TCL has unveiled two interesting foldable OLED prototype devices. The first one is a tri-foldable OLED smartphone, that has a 10" 3K AMOLED display that folds into a 6.64" one. The second is the sliding-expanding prototype we already reported on last month.
These are still very early prototype devices, reportedly the software is not taking advantage of the special display features.
CNet reports that TCL was supposed to demonstrate a novel smartphone design next week (at the cancelled MWC event) that uses an "expandable" sliding OLED display. The idea is basically the same as in the first crop of foldable OLEDs - provide a phone that can open up to a tablet-size device:
Apparently TCL was supposed to show a working demonstration. Such a design will likely require a screen that is folded in two places or some sort of rollable display - which is possible but more difficult to actually commercialize compared to a screen that folds inwardly or outwardly in a single position.
TCL and Juhua Printing demonstrated a 31" FHD inkjet-printed rollable hybrid QD-OLED TV prototype. The display uses an IGZO (Oxide-TFT) backplane and TCL says that it has an aperture ratio of over 50%, brightness of 200 nits and a 90% DCI-P3 color gamut.
TCL's hybrid display technology (which TCL calls H-QLED) uses a blue OLED emitter coupled with red and green QD emitters. All three emitter materials are combined and printed using ink-jet printing technology.
CSoT demonstrated the first public QD-OLED display, during SID 2019. The company unveiled a 6.6" display that features a relatively low resolution (384x300) and brightness (50 nits). The backplane of this prototype is an Oxide-TFT.
The QD-OLED is made from blue OLED emitters with a quantum-dots color conversion layer. This is a similar design to Samsung's QD-OLED TV technology. Interestingly earlier this year CSoT's parent company TCL has unveiled a different QD-OLED technology it refers to as H-QLED which uses a combination of OLED and QD emitters.
China-based display maker TCL announced that its 6-Gen LTPS flexible AMOLED production line in Wuhan has commenced operation. The company already achieved some design wins with "top-class" phone makers and is expected to start shipping OLED displays to its customers in Q4 2019.
TCL's production line in Wuhan (which is actually owned by the company's subsidiary CSoT) will have a production capacity of 45,000 6-Gen substrates.
TCL unveiled that the company is developing a new hybrid display technology that uses a blue OLED emitter coupled with red and green QD emitters. All three emitter materials will be combined and printed using ink-jet printing technology. TCL calls this technology H-QLED and this could prove to be the technology of choice for TCL's future high-end emissive TV displays.
It seems as TCL believes that commercial-level red and green QD emitters will be achievable in the future, but blue QD emission will be more difficult to develop, and hence it will rely on OLED emitters. TCL did not disclose more details - but this R&D effort is being performed at the company's Juhua Printing platform.
Universal Display announced that it has signed an OLED evaluation agreement with Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology (CSOT). UDC will supply CSOT with proprietary UniversalPHOLED phosphorescent OLED materials for display applications. UDC did not disclose any more details about the agreement.
Towards the end of 2018, CSOT, a subsidiary of TCL, started construction on its T7 large-area display production fab. The T7 fab, which has a total cost of around 42.7 billion Yuan ($6.15 billion USD), will produce both LCD and OLED displays on IGZO backplanes. CSOT's plan is to start production by the end of 2020 - with real mass production starting in 2021.
China-based TCL has unveiled a new foldable OLED phone prototype at MWC 2019. The device uses a 7.2" 2048 x 1546 AMOLED display that folds inwardly (in a similar way to the Samsung Galaxy Fold). TCL's device, however, is a prototype and not a product.
TCL is both a smartphone maker and a display producer. This device was demonstrated by the smartphone maker arm - and we are not sure whether it uses a foldable OLED produced at TCL's own OLED lines (CSoT's T4 6-Gen flexible OLED line in Wuhan should enter production soon) or whether the panel is produced by Samsung, BOE or Visionox.
TCL announced that its CSoT Subsidiary (China Star, also known as Shenzhen Huaxing Photoelectric Technology) plans to establish an LCD+OLED TV fab in Shenzhen, China. The new fab will have a monthly capacity of 90,000 substrate - and will produce 65- and 75-inch OLED TVs in addition to 65-, 75- and 75-inch 8K LCDs, all on Oxide-TFT backplanes. The line will begin operation in 2021.
The fab will apparently have two different production lines. The LCD line will be a 11-Gen line (3370x2940 mm) while the OLED Line will use smaller 8.5-Gen substrates (although this is not clear, CSoT may aim to use the 11-Gen substrates for OLED deposition too, perhaps cutting these large substrates before the OLED processing. Total investment in this new fab will be 42.6 billion Yuan (or about $6.7 billion USD).
TCL announced that Guangdong Juhua Printing Display Technology developed a 31" 4K OLED display. According to the report from Korea, Juhua Printing is using 6-Gen substrate which are cut in half for the organic layer ink-jet deposition which is done at 4.5-Gen.
TCL hopes to finalize the inkjet mass-production technology development by 2019, on 11-gen substrate.