At the end of this month Toray Research Center (TRC) will host an online webinar focused on OLED technologies. TRC, who supplies technical analysis and support for R&D and manufacturing, invites you to attend the online lectures at no cost, to learn more about OLED technologies and analysis of OLED devices.
The webinars will include recorded presentations, which will be available online from February 22 to March 08. You can register for the webinars here.
DSCC posted an interesting article, comparing the production costs of OLED vs mini-LED panels for IT. DSCC estimates that for tablets and notebooks, a tandem structure will be used, and the panels will be based on rigid substrates.
In the chart above you see a production cost comparison, between 2021 and 2025, for 12.9" panels. DSCC looks at two OLED production options: a tandem OLED panel with an LTPO backplane produced in a 6-Gen fab, and a similar panel that uses an Oxide-TFT backplane and produced in a larger 8.5-Gen fab. As you can see, OLED panels are more cost effective, and will remain so throughout the forecast period.
Sharp introduced a new phone in Japan, called the AQUOS R6, which features a 6.67-inch 2730x1260 1Hz-240Hz dynamic refresh rate IGZO AMOLED display.
This is an interesting development. Sharp started producing flexible OLEDs for its own devices in low volume in August 2018, but has since ceased production later in 2019. This is the first time we hear of an IGZO mobile AMOLED display, and it is likely that Sharp produces these in-house.
The South Korean government launched a new project which aims to develop new technology that will enable the production of Oxide-TFT that support 1,000 PPI OLED panels. The project, led by Samsung Display, will hopefully conclude by 2024.
Samsung plans to develop higher-efficiency Oxide-TFTs - in fact ten times faster than today's Oxide-TFTs. The new technologies will reduce the power consumption and production costs of the TFTs.
UK-based SmartKem develops a new class of flexible high-mobility OTFT display backplane technologies. The company provides customized solutions involving molecular synthesis, electronic prototyping and on-site technology transfer support.
As Smartkem is developing new backplane materials for OLEDs, ePaper and mini-LED devices, we discuss its technology and business with the company's CEO and chairman, Ian Jenks.
Samsung Display is updating its A3 flexible OLED production line, to support two new technologies. The TFT process is being updated, for some of the capacity, to Apple's LTPO technology. LTPO is currently used in Apple's Watch displays, but next-generation iPhones will adopt it as well.
According to UBI, Samsung will dedicate 75,000 monthly substrates to produce smartphone LTPO displays. According to some reports, Samsung has also developed its own backplane technology which is similar to LTPO, it could be that some of this capacity will be used for Samsung's own displays.
Update: It seems we were mistaken, this prototype is not a hybrid QD-OLED, but a 'regular' OLED. This is still an impressive development - a rollable inkjet-printed OLED display.
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.
Researchers from the Holst Center has applied spatial atomic layer deposition (sALD) to create both the semiconductor and dielectric layer in a thin-film transistor (TFT) Oxide-TFT (IGZO) display backplane - for the first time ever.
The researchers created a 200 PPI QVGA OLED display prototype on a thin PEN foil. This shows how TFTs can be produced in a low temperature process (below 200 degrees Celsius) using sALD on a cheap transparent plastic foil. The TFTs achieved a mobility of 8 cm2/V2 with channel lengths down to 1 um.
Sharp announced that it has developed, in collaboration with NHK, a 30" rollable 4K OLED panel on an IGZO backplane. This is a direct emission OLED, which sharp says is the world's largest ever produced (LG's OLEDs all use color filters).
Sharp's OLED panel is deposited on a thin-film substrate, and has a thickness of 0.5 mm. The display uses NHK's signal processing and panel driving technologies to "improve the brightness uniformity and video clarity".
Sharp demonstrated a flexible 12.3" 1920x720 AMOLED display for automotive applications. The displays uses an IGZO backplane, and Sharp says that it intends to use external compensation to improve the uniformity in the display.
Sharp demonstrated the display at the 2019 Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Symposium - at which apparently this was the only OLED on display. According to Display Daily's Ken Werner, OLED displays are finding it difficult to penetrate the automotive display market.
