Apple: OLED company spotlight - Page 7

In the past year or so, much have been said about Samsung's plans to build a 8-Gen OLED IT production line, as the company wants to expand its capacity for monitors, laptops and tablet OLED displays.

Samsung plan for a full-cut 8-Gen line

As this is the first such production line, SDC had two ongoing R&D projects: one with Ulvac, that used full-cut vertical OLED deposition, and another with Canon Tokki, that used half-cut horizontal deposition. According to the latest reports from Korea, SDC decided to prioritize the Canon Tokki half-cut project, as the technology is more mature and is more likely to finish as per Apple's roadmap.

UBI Research says that shipments of medium and large area OLED panels (which the company defines as 10 inches and up) will reach 26.1 million units in 2022. The market is set for fast growth, and shipments will reach 69.5 million units by 2027.

The main application by revenue will be TV panels, over the whole projected period, and OLED TV panel shipments will reach 14.8 million units in 2027, and generate $9.18 billion in sales.

According to reports from Korea, Apple is designing a new foldable MacBook laptop, that will adopt a large 20.25 foldable OLED display. Apple is collaborating with Samsung or LG Display on this project, the report does not detail that.

The reports also suggest that Apple is looking into smaller foldable display - including a foldable iPhone and a foldable iPad Mini (10-inch when open) - but these projects aren't confirmed yet.

DSCC says that 2022 was a disappointing year for VR, as the market did not grow as expected - although it still expects the market to grow quickly in the near future. DSCC sees $942 million in display panel revenues in 2022, growing to $7.3 billion by 2027 (a CAGR of 50.7%).

DSSC sees OLED microdisplays (OLED on Silicon, or SiOLED) leading the market from 2023 onwards, as producers start using these displays in VR headsets - including Apple's upcoming VR headset that will be based on dual 4K OLED microdisplays (in addition to an AMOLED display). Apple's VR headset is expected to be released in 2023.

According to UBI Research, Samsung Display has decided to produce QD-OLED panels at its upcoming 8.7-Gen A5 production line. The company IT display strategy will be to produce QD-OLED panels for monitor application (27-inch displays, at first) and tandem RGB panels for smaller IT displays (tablets, laptops).

A 34-inch QD-OLED monitor (Dell Alienware)

Samsung is looking for design wins with Apple for both its display architectures - the larger QD-OLED panels for Apple's monitors and the smaller sized panels for its tablets.

According to ETNews, Apple approved LG Display's LTPO AMOLED displays for the iPhone 14 Pro, and so LGD starts to ship displays to Apple - what has been an exclusive supply by Samsung Display.

The iPhone 14 Pro has a 6.1" 120Hz 2000 nits 1179x2556 LTPO AMOLED display, while the 14 Pro Max has a larger 6.7-inch 1290x2796 panel.

Our friends at DisplayMate posted an in-depth technical review of the iPhone 14 Pro Max display. The 6.7-inch 1290x2796 10Hz-120Hz 2,300 nits LTPO AMOLED receives DisplayMate's highest display performance grade of A+.

The new iPhone has the same display size and resolution as the earlier generation iPhone 13 Pro Max, but it includes several new enhances - such as a new always-on display mode, a new dynamic island centered around the sensor area at the top area, and a higher brightness of 2,300 nits vs 1,200 nits. Altogether, the iPhone 14 Pro Max sets 15 new display performance records.

According to reports from Korea, Samsung Display is considering to start producing OLED microdisplays, to support its customer needs. Apparently Samsung Electronics, Apple, Meta and others have been reaching out to Samsung regarding OLED microdisplay production.

Samsung 2011 OLED microdisplay prototype

The microdisplay market is seeing strong demand, or at least strong interest, as all major tech companies are developing solutions for AR and VR. Samsung Display has refrained from developing OLED microdisplay technologies, as it believed profitability will not be good in this market, but this could change now.

According to reports, Apple finalized its supply plans for the iPhone 14 series, and the US phone maker decided to add BOE to its new iPhone supplier list.

This is the first time that BOE manages to become a new iPhone supplier (the company already produces AMOLED displays for refurbished iPhones). According to the latest report, Apple ordered a total of 90 million OLED displays: 60 million from Samsung, 25 million from LGD and 5 million from BOE (which will so supply 5.5% of the total orders).

According to reports from Korea, Apple has started to sign agreements regarding the supply of OLED displays for the next iPhone model (iPhone 14). As always, the main supplier will be Samsung Display, which will supply 80 million units of its latest LTPO AMOLED display (M12 stack) to Apple.

Apple is set to release four iPhone models. The iPhone 14 (6.1-inch), 14 Plus (6.7-inch), 14 Pro (6.1-inch) and 14 Pro Max (6.7-inch).