt OLED displays in future tablets and laptops, and the company has signed a contact with a "local OLED developer" (which means either Samsung Display or LG Dispaly) to develop four different OLED displays.

According to the report, Apple decided to adopt a 10.86" and 12.9" AMOLED displays for future iPad devices, and 14" and 16" displays for future MacBooks. The first OLED iPad will be released in 2024, while the first OLED MacBook will come later in 2026.

According to reports, Samsung Display has appealed to the US FTC asking to ban aftermarket and refurbished AMOLED displays from entering the US.

Today it is possible to repair a smartphone display and replace the screen - and there are companies (mostly independent outlets) that offer lower cost displays - which could refurbished ones, aftermarket imports - or even lower cost alternatives produced by other makers. If the FTC approves Samsung's request, these will not be available anymore, and only original Samsung AMOLED displays will be allowed.

Samsung has demonstrated new AMOLED display panels that offer a lower blue-light emission compared to its current low-blue-light AMOLEDs. Samsung says that the new display reduces blue light emission by 70% compared to 'conventional' displays (which probably means LCD displays, not standard AMOLEDs).

Samsung brands these new displays as Gen-2 LBL (low-blue-light) AMOLEDs, and says that the lower blue light emission was achieved by a combination of the latest OLED emitter materials and advanced AI software. Samsung is mostly targeting laptop displays, saying that the new Gen-2 LBL displays can achieve a brightness of up to 2,000 nits. Samsung will start producing Gen-2 LBL AMOLEDs by the end of 2023.

This is a sponsored post by Amorphyx, where display industry consultant Ian Hendy has interviewed Amorphyx's CEO John Brewer

Q: Can you start by telling us a little about what Amorphyx does, John?

Amorphyx has several fundamentally new technology platforms that provide for TFT performance improvements in three areas: (1) Switching speeds, with options to move to the Tera-Hz range ultimately, (2) Power, where the IGZO AMeTFT can achieve even lower power performance than today’s LTPO OLED Pro Motion displays and better refresh range, and (3) Small transistor size.

Our technology platforms are lower cost than the alternatives, and move from amorphous and crystalline semiconductor approaches, to devices based on different effects that do not have a semiconductor at all, yet can still drive a display, drive current, deliver grey scale and switch very fast. Or they can operate a flex IC at higher clock speeds than known today.

For now, our main commercial focus is on IGZO AMeTFT which is fundamentally a potential replacement transistor for LTPS or LTPO used in modern OLED phones and has the capability to replace more highly compensated LTPO circuits in modern Smartphone displays due to enhanced stability.

Omdia posted an interesting market analysis, saying that Samsung Display is looking to increase its OLED TV market share, and will push QD-OLED TV shipments strong in 2023. SDC will increase shipments by 141% in 2023, and will continue to increase production.

Samsung's production increase will be met by an increased number of suppliers - not just Samsung and Sony as in 2022, but other companies will start offering QD-OLED TVs (Philips, TCL and Sharp).

Samsung Display is showing a new OLED smartphone display, that achieves a brightness of 2,000 nits and an improved dynamic range. Samsung brands this as a UDR 2000 display.

The new OLED display was verified by UL (Underwriter Laboratories), an independent testing and validation firm, for the UDR 2000 certification. Samsung's AMOLED have already achieved 2,000 nits (for example in the iPhone 14 Pro screen), but this new display offers a higher dynamic range.

Update: TCL says it issued that statement by mistake, and it has no current plans to ship a QD-OLED TV in 2023

TCL announced that it is set to launch its first QD-OLED TV in the coming months. If all goes according to plan, TCL will be the third company (following Samsung and Sony) to offer QD-OLED TVs.

That's the only information we have so far. The TV will likely be offered in 55-inch, 65-inch and/or 77-inch sizes (the available QD-OLED panels today) with a 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 144Hz. That's the current QD-OLED standard.

As was reported two days ago, Samsung is showing a new AMOLED display at CES 2023, that is both foldable and rollable.

The so-called Flex Hybrid OLED opens up from 8-inch when closed, to 10.5" when opened - and 12.4" when fully rolled up.