OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 11

OLED driver IC developer MagnaChip started shipping OLED display drivers in 2007, and the company announced yesterday that it has shipped over 730 million units since.

MagnaChip recently expanded its business area into new markets such as foldable smartphones, automotive displays and OLED TVs. The company expects the OLED DDIC market to grow rapidly in the next new years and quotes Omdia's estimate of 1.2 billion OLED panels shipped in 2028.

Earlier this year Sony announced the world's first QD-OLED TV, the A95K. The TV is not shipping yet, but the first reviews are in - and the ones we have seen say that the display quality of Sony's new TV (and Samsung's new OLED panels) is superb.

A reporter from DigitalTrends, Caleb Denison, for example, spent some hours in front of an A95K, and says that the display is bright (the brightest he has seen in a consumer TV) and it offers the most accurate colors he ever saw. The colors are pure and "better than any OLED, and most QLED TVs, too".

DSCC estimates that just over 10 million foldable OLED displays shipped in 2022, and the market is set to grow to 86 million units by 2026 (54% CAGR).

DSCC says that foldable smartphone revenues rose 342% in 2021, and have reached $5.8 billion. The most popular foldable smartphone was the Galaxy Z Flip 3 (51% market share in 2021), followed by the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (26% market share) and the Huawei Mate X2 (6% market share).

Market research firm Omdia says that LG Electronics shipped over 4 million OLED TVs in 2021, more than double its shipments in 2020. In the fourth quarter alone, LGE shipped 1.41 million OLED TVs.

Omdia expects LG to double its shipments again in 2022 and reach sales of over 8 million TVs. The total OLED TV market, according to Omdia, was 6.5 million OLED TVs in 2021 (LGE holds a 62% market share).

Magnachip announced that it has started mass-producing OLED display driver integrated circuit (OLED DDIC) for OLED TVs.

Magnachip says that its new DDIC supports a maximum of 960 source output channels and can be coupled with a Chip On Film (COF) package and a high-speed serial interface. The new driver is based on enhanced high-voltage analog process technology. The chips supports various resolutions between HD (1,366 x 768) and UHD 4K (3,840 x 2,160), and can support panel sizes ranging from 40 to 80 inches.

According to a report from Korea, Samsung Electronics haven't yet finalized its agreement with Samsung Display regarding the supply of QD-OLED TV panels.

It seems that Samsung Electronics wants to get the QD-OLED TV panels at a price equal to what LGD is offering its WOLED TV panels, but SDC cannot accept this. If the two companies cannot agree on a price quickly, Samsung will have to delay the launch of its QD-OLED TVs (the current plan is to start shipping the TVs in mid-2022).

Omdia says that demand for AMOLED displays increased 52% from 2020, to reach 14.2 million square meters. The main drivers of this growth were higher OLED TV and smartphones sales.

Omdia expects the OLED market to continue its strong growth, even though growth will be slower in the future. The demand for AMOLED display area will grow by CAGR of 11.6% from 2021 to 2028, to reach 30.7 million square meters.

Samsung Electronics has been in talks with LG Display over the supply of WOLED TV panels for a long time (we first reported on this in April 2021) but the agreement was delayed, with the two parties not agreeing on price and other issues.

A new report from Korea suggests that Samsung and LGD have finally reached an agreement over panel prices (Samsung will pay the same as LG Electronics), and it is estimated that an official agreement will be reached soon. Samsung plans to unveil its first WOLED TV in July 2022.

We already know that Samsung Display is starting to produce QD-OLED panels, and the first products have already been announced: Sony's A95K QD-OLED TV and Dell's and Samsung's 34" QD-OLED monitors.

It is great to see Samsung Display officially announce its QD-OLED panel lineup at CES 2022. The company is indeed producing three kinds of panels, 55" and 65" 4K panels for TVs and wide 34" panels for monitors. SDC says it will start mass producing the panels "in the first half of 2022".

Sony announced its 2022 TV lineup, which includes three new OLED TV series, including the A95K, which is the world's first QD-OLED TV ever announced.

The Sony A95K Master XR TV will feature 55" or 65" 4K 120Hz QD-OLED panels (produced by SDC), Sony's XR cognitive processor, Acoustic Surface Audio, XR Triluminos Max and Google TV OS. It features HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision.