April 2010

The SID (Society for Information Displays) conference is the leading Display trade show, and SID 2010 will take place towards the end of May (23/5 till the 28/5). What can we expect from this show?

Sony 24.5-inch 3D OLED prototype

SID is not a consumer oriented show, and usually companies do not show new products - so we don't expect any new phones or an OLED TV. But we do hope that some companies will show us new medium/large OLED panels that are ready for production.

Novaled is demonstrating OLEDs made on metal (steel) substrates that are only 0.7mm thick. Those substrates require specific top-emitting OLED structures, and Novaled has developed dedicated ITO-free OLEDs that has a similar performance to standard bottom-emission OLEDs. Novaled is also working on thin-film encapsulation that will enable flexible OLEDs.

Novaled say that metal substrates has several advantages: they will enable flexibility, they have good heat conduction properties, and the "open the roadmap" towards low-cost roll-to-roll production. They also look great and are very robust.

The HTC Incredible is now shipping for Verizon's network in the US - and it costs $99 with a new service plan (if you want to use an existing plan, it'll cost $530). The Incredible has the same hardware as Google's Nexus One, but with HTC's Sense UI: 3.7" 480x800 WVGA touch AMOLED display, Android 2.1, 1Ghz processor, 8mp camera and 8GB of internal memory (plus a microSD slot).

HTC Incredible

Buy it now for $99 from Amazon.

We know that NeoView Kolon are working on transparent OLEDs (mostly PMOLEDs) - but now we hear that they are also working towards OLED Lighting panels, using bottom-emission RGB light sources.

Neoview-Kolon plans to purchase production equipment (370 x 470) for both their Transparent-OLED and OLED Lighting markets.

Cowon's J3 AMOLED A/V player is now up for pre-order. The 16GB version costs $239.99 while the 8GB one goes for $199. We still don't have a release date, but it's probably soon if Amazon is ready to take pre-orders.

Cowon J3

The J3 has a 3.3" touch AMOLED (480 x 272) with an accelerometer and also features Bluetooth, improved audio using JetEffects 3.0 technology and TV output.

QuickLogic announced the verification of their Visual Enhancement Engine (VEE) and Display Power Optimizer (DPO) technologies with OLED displays for mobile devices. These technologies enhance the viewability of displays in low-brightness or bright-ambient-light conditions by dynamically optimizing video characteristics to provide a better user experience. They also allow the brightness to be lowered and thus enhance battery life.

QuickLogic's proprietary VEE technology enhances image and video quality by optimizing the dynamic range, contrast, and color saturation of content on the display on a pixel-by-pixel basis. This provides a superior viewing experience for the user under any ambient light condition. QuickLogic's DPO technology can significantly reduce display power consumption through intelligent control of the display brightness.

Expansys (UK) are now accepting pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S, saying it will ship in 35 working days. It costs £549.99 (or about $850) for the 8GB version. The Galaxy S has a 4" 800 X 480 Super-AMOLED display, Android OS, 1Ghz CPU, Samsung's Social-Hub, and can shoot HD 720p video.

Samsung Galaxy S

Researchers from the University of Florida has developed a new night-vision technology using OLEDs. They are using thin-film OLED panels to convert infrared light to the visible spectrum. The design has 7 separate OLED layers - each one amplifying the signal and converting it to the visible spectrum.

They say that a full-scale night vision can weight less than 125 grams and be very efficient. This can revolutionize night vision as we know it. They have currently made a prototype that's only 1 square cm in size, but in 18 months they hope to scale it up to a cell-phone display size, or even a car windshield. This research is funded by DARPA.

Samsung say that they have sold over 20,000 NX10 digital cameras in South Korea, and to commemorate this they are launching the camera in white.

Samsung white NX-10

The white NX-10 will cost from $980 to $1600, depending on the bundled lens. The normal (black) NX10 is now shipping for $700 in the US.

LG Display is building a new OLED production line (it will begin production in 3Q 2010). They now say that they will invest $225 million to triple the capacity of that line in the second half of 2011 (to reach 12,000 730x920mm glass sheets a month).