Under-Display sensors

Visionox reports good financial result for 2020, may receive large OLED orders from Huawei and Honor

China-based OLED maker Visionox reported good preliminary financial results for 2020, with increased sales and improved revenues and profits. The company expects its net profit to be around 141-210 million Yuan ($21-31 million USD), which will represent an increase of 120-227% over 2019.

The company says that its ability to innovate OLED technologies (specially the world's first OLED with an under-the-screen camera and the world's first 144Hz refresh rate OLED) enabled the company to increase its customer base and in 2020 it has added OPPO and Motorola as customers.

trinamiX announces an under-the-OLED 3D imaging sensor

Germany-based trinamiX, a subsidiary of BASF, announced that it has developed an under-the-OLED 3D imaging sensor. This technology can enable high performance face authentication while working behind the display.

trinamiX's technology captures 2D images, 3D images and also performs what the company refers to as a "live skin" test that cannot be tricked by a full-face mask, a 2D image printout or even a 3D sculpture. The hardware consists of just a standard CMOS sensor and a near-infrared light projector.

Samsung introduces an under-the-OLED camera technology for laptop displays

Samsung Display is introducing a new OLED display technology, called "Samsung Blade Bezel" - which includes an under-the-display camera embedded within a laptop display. This enables reducing the bezels:

We have already seen similar technology from Visionox adopted in smartphones - but the performance is disappointing. A few months ago ZTE announced the first smartphone with an under-the-OLED camera - the The Axon 20 5G.

An Axon 20 5G teardown explains the under-the-OLED selfie camera technology

A couple of months ago ZTE announced the first smartphone with an under-the-OLED camera - the The Axon 20 5G. The phone is now shipping, and first reviews are quite dismal in terms of the quality of the selfie camera - and the effect on the screen.

YouTuber JerryRigEverything performed an interesting teardown of the Axon 20 5G, where he shows how the technology works - there's a small transparent OLED display right on top of the camera that is attached to the regular punch-hole display. The display in this phone is made by Visionox.

First review of the ZTE Axon 20 5G with its under-the-display camera is in

A couple of months ago ZTE announced the first smartphone with an under-the-OLED camera - the The Axon 20 5G. The phone is now shipping, and the first review is in, by The Verge.

ZTE Axon 20 5G photo

The conclusion is rather dismal. The area in the screen under which the selfie camera resides is noticable - in fact the reviewer say that the "under-display integration is extremely noticeable on light backgrounds". You can see a square patch of the screen that exhibits a clear dithering effect. In fact the reviewer says that he'd prefer a notch-type display over what he gets in the Axon 20 5G.

ZTE launches the world's first smartphone with an under-the-OLED camera, the Axon 20 5G

ZTE announced the Axon 20 5G, the first smartphone with an under-the-OLED camera. The Axon 20 5G features a full-screen 6.92-inch 1080x2460 90Hz AMOLED display and will ship in a few days in China for around $320.

ZTE Axon 20 5G photo

The Axon 20 5G also sports an under-the-display fingerprint sensor - and ZTE says that it includes an "under-the-OLED" sound, which could mean that the OLED acts as a speaker membrane (in a similar way to LG's Crystal Sound Technology), but it is not clear exactly.

Xiaomi to start making smartphones with Under-Display cameras next year, developed its own pixel scheme

Xiaomi announced that it will start producing smartphones that adopt the company's Under-Display Camera technology next year. Xiaomi says that this is actually the company's third-gen under-the-OLED camera technology, that hasn't been adopted in mass market products yet.

Xiaomi 3rd-gen under-display camera technology image

Xiaomi says that it's latest development enabled the front camera to be completely disguised. This was achieved by a new pixel arrangement (with a large aperture ratio) developed by Xiaomi, and the optimization of the camera algorithms.

Innolux demonstrate new LCD and miniLED technologies to compete with OLED displays

Taiwan-based Innolux demonstrated several new display technologies that will enable the company to compete against OLED displays. First up we have this 55" rollable mini-LED display prototype. This is an emissive mini-LED display, it is not a mini-LED backlit LCD display.

Innolux did not disclose any specifications on this display (not even the resolution), but it did say that the display use a flexible PCB and features "high curvature, high brightness, high contrast, high saturation and high definition dynamic picture". Innolux says that rollable OLEDs face challenges of reliability and cost and this technology could prove to succeed where rollable OLEDs cannot.

OTI Lumionics to supply its CPM materials for under-the-OLED camera displays

OTI Lumionics announced that its latest ConducTorr Cathode Patterning Material (CPM) materials will start shipping by the end of 2020 to customers, which will use these to create OLED displays with under-the-display camera and face unlock technologies.

OTI says that the first mobile devices using OTI’s CPM materials are expected to ship in 2021. Last month we reported that Visionox will soon start shipping AMOLED displays with an under-the-display camera, it could be the Visionox is OTI's first customer. OTI received a strategic investment from LG recently, which could hint that LG could be OTI's customer as well.

AMS is shipping very high volumes of behind-the-OLED sensors, is developing new sensors

In January 2019 Austria-based Sensor developer AMS announced a new RGB light and proximity sensor IC that can be placed behind an OLED screen, and still accurately measure the intensity of ambient light. Later in 2019, AMS said that the new sensor is a "resounding market success".

AMS TCS3701 design

In its latest conference call, AMS management said that its behind-the-OLED light and proximity sensing is continuing their adoption in major Android platforms. The company is now shipping very high volumes of sensing solutions. The company is now developing more behind-the-OLED technologies with significant R&D activities.