The Carbon-Trust (a UK-government supported nonprofit) has awarded $720,000 to Lomox. Lomox are working towards new OLED Lighting (and displays) materials and systems. Lomox hopes to have products on the market by 2012.
Kodak announced today that it has completed the previously announced sale of its OLED business to an entity set up by a group of LG companies.
I guess we now wait to see how LG handles their new OLED IP and technologies. There are rumors that they will create a new entity called LG OLED to handle all OLED business within the group.
There are some new rumors that Apple's new device will actually be marketed primarily as an e-reader. It makes sense that Apple will want to enter the e-reader market now, when it's starting to take off.
It'll be interesting to see what kind of display will be chosen for such a device. Almost all e-readers use e-paper displays which are very efficient and great on the eye. But they are monochrome (although color ones are expected in 2010) and have slow refresh rate. If Apple wants this device to be used as an internet tablet too, they'll have to choose another display type. Obviously we're hoping for the first Apple OLED product...
There are rumors that Motorola are going to announce 2 new Android phones at CES, one for AT&T and one for the Verizon, both with OLED displays
The AT&T phone will have a physical keyboard and will run the Google experiences software
environment, rather than the company’s proprietary MotoBlur software. The Verizon phone will not have a keyboard.
If this is true, these will be Motorola's first AMOLED phones.
We've got some more details on the upcoming, non-official-yet Google phone. It'll be called Nexus One, and will have a 3.7" WVGA touch AMOLED. It will be offered by 'invitation' only at first, but Google may team up with a carrier later one, we do not know yet.
Google Nexus One Update: Currently (2/1/2010) the Moment is the #1 best selling smartphone!
The Samsung Moment is a very popular phone - at least over at Amazon.com, where it's currently the #4 best selling smartphone. It's more popular than the Palm Pre (also on Spring, and costs the same, $79.99). The most popular smartphones, by the way, are two BlackBerrys (Bold 9700 and Curve 8900), and Motorola's Droid. The Moment has a 3.2" touch OLED, full QWERTY slider, 3.2mp camera, microSDHC slot, Wi-Fi and GPS. It runs Google's Android OS (on a 800Mhz processor).
Another OLED gadget that is popular is Nikon's S70. Despite getting rather bad reviews, it's number #13 and #14 in Amazon's best-selling point-and-shoot cameras. Different colored S70 are listed as different products, so totally it should rank even higher. The S70 has a 3.5" touch OLED. The S70 costs 260$.
Taiwan's Innolux has acquired two companies that had OLED programs: TPO and CMO. This is a 3-way-merger that is supposed to take place in May 2010, and the new company will be called Chimei Innolux.
This is interesting news, and we do not know yet what will happen to the OLED programs of the two companies. The two companies had problems in their OLED subsidiaries (technical and financial) so this might be a good thing as they can now work together to solve the technical issues. Hopefully Innolux will not decide to simply give up on OLEDs...
CMEL (CMO's OLED subsidiary) has bee making OLED panels for quite some time. They offer the largest OLED panel available (7.6") which is being used by a few high-end products, such as Kodak's digital-photo frame. There were some rumors that CMEL are working at only 40% of their capacity, because of financial problems at CMO. These problems are now over with the merger, hopefully.
TPO hasn't yet started to mass-produce OLEDs, and were facing some technical problems, that caused some delays. They are currently developing 3"-4" panels for mobile phones and cameras. They had plans to start producing the 3" panels this year, but we're not sure if they have actually begun. It was reported that TPO will supply Nokia with these AMOLEDs.
DisplaySerach has released their latest Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report. They say that OLED revenues have reached $252 million in Q3 2009, up 31% Q/Q. OLED shipments were 21.7 million (up 19% Q/Q). Demand was driven by high-end mobile phones.
Quarterly shipments and revenue
Samsung Mobile Displays continues to be the market leader - in face they have a 73% market share (in revenues). RiTdisplay is second with a 12% share.
PMOLED shipments did not grow from 2008 to 2009. In face, mobile-phones shipments decreased (there is a shift from clam-shell style phones with external PMOLEDs to smart-phones), but PMOLED for automotive applications is increasing, with Mercedes Benz and Lexus adopting PMOLEDs. PMOLED shipments in Q3 2009 has reached 427,000.
OLED-Info readers get a 5% discount on this report, follow this link
If you have an Amazon Kindle e-reader, then you'd be happy to know that you can now read OLED-Info directly on your Kindle. The service costs $0.99 a month.
Amazon's Kindle is a wireless e-book reader that has a free 3G connection in the US. It's got a 6" E Ink display, 2Gb of memory, and it's available now.
Doosan Electro-Materiasl have signed an agreement with the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) to co-develop materials for OLED lighting. They plan to develop white phosphorescent materials that feature high efficiency and long lifetimes. Doosan EM is already producing materials for OLED displays (PMOLED and AMOLED).
