Following Foxconn's $3.5 billion Sharp Takeover, it was reported that Foxconn aims to invest a total of $1.8 billion in OLED technologies, as Foxconn aims to become an OLED supplier to Apple. In June 2016 Foxconn's president said that the company aims to start mass producing OLEDs as early as 2017.

As we estimated, this was overly optimistic, and it is now reported that Sharp is considering to revise its OLED investment plan, and produce those OLEDs in a Saki Display Product fab in Osaka and not in Sharp's fab in Kameyama. This move will delay production, and Sharp will not be able to start producing OLEDs even in 2018.

After years of OLED R&D but no actual reports, Taiwan's Innolux is finally demonstrating its new OLED prototypes, signalling that the company is finally about to re-enter the OLED market. Innolux says that it has recently "achieved success with AMOLED technology" and now plans to continue development and ultimately mass produce AMOLED panels.

In a trade-show in Taiwan, Innolux is demonstrating several OLED prototypes. First up we have a 5.5" WQHD (2560x1440, 534 PPI) flexible AMOLED built on a plastic substrate and an LTPS backplane. The panel has a "proprietary pixel rendering methods" (perhaps PenTile like?) and uses thin-film encapsulation and is produced using an FMM mask (more on this below).

Foxconn's $3.5 billion Sharp Takeover is underway and several reports suggested that Foxconn aims to invest a total of $1.8 billion in OLED technologies, as Foxconn aims to become an OLED supplier to Apple.

Most analysts estimated that Sharp won't be able to start producing OLEDs until at least 2018, but Foxconn's Chairman Terry Gou now says that Sharp aims to start shipping OLEDs as early as 2017.

A few weeks after Sharp agreed to sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) for $3.5 billion, the Taiwanese company is starting to integrate Sharp's display business with Innolux, Foxconn Taiwanese display arm.

Innolux AMOLED prototype, 2012

Today we hear a report from Taiwan that Innolux's chairman Tuan Hsing-chien has resigned from his roles at Innolux, and will head to Sharp to help integrate the two display makers. Tuan will help Sharp and Innolux focus on IGZO backplanes and OLED diisplays - aiming to enhance the competitiveness of Sharp's LCD business - and find opportunities for cooperation between the two companies.

Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has signed a technology development agreement with Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) regarding the development of Oxide-semiconductor backplane technology for next-generation displays, including OLED displays.

SEL's backplane technology is called c-axis aligned crystal (CAAC), which has been co-developed with Sharp. CAAC is based on an IGZO thin-film that has a novel crystal structure.

Report from Japan say that Sharp developed a new 3.4" bendable OLED prototype. The AMOLED display features a resolution of 540x960 (326 PPI), it has an aperture ratio of 57% and a thickness of 70um. The bending radius is 10mm, and the whole panel weighs 2 grams. The backplane is IGZO.

While this is reported as news, this panel seems to be quite similar to OLEDs Sharp unveiled at SID 2012 (yes, almost four years ago!). According to the reports, Sharp says that the display has a long lifetime and is "color shift free", as a result of newly developed tandem structure.

Last week Sharp agreed to sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) for $3.5 billion. According to Digitimes Research, Foxconn and Sharp's post-acquisition focus will be on OLEDs, and out of the total investment $1.8 billion will be allocated for OLED technology.

Foxconn aims to start producing IGZO-based OLEDs for smartphones in 2018 (probably they aim to become Apple's 2nd OLED supplier) and then to start developing larger OLEDs too. Digitimes layers our Foxconn's plans - 3 million tablet/notebook panels in 2021 and 10.4 million panels in 2025. In 2021 Foxconn will also start producing OLED TV panels - 252,000 panels in 2021 and 7.2 million panels in 2025.

A few weeks ago Sharp agreed to sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) for $5.8 billion - but following new disclosed liabilities of around $2.7 billion the deal was canceled, and today the two companies announced a new, in which Foxconn will pay $3.5 billion.

This is the largest acquisition ever by a foreign company in a Japanese tech company and it ends the independence of a 100-year-old company. Foxconn also received an option to increase its stake in Sharp in 2017.

ETNews says that Apple chose Samsung Display as the company's primary OLED supplier, and the two companies signed an official contract. Flexible OLED supply for Apple's next iPhone will begin in 2017.

ETNews further claims that other display makers are fighting to become Apple's second OLED supplier. There's a high chance that LG Display will be chosen, but the company has not yet been able to secure enough production capacity. Sharp/Foxconn and Japan Display are competing with LGD for Apple's OLED business.

The OLED Association posted an interesting story detailing their forecasts for the OLED market's growth between 2014 and 2018. In the bottom line, the OLED-A expects the OLED market to grow at a CAGR of 22% in that period. Capacity will grow from 1 million sqm in 2009 to 6.8 million sqm by the end of 2018.

The small/medium non-flexible OLED segment is seen as stagnating in 2016, with a relatively modest growth starting in 2017. Overall growth will be 7% CAGR in 2014-2018 as many small players will grow their capacity (but will not reach large volumes) or enter the market and it seems that SDC will not increase production by much. In 2018 nine companies will produce small-sized rigid OLEDs, led by Samsung (62%), JDI (8.8%), AUO (8.3%) and LGD (5.4%).