OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 31

According to a report from Korea, when Apple secured its flexible AMOLED supply from Samsung for the iPhone X (and later XS and XS Plus) it committed to a minimum order quantity. As sales of the iPhones were slower than expected, the company did not reach its MOQ, and is now facing penalties of hundreds of millions of dollars.

It seems as if Apple is reluctant to pay the penalty (which isn't a big surprise) and is offering some alternative routes for Samsung - including the option of ordering OLED displays for future iPads or laptops (this coincides with a report from Korea last month).

JD.com, a popular online retailer in China, says that sales of the OnePlus 7 Pro are more than ten times higher than the sales of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S10 Plus (which has a comparable display size). JD says that there were 250,372 OnePlus units sold - compared to only 23,266 GS10+ units.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is the company's flagship smartphone that features a large 6.67" 90Hz 1440x3120 Fluid AMOLED (which is apparently a 90Hz Super AMOLED) full-screen display with an under-the-display fingerprint sensor. The GS10+ sports a 6.4" 60Hz 3040x1440 (522 PPI) Super AMOLED display.

In February 2019 Huawei launched its first foldable smartphone, the Mate X with a 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display that folds outwards. Huawei said it will launch the Mate X by the end of June, but now the company says it is now planning to release it in September.

Huawei says that it needs more time to test the device and make sure it is durable. It is also possible that the US ban on Huawei is behind this decision.

Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that he expects Apple to switch to an all-OLED iPhone lineup in 2020 - with a high-end 6.7" and 5.4" models and a lower-end 6.1" one. The higher-end modules will also support 5G connectivity.

This confirms WSJ's report from January 2019. It is estimated by most analysts taht Apple's 2019 iPhone lineup will sport similar displays to its 2018 one (i.e. OLED on high-end modules and an LCD on the lower-end one).

UBI Research estimates that OLED production capacity will increase from 34.9 million sqm to 68.5 million by 2023. LG Display and Samsung Display are expected to increase production of OLED TV and introduce new 10.5-Gen fabs better suited for 65" TV production.

Mobile OLED production capacity will also grow, but at a slower rate - from 13 million sqm in 2019 to 19.3 million sqm in 2023, mainly driven by Chinese OLED producers that produce flexible smartphone OLED displays mainly for the Chinese domestic market. Korean OLED producers (SDC and LGD) will continue to dominate the market and will retain their ~80% market share in 2023.

In the last few years we witnessed an interesting evolution of smartphone display sizes: from bezel on the top and the bottom, to notch-type displays, to full-screen displays with pop-up selfie cameras and also displays with round laser-cut holes.

OLED makers have successfully integrated fingerprint sensors behind the OLED panels, but integrating a camera completely behind a transparent part of the OLED display is more difficult. Earlier this year Samsung Display estimated that it will take at least 3 years for this technology to reach the market - but yesterday both Xiaomi and Oppo unveiled smartphone prototypes with selfie cameras under the OLED display.

Huawei recently released its flagship P30 and P30 Pro smartphones, and according to a report from China, Huawei's latest firmware update will include an option to change the display control from PWM to DC Dimming.

Pulse-Width Modulation, or PWM, is the most common way to adjust the brightness of an OLED display. PWM is the easiest way to achieve high quality brightness control, but it has some serious drawbacks - such as flicker that may cause eye strain and headaches.

Samsung's Galaxy S10 smartphone family introduced the world's first OLED displays with round holes cut into the display to house the front cameras- which is seen as an improvement over notch-type displays.

Up until now Samsung Display was the only company that had the technology to create such displays, but now it is reported that China's BOE is gearing up to produce its own OLED displays with camera holes.

OnePlus launched it latest flagship smartphones, both of whom utilize high-end AMOLED displays. We'll start with the OnePlus 7 Pro - a flagship smartphone that features a large 6.67" 90Hz 1440x3120 Fluid AMOLED - which apparently is a 90Hz Super AMOLED. This is a full-screen display that has an under-the-display fingerprint sensor.

The OnePlus 7 has a smaller notch-type 6.41" 1080x2340 Optic AMOLED - which is again OnePlus' own display marketing term for an SDC's Super AMOLED. It seems as if OnePlus brands its regular 60Hz AMOLED displays as Optic Displays - and its higher-end 90Hz ones as Fluid AMOLEDs.

On April 23th, after early reviewers reported that that the foldable screen in their Galaxy Fold devices broke down after a day or so, Samsung decided to delay the release of its foldable smartphone. Samsung's CEO now says that the company will soon announce a new launch plan for the Galaxy Fold in the US, after it had resolved the issues with the display.

Samsung says that it has "reviewed" the defects caused by particles that entered the device below the screen. Samsung will strengthen the durability of the exposed area on the hinge of the phone and will minimize the gap between the protective layer and the bezel of the main display in order to prevent any external substances from penetrating the device.