August 2010

Blackbody will show new OLED lamp designs at the NOW! Maison & Objet Fair (September 3rd to 7th, 2010). All of the new lamps were designed by C+B Lefebvre. Those lamps are available to buy, but probably cost quite a bit. Here are my two favorites:

The first lamp (shown above) is called 6"O" with an active area of 540cm2, color temperature of 3200 K°, 26W power consumption and it weights 5.5Kg : "Providing both linear and surface illumination, this light bridge creates an enlightened area free of shadows and glare. This virtually tamed lighting offers both direct illumination whilst simultaneously bathing the surrounding area in a halo of soft light.

Sprint has started selling the Samsung Epic 4G phone for $199 (with a new contract). The Epic 4G (or Galaxy Pro) is a 1Ghz Android (v2.1) QWERTY slider for Sprint's WiMax network. It has a large (4") Super-AMOLED, 5mp camera (capable of 720p video recording), 802.11b/g/n WiFi and a six-axis accelerometer.

Last week we reported that LG is set to show a new 31" OLED TV at IFA 2010 (September 3rd). So now LG has released a photo and some information about it. So they will be showing a 31" OLED TV, but it's only a prototype, not a product yet. It will be just 0.29cm thick, support polarized 3D and have a 600Hz refresh rate.

We don't know if/when they plan to release this as a product. But we do know that LG's new 5.5-Gen plant is only scheduled for 2012, and LG estimates that OLEDs will be competitive with LCDs in 2014.

Samsung say that they have sold over a million Galaxy-S phones in the US - in just 45 days. The phone started shipping on July 15, and is currently available for AT&T and T-Mobile (it will soon be available with Sprint, Verizon, U.S. Cellular and Cellular South). Amazon are now offering it for AT&T at no cost (with a new plan), It is now AT&T's best selling phone in Amazon!. The Galaxy-S, Samsung's latest Android phone, has a 1 Ghz processor and a large 4" Super-AMOLED display.

Samsung Galaxy S

You can also buy the Galaxy S unlocked for $599.

Engadget has posted a short video showing a preview of Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet computer. So it's not official yet, but according to the video, it has a LED-LCD, not a Super-AMOLED. We'd obviously love Samsung to release a tablet with an AMOLED, but realistically it's unlikely - they can't keep up with current demand of small AMOLEDs for mobile phones...

Cintelliq has released a new report (Encapsulation and barriers: A review of the patent landscape) and say that "The commercialisation of OLED technology is driving the growth of sealing, barrier and encapsulation technologies". OLEDs are responsible for more than 90% of the new patents in those technologies.

The increasing market acceptance of OLED based displays has been a major driver in the development of encapsulation systems, as OLED lighting begins to gain market adoption this too will also be a primary driver for further development. In fact the growth in encapsulation and barrier technologies has shown the same explosive growth OLED lighting has shown since 2000.

Shanghai Tianma has decided to build a pilot AMOLED production line (4.5-Gen) in a $72 million investment (the company will apply for a $40 million government funding). The pilot line will be placed within Tianma's existing 4.5-Gen LCD production line, and will output around 1000 glass substrates monthly. This will probably be China's second AMOLED pilot line, as Visionox's one is already online today.

Someone did a battery-life comparison of several android handsets, and according to that test, handsets with AMOLED has the poorest battery life. LCD handsets are better (the Galaxy S, with its large Super-AMOLED display is in the middle). They tested mostly web-browsing, which means a lot of white, which is not good for OLED displays. Also of course the AMOLED display is not the only difference between those handsets.

AMOLED should theoretically offer lower power consumption, but this is not the first time we hear that newer LCDs are actually better. For example, when HTC replaced AMOLEDs with LCDs in the Desire phones (and others), they said that the battery life is better with LCDs. The good news is that Samsung plans to soon double the efficiency of their AMOLED displays. AMOLEDs are at an early stage soon, so we can expect fast advances in all aspects, including efficiency.

Andrew Rinzler, professor of physics at the University of Florida has developed a new driving method for large OLED panels which basically brings the source and drain electrodes of a transistor closer together by stacking components on top of one another instead of side by side. The transistors are made from thin aluminum oxide film on a glass subtrate (as the drain electrode) and a layer of organic molecules as a channel. This enables good performance without the need for high-resolution lithography techniques. The new device also uses a tenth of the voltage of current OLEDs - which saves power.

Transistors on glass

They haven't yet made a large-sized panel, but it should be possible with the new design. It can also be used to make flexible OLEDs. They are currently working to simplify the architecture in hope to bring down the cost and complexity even further.

There are some reports of a new T-Mobile phone called G2. It's a QWERTY slider running Google's Android OS. According to a leaked WalMart page, it'll have a 3.7" touch AMOLED display. No official information yet...