OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 40

The Nikkei Asian Review reports that LG Display aims to increase its OLED TV production capacity to 10 million units by 2021 - which is six times its capacity in 2017 (1.7 million). Next year LGD aims to produce around 2.8 million OLED TVs. LGD's investment in new OLED TV capacity will reach $18 billion by 2020.

LG Display is enjoying a surge in demand for OLED TVs, and OLED TVs sales account for around half of its high-end TV sales (TVs with a price tag of over $2,000). In 2018 OLED's share in LGD's premium TV panes will grow to 70%. LG Display is confident it could even sell 20 million OLED TV panels each year, if it could make them. LG is "betting all on OLED" and minimizes its LCD investments as much as possible.

LG continues to roll out its new 2018 OLED TVs, and today Amazon.com started to ship the 55" OLEDE8 - for $3,300 ($200 lower than LG's official $3,499).

The OLEDE8 is a series (55" / 65") of high-end picture-on-glass 4K OLED TVs. The TVs are powered by LG's new a9 "intelligent processor" that promises better color and fast smart TV (webOS) operations. The TV will support Google's Assistant for natural language control, Dolby Atmos, HDR and 4K HFR.

Sony's 2018 OLED TVs, the AF8, started shipping today in the US. The 55" model costs $2,800 while the 65" costs $3,800 (note: these are affiliate links to Amazon).

The AF8 is a premium TV series (55-inch / 65-inch) that feature Sony's X1 Extreme picture processor, Sony's Acoustic Surface tech and Google and Amazon voice recognition technologies.

LG introduced its 2018 OLED TV lineup in January 2018, and later announced the pricing of most of these TVs, saying these will ship in April 2018. LG did not yet announce formally it started shipping its new TVs, but its first one arrived in Amazon today - the 55" OLEDC8 priced at $2,500 - lower than LG's official price of $2,999.

The OLEDC8 is one of LG's basic models in its 2018 4K OLED TV lineup. The C8 series (available in 55", 65" and 77") will support 4K HDR, HFR, Dolby Atmos, webOS with Google assistant and will run on LG's latest a9 "intelligent processor" that promises better color and fast smart TV (webOS) operations.

Samsung's OLED fabs are currently under utilized - with some analysts estimating that its flexible OLED fabs are running at about 50% capacity following lower-than-expected orders from Apple. SDC also decided to delay its upcoming A5 production fab.

Samsung OLED TVs (2013)

This is a lot of wasted capacity. Last month I speculated that SDC may target new applications for its OLEDs - including monitors and laptops - or perhaps transparent OLEDs as well. According to a new report from Korea, SDC may be aiming to start constructing an A5 line - but use it to produce large-area OLED TV panels. According to a financial analyst, Samsung recently assembled a new OLED TV team with 300 R&D employees.

Sony's announced the prices of its new 2018 OLED TV, the AF8. The 55" model will retail for $2,800 while the 65" one will cost $3,800. The AF8 will ship soon in the summer. You can pre-order now at Amazon.com, although prices are higher by around $500 then Sony's official price.

The AF8 is a premium TV series (55-inch / 65-inch) that feature Sony's X1 Extreme picture processor, Sony's Acoustic Surface tech and Google and Amazon voice recognition technologies.

LG introduced its 2018 OLED TV lineup in January 2018, and the company now announced the pricing of these new TVs - or at least some of them.

LG's flagship 77" Wallpaper OLEDW8 will cost $14,999. LG will also ship a 65" OLEDW8, but it did not detail the price yet. The OLED-on-glass OLEDE8 will cost $4,499 for the 65" model and $3,499 for the 55" model.

Last week we reported that ETNews claims that Samsung is developing a hybrid Quantum-Dots OLED technology for its future TVs.

Today Yonhap News reports that Samsung Visual Display Business VP, Han Jong-hee, denies this story, saying that Samsung sticks to its two-track strategy for the high-end TV market, developing both QLED (quantum-dots enhanced LED LCDs) and Micro-LED TVs. Han further says that Samsung will start selling its Wall Micro-LED TV in August 2018.

Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) says that OLED material revenues grew 43% to reach $869 million in 2017. DSCC expects the OLED material market to grow at a 24% CAGR until 2022, when the market will reach $2.56 billion.

The small/medium display market accounts to about 59% of the total OLED material market, and this will continue until 2022. For the TV market, DSCC expects ink-jet printing to enable producers to make lower the material costs of OLED TV production, and OLED TV materials will grow at a rate of 23%, from $344 in 2017 to $963 million in 2022.

ETNews posted an interesting article, claiming that Samsung Display is developing a new TV technology that combines OLED emitters with quantum-dot photo-luminescence materials. The basic idea is to use blue OLED emitters and then convert the blue light to white light using quantum-dots combined with color filters (QDCFs) to add red and green colors.

Samsung OLED TVs (2013)

This seems to be a rather complicated design, but it could be much easier to produce compared to a true RGB OLED TV, as there is no need for precise OLED patterning. This is similar to LG's WRGB OLED TVs which use a white OLED source (made from yellow and blue emitters) and color filters on top.