JOLED seeks $900 million in funding to start mass printing OLED displays

As we just posted, Japan Display has decided to halt its plans to turn its minority stake at JOLED into a majority one, and so JOLED is now seeking external financing to support its plan to start mass producing OLEDs in 2019 at the JDI plant in Nomi, Ishikawa (which currently makes LCDs, but will be shut down towards the end of 2017).

JOLED 4K prototype OLED Monitor (July 2017, Japan)

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, JOLED aims to raise 100 billion Yen (almost $900 million) from Japanese companies, and it has already approached Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon and Sumitomo. If this plans fails JOLED may turn to foreign companies, including Chinese ones.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 04,2017

The Fraunhofer FEP, NSMAT and MSSMC developed an OLED on a stainless steel substrate

The Fraunhofer FEP institute, in collaboration with Nippon Steel & Sumikin Materials (NSMAT) and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC), developed a new OLED lighting prototype that is made on a stainless steel substrate.

OLED on stainless steel prototype (Fraunhofer, NSMAT, NSSMC)

The researchers say that a stainless steel substrate has several advantages compared to glass or plastic - it has excellent thermal conductivity and excellent barrier properties. The lighting panel features an extremely homogenous OLED light, thanks to the planarization layer developed by NSSMC. The prototype panel was produced at the Fraunhofer's R2R research line.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 21,2017

Sumitomo Chemical starts to promote PLED materials and printers for OLED display production

Sumitomo Chemical acquired CDT back in 2007, and since then the Japanese company has been developing it's PLED (polymer-based OLED) materials and technologies. While initially Sumitomo aimed to produce materials for displays, in recent years it has focused mostly on OLED lighting materials and even panel production.

Touch panel production fab, Sumitomo

A noted exception was Panasonic's OLED TV development project which used printing technologies and Sumitomo's PLED materials. But Panasonic terminated this project in 2013. We speculated that JOLED, which is based on Panasonic's technology (and other technologies as well), uses PLED materials in its prototypes, but we were not sure.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 06,2017

JOLED demonstrates new 4K and flexible AMOLED panels

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display (10-30 inch) producer. The company is aiming to start mass production in 2019, although some panels may ship in limited volume earlier.

JOLED 21.6'' 4K medical OLED prototype, Cebit 2017

Last week at Cebit 2017 JOLED demonstrated some of its latest OLED prototypes. In the photo above you can see JOLED's 21.6" 4K (3840x2160, 204 PPI) "medical applications" monitor. JOLED also demonstrated what seems to be the same panel for "consumer" application (they call this private viewing). The whole panel weighs just 500 grams and the color gamut is 130% sRGB.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 30,2017

Sumitomo to construct a $130 million flexible OLED touch panel production fab in Korea

Reports from Japan suggest that Sumitomo Chemical decided to setup a new factory to produce touch panels for curved AMOLED displays. The new factory will be located in Korea, and the total investment is expected to reach ¥15 billion ($US 132 million). It is expected to start operating in 2018 and will have an annual capacity of 100 million panels.

Touch panel production fab, Sumitomo

Digitimes says that Sumitomo has a current market share of about 60-70% of the total AMOLED touch panel market and can currently produce 400 million touch panels for rigid glass-based AMOLEDs. Sumitomo doubled its glass AMOLED touch panel capacity in 2016 following a $165 million investment at its Pyeongtaek factory.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 08,2017

JOLED details their printing process and materials

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display (10-30 inch) producer. JOLED is using a printing process which should result in lower cost production (but of lower performance displays) compared to evaporation printing.

JOLED/JDI OLED efficiency improvement chart (Jan 2017)

JOLED's R&D Division Manager spoke at the PF&E China conference a couple of weeks ago, detailing the company's process. JOLED is producing RGB-strip OLED panels using ink-jet printers made by Panasonic and PLED materials produced by Sumitomo. The OLED structure is based on Sony's technology and the backplane is a transparent amorphous oxide semiconductor.

Read the full story Posted: Jan 25,2017

A restaurant in Tokyo will install Sumitomo's P-OLED panels in a large chandelier

Sumitomo Chemical announced that a restaurant at Tokyo's Yomiuri Land (the largest amusement park in Tokyo) will adopt its colored OLED lighting panels in a chandelier. The chandelier, called Jewelry Jardin as designed by Motoko Ishii.

Sumitomo at L+B 2016

Sumitomo has been developing PLED lighting panels for many years, and the company started marketing panels in 2014, producing using printing technologies. Sumitomo demonstrated its latest OLEDs at the Light+Building event in April 2016.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 27,2016

OLEDs at L+B 2016, part 1

This is the first part of a guest-post by Organic Lights. Here are the second and third parts.

The newest developments in OLED technology were eagerly anticipated at this year’s Light and Building show in Frankfurt. Could the latest technical advances and changes to the cost of panel manufacture finally allow the predicated breakthrough into the market?

Light and Building 2016 was host to four OLED Technology manufacturers, all demonstrating the capabilities of their products to an impressed audience.

Read the full story Posted: Apr 23,2016

UDC's evaporable emitters still outperform the best soluble materials

A few weeks ago we posted about Merck's soluble OLED material performance, and today we have some more data from the OLED Association. In the table below you can see how Merck's, Sumitomo and DuPont's soluble materials compare to UDC's evaporable OLED's materials.

Soluble vs evaporable oled performance (table, OLED-A)

As you can see, for the red material, evaporable OLEDs have a clear lead in lifetime and efficiency. For the green material that efficiency gap has pretty much closed, while the lifetime of the evaporable materials are still about double than the best soluble materials.

 
Read the full story Posted: Feb 05,2016