Last year Samsung Electronics started to adopt AMOLED displays produced by BOE and TCL, as the Korean smartphone makers aims to lower costs and reduce its reliance on Samsung Display.
According to a report from Korea, the company plans to increase these China-produced OLED orders from around 800,000 in 2021 to around 6.5 million in 2022. It seems the main device to adopt these panels will be the Samsung Galaxy A73.
At CES 2022, TCL unveiled a new clamshell foldable phone concept it refers to as TCL Flex V, which the company hopes to commercialize with a relatively low price tag of around $600-$700.
This seems to be an early stage project, but the current prototype shown at CES used an OLED display that looks to be around 6-inch size with a resolution of 1080x2400. There's also a small external display for when the phone is closed. The phone has a Snapdragon 765G chipset and dual cameras on the back.
Yesterday we reported that during its DTC 2021 conference, TCL demonstrated a 65" inkjet-printed 8K OLED panel co-developed by TCL's CSoT and JOLED. During the conference, the company also unveiled another panel a rollable OLED.
This is a 14" inkjet printed OLED panel, produced using an inkjet printing process. TCL says that it has a rolling radius of <20 mm, and has been tested for up to 100,000 cycles. The panel include a built-in AI-powered compensation algorithm (we don't have more info on that). The display has been developed by CSoT in collaboration with JOLED.
According to a report from China, TCL demonstrated 65" 8K OLED panel, produced using an inkjet printing process. This display was co-developed by TCL's CSoT and JOLED.
Last year it was reported that TCL's CSoT is building a $6.8 billion 8.5-Gen inkjet printing line in Guangzhou (the T8 line), with production expected to begin in 2023.
According to reports from China, TCL will start supplying smartphone AMOLED panels to Samsung Electronics. TCL is already supplying LCDs to Samsung (for both phones and TVs), but this is the first time it will supply OLEDs as well.
Samsung is looking to lower its smartphones production costs, and so it widens its OLED supply chain. Up until now, the company relied 100% on AMOLEDs produced by Samsung Display, but earlier this year it started to buy OLED panels from BOE.
Chinese smartphone producer TCL unveiled an interesting new smartphone prototype (concept?) called the Fold ‘n’ Roll.
As you can see in the video, the device has a 6.87-inch OLED display when fully folded. It can open up (out-folding) into a 8.85-inch display, and then it can open even further to a 10-inch tablet-like device using a rolling mechanism. The display itself is produced by TCL's CSoT subsidiary.
TCL said in a recent press conference that the company plans to start producing OLED TV panels in 2023. These OLED panels will be printed using an inkjet printing process.
TCL has been a long time believer in inkjet printing for OLED displays, and the company has established Juhua Printing in 2016 (together with Tianma and other collaborators) as an "open-innovation platform" to develop ink-jet printing of OLED panels. In 2020 TCL invested $187 million USD in Japan's inkjet printing developer and producer JOLED, and has also signed an agreement to jointly develop OLED TV printing technologies.
TCL collaborated with perovskite QD film developer Zhijing Nanotech to produce 500 75-inch QD-enhanced LCD TVs with Zhijing's PQDF films. This is likely to be the world's first commercial adoption of pQD films in the display industry, as the TVs were sold successfully in China and Zhijing hopes to achieve a mass production design win with TCL in 2021
The company reports that the TVs featured a wide color gamut, 147% BT709 - which is higher than most QD TV's on the market, and higher than TCL's original 75M10 TVs. The green Cadmium-free pQD films have excellent optical properties and offer lower cost compared to current QD solutions, according to Zhijing Nanotech.
In October 2020 TCL's CSoT demonstrated some new rollable OLED technologies, and today at CES the company published this nice video you see below that again demonstrates new rollable OLEDs:
TCL first shows a rollable smartphone, that uses a 7.8-inch AMOLED that rolls into a 6.7-inch one. The display features a bending radius of 3 mm and CSoT says it can withstand up to 100,000 sliding cycles.
TCL has been involved with OLED inkjet printing technologies for many years, and the company''s chairman and founder Li Dongsheng yesterday posted that the company will reveal its first printed OLED products next week. Li also uploaded the following video that showcases the company's inkjet printing technology:
This is somewhat surprising as it may be too early for TCL to actually launch inkjet printed OLEDs. TCL has been a long time believer in inkjet printing for OLED displays, and the company has established Juhua Printing in 2016 (together with Tianma and other collaborators) as an "open-innovation platform" to develop ink-jet printing of OLED panels. Last year TCL invested $187 million USD in Japan's inkjet printing developer and producer JOLED, and has also signed an agreement to jointly develop OLED TV printing technologies.
