Super AMOLED HD is real, Samsung developed an improved process and uses new materials

I just had an interesting talk with two industry insiders (one of them is a Samsung supplier) - about Samsung's upcoming Super AMOLED HD display. It turns out that these displays are indeed real - and will be unveiled soon. We can expect 5" to 6" smartphones in fall 2011 (the first will probably be the GT-I9220 with a 5.3" display) and 7" tablets by the end of 2011.

A 7-inch Super AMOLED prototype

According to my sources, Samsung managed to achieve HD resolution on these small displays by using PenTile matrix again (like in the original Super AMOLED displays). They have also developed a new manufacturing process and are using new materials. It might be that they have finally started to use Universal Display's green PHOLED (we reported that Samsung is using a green phosphorescent in their new 5.5-Gen plant, but perhaps they will only start using it in the HD displays).

I'm not sure, but it seems that Samsung is not moving to LITI yet - and are still using Shadow Mask (FMM). They have simply tuned their current process to improve the uniformity. This allows them to create a higher resolution display - and also means that the new displays are cheaper (as the process is more efficient). My sources say that a Super-AMOLED display costs less than 1.2X than an equivalent S-LCD (it's still more expensive, but by less than 20%). Furthermore, it seems that Samsung is soon (or even already) experiencing over capacity in their AMOLED fab (mostly because HTC has moved back to LCD and Nokia is not selling as many phones as expected). So they are dropping the price of AMOLEDs (and will also attempt to ship 7" OLED tablets).

Things will be interesting at the IFA exhibition this year...