Sharp announced that it will sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn, in a deal worth $5.8 billion - but since then new material information has emerged and the deal has been put on hold. According to reports, Sharp disclosed new liabilities of around $2.7 billion. Foxconn and Sharp are still negotiating.

Foxconn aims to buy Sharp to boost its product offerings to Apple - and will make Foxconn Apple's main contract manufacturer and component supplier. Sharp is a leader in IGZO-based LCD production, and is also developing OLED technologies, although the display maker has no immediate plans to start producing AMOLED panels.

Sharp announced a new 5.5" 4K IGZO LCD display (2160x3840) - that is the world's highest density display at 806 PPI (!). This takes the crowd from the previous record setting display - SDC's 5.1" QHD (577 PPI) Super AMOLED.

While it's a bit debatable whether we need such high-density displays in our mobile phones, it seems this race won't stop soon. Samsung is also reportedly working on a 4K panel for the Galaxy Note 5, for example (rumors suggest this will be a 5.9" 4K panel). Some other reports say that Samsung is also developing a 5" 4K panel (which will reach 860PPI).

In January 2014, Sharp unveiled 7" WXGA MEMS-based displays, promising to release them within six months. Last week during the SID conference, Sharp unveiled new prototypes, saying that they will start shipping those displays in Q4 2014 (yes, still half a year away).

Sharp's display use an IGZO backplane and MEMS technology developed by Pixtronix (a subsidiary of Qualcomm). The 7" 1280x800 panels offer a color depth of 24 bits and a 122% NTSC color gamut. Sharp says that this display is very power efficient - with full color it consumes less than half the power an an LCD panel. A monochrome display will use 1/10 of the power used by an LCD.

As we reported back in February, SEL and sharp unveiled a 13.3" 8K OLED prototype. This ultra high density (664 PPI!) display uses SEL's C-axis-aligned crystalline oxide semiconductor (CAAC-OS) backplane.

SEL's previous 13" CAAC-OS OLED prototype featured 326 PPI. But that lower-resolution panel was flexible. This new panel uses white OLEDs with color filters. SEL adopted micro cavities to narrow the wavelengths. The display features a 84% NTSC color gamut (rather low for an OLED). Each OLED pixel is driven by five transistors and one capacitor (5T+C) - there are almost 500 million pixel transistors in this display.

The SID Display Week, the world's leading display industry showcase is scheduled for June, but the organizers already published the list of papers to be presented in this show. Hiding in this long list of technical achievements and research projects are some interesting new OLED developments. So here's some of the achievements to be announced during the show (at no particular order).

TCL's China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) managed to fabricate a 7" QVGA (320x240) flexible PMOLED display. The display uses a thin PEN substrate, processed at Gen-4.5. The company also proposes a design for a 14" QVGA PMOLED panel. CSOT also developed a 31" Full-HD AMOLED panel that uses a IGZO backplane. The 31" direct-emission panel was produced on a Gen-4.5 glass substrate using FMM.

Sharp was showing their 7" MEMS displays at CES 2014, promising MEMS based tablets on the market within six months. Those same prototypes were unveiled a few months ago at Ceatec 2013 in Japan. MEMS-Shutter displays are similar to LCD in that they have a LED backlighting unit (BLU), color filters, and a component that blocks the light. But instead of liquid-crystals and polarizers, these displays use MEMS shutters.

Sharp's 7" prototypes feature a resolution of 1280x768 and are made on IGZO substrates. Sharp claims that MEMS displays will feature ultra-low power consumption but will yet offer excellent image quality and color - in fact Sharp says the color gamut is better compared to 'standard' LCDs. Sharp sees these displays competing with OLEDs, but they will be a lot cheaper.

A new week is starting, and the rumor mill regarding Samsung's upcoming GS5 flagship smartphone's display is not stopping. The latest reports from China suggest that Samsung Display is experiencing difficulties in producing those 5.25" WQHD (560 PPI) AMOLED panels required for the GS5. Samsung may choose to adopt Sharp's 5.25" 2K Ultra HD 560 ppi LTPS LCDs.

While Samsung holds a 3% stake in Sharp, it seems highly unlikely for the company to buy displays from Sharp and not from its own display maker. We heard that SDC already started producing those 5.25" AMOLEDs, and there are also reports that the company is increasing OLED production capacity to meet demand in 2014 (from both phones and tablets).

Sharp developed a new LCD backlighting unit (BLU) that improves the displays color gamut. The new BLU enables a 90% NTSC color gamut - without sacrificing the brightness. The new BLU is based on a blue LED with new green and blue phosphors. Below you can see an LCD with the new BLU (right) next to a conventional Sharp LCD.

Sharp usually uses a BLU made of blue LED and yellow phosphors, which achieves 72% NTSC color gamut. Some of Sharp's LCD use a blue LED and red and green phosphors to achieve 83% NTSC gamut, but this lowers the brightness by 20%. 

Sharp is showing new 7" MEMS-Shutter Display prototype at Ceatec 2013. MEMS-Shutter displays are similar to LCD in that they have a LED backlighting unit (BLU), color filters, and a component that blocks the light. But instead of liquid-crystals and polarizers, these displays use MEMS shutters.

A MEMS-Shutter Display is about 6 times more efficient than a regular LCD. This is mostly due to the fact that you do not need a polarizing filter like in LCDs. The displays also use a WRGB structure in which there is a white subpixel which increases brightness and efficiency. The panels on display had a resolution of 800x1,280 (220 PPI). The backplane is an IGZO. Sharp co-developed these panels with Qualcomm.

According to reports from Japan, Taiwan's Hon Hai (Foxconn) is establishing an OLED R&D center in Japan with an aim to start AMOLED panel production in 2015. Hon Hai is in talks with Sharp's Sakai Display Product (SDP) large-size LCD production base. SDP is jointly operated by Hon Hai and Sharp.

According to the report, Hon Hai understand it needs to catch up with the leading Korean OLED makers and is so looking to tap into Japan's technical experienced personnel. Hon Hai expects to recruit around 20 OLED related employees during 2013, and this will grow to around 40 employees during the next three years.