OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 39

In early 2018 HiSense said that it plans to introduce its first OLED TV in the first half of 2018, and according to Digitimes LG Display started shipping OLED TV panels to Hisense, which aims to actually ship its TV in Q3 2018.

HiSense 2014 OLED TV prototype

HiSense is China's largest TV producer with a market share of around 15% in the over-$2,000 segment. Hisense has been demonstrating and promising OLED TVs for a long time (in 2014 the company demonstrated its first 55" OLED TV prototype, and in 2011 the company aimed to release a 15-inch OLED "TV"). This time however, it seems that the company will follow through.

Last month CSoT (TCL) announced plans to establish a 11-Gen LCD+OLED TV fab in Shenzhen, China. Details on the OLED part of that fab were not given, but now we have some updates following the company's investor day.

The new fab will use Oxide-TFT backplanes, and it turns out that the OLED part of the fab will also use the 11-Gen substrates (which may be cut for the actual OLED front plane deposition). Out of the entire capacity of 90,000 monthly substrates, the OLED line will use 20,000 substrates. The fab will start mass production in 2021.

LG OLEDW8 wallpaper TV is the company's flagship TV for 2018, and LG today started shipping the new TVs in the UK. The 65" model costs £7,999 - or just over $10,000 USD. The 77-inch model (OLED77W8) is not yet shipping, but we know the price in the US will be $14,999. We do not know when the TVs will arrive in the US yet.

The 4K OLEDW8 TV is extremely thin (2.57 mm all the way) and attaches to the wall using magnets - with a thin cable that connects to the sound bar and interface box. The OLEDW8 is powered by LG's new a9 "intelligent processor" that promises better color and fast smart TV (webOS) operations. The TV supports Google's Assistant for natural language control, Dolby Atmos, HDR and 4K HFR.

Only four months after LG installed 69 OLED TVs at Seoul's Incheon Airport it was reported that the TVs suffer serious permanent image-retention, or burn-in. ZDNet now reports that LG replaced the problematic OLED TVs at the airport's Korean Air Miler Club Lounge with LCDs.

The report suggests that LG was not sure it could solve the burn-in issues with this particular display, and so opted for an LCD. LG denies that burn-in is a serious issues and says the TVs's lifetime are over 30,000 hours.

Sony only started to ship its 2018 AF8 OLED TVs last month, but apparently the company is already getting ready to release its next-generation OLEDs. Sony accidentally listed some new models on its support website - including the XBR-55A9F and the XBR-65A9F.

The page has been already removed, and we don't really know whether these new TVs are real, or maybe these are just future 2019 model numbers.

TCL announced that its CSoT Subsidiary (China Star, also known as Shenzhen Huaxing Photoelectric Technology) plans to establish an LCD+OLED TV fab in Shenzhen, China. The new fab will have a monthly capacity of 90,000 substrate - and will produce 65- and 75-inch OLED TVs in addition to 65-, 75- and 75-inch 8K LCDs, all on Oxide-TFT backplanes. The line will begin operation in 2021.

The fab will apparently have two different production lines. The LCD line will be a 11-Gen line (3370x2940 mm) while the OLED Line will use smaller 8.5-Gen substrates (although this is not clear, CSoT may aim to use the 11-Gen substrates for OLED deposition too, perhaps cutting these large substrates before the OLED processing. Total investment in this new fab will be 42.6 billion Yuan (or about $6.7 billion USD).

According to a ZDNet report, the LG OLED TVs at Incheon Airport, installed only a few months ago, suffer from serious permanent image-retention, or burn-in. You can see the artifact at the top part of the TV in the photo below:

According to ZDNet, LG installed 29 such OLED TVs at the airport lobby in addition to 40 more units at four of the airport's lounges. These were installed in January 2018, only four months ago. LG Electronics did not comment on this story.

In July 2017 LG Display announced that it has decided to build a 8.5-Gen (2200x2500) OLED line in Guangzhou, China, to make OLED TV panels. The Korean government hesitated whether to approve this plan, as it sees OLED as a strategic technology Korea' economy, but by the end of 2017 LGD got the approval for its new OLED TV fab.

LGD is apparently still waiting for an approval from the Chinese authorities, but according to a new report from Korea, LG Display is expected to place the orders for the new fab equipment next month. This report says that total investment in this new fab is estimated at $3.17 billion - although LGD itself estimated the whole fab at $2.3 billion USD. Perhaps LGD only counted its own stake, as the local government in Guangzhou will award LGD with 30% the funds.

IHS estimates that AMOLED shipments (by area) reached 5 million square meters in 2017, and the market will grow to 22.4 million sqm by 2024.

Growth in 2017 was driven by a doubling of AMOLED TV panel area shipments (from 800,000 sqm in 2016 to 1.6 million in 2017). By 2024, IHS expects OLED TV shipments to reach 12.5 million units.

In February it was reported that Samsung is developing a hybrid Quantum-Dots OLED technology for its future TVs. This report was soon denied by Samsung's Visual Display Business VP, Han Jong-hee, who said that Samsung is sticking to its two-track strategy for premium TVs, namely QD-LCDs and Micro-LEDs.

Samsung OLED TV (2013)

Today Samsung's Han Jong-hee again says that Samsung has no plans to produce an OLED TV any time soon - but he does confirm that the company is researching a way to combine QDs with OLEDs. According to our information, Samsung's main R&D initiative use blue OLED emitters and blue light to white light conversion using quantum-dots, combined with color filters (QDCFs) to add red and green colors.