December 2010

Samsung announced that it will be showing flexible and transparent OLED displays during CES, but it seems that those displays aren't new. The first display is a 4.5" WVGA flexible AMOLED. This seems to be the same display shown at the FPD 2010 exhibition (November 2010):

The second display is a 19" qFHD transparent (up to 30%) AMOLED for TVs and monitors, and also a 14" qFHD transparent AMOLED for notebooks. This also seems to be the same displays shown at the FPD exhibition.

According to LG's official flickr account, the company is set to reveal a new 3D OLED TV panel that will be based on the company's new Film-Type Patterned Retarter (or FPR) technology. FPR adds a polarized filter to the TV which enables 3D using passive glasses - which are cheaper than active-shutter glasses. LG also claims that FPR eliminates flicker and crosstalk.

We're not sure if this new OLED TV will be the same as the 31" one unveiled in August 2010 - which also used polarized 3D glasses. But the FPR technology is said to be new, so we do not know. We'll have to wait and see...

Update: the XZ-1 is now official!

There are rumors that Olympus will unveil the XZ-1 pocket camera at CES 2011. It will be the first Olympus camera to have an OLED display (a 3" one). Other features include a 10mp sensor and 28-112mm f/1.8-2.5 lens.

This won't be first Olympus OLED product, actually. Back in 2005 Olympus announced a series of MP3 players with PMOLED displays.

Kaneka is developing OLED Lighting panels, and have announced a competition - to design a lighting object to be set up in bars. Kaneka will present a bar space (designed by the architect Mr. Koichi Suzuno) based on the 'Attractive bars in Japan' theme in the MilanoSalone 2011 exhibition. This bar venue will be using designs from the competition.

The first prize is one million yen (about $12,000) and an invitation to the exhibition. There are also 3 runner up prizes. You can send your designs by January 10th.

Samsung Mobile Display announced that the International Committee for Display Metrology (ICDM) approved their Emotional Image Quality Evaluation (EIQE) standard. The new standard improves on the National Television System Committee (NTSC)’s standard which simply measures the RGB colors in a flat space. The new standard calls for measuring all colors reproduced by the display and taking into account external factors such as lighting.

The EIQI is based on the Volume Color Reproduction Capability (VCRC) which considers colors in a three-dimensional space. It is also based on human perception by using the Perceptual Contrast Length (PCL) standard that expresses perceived degree of lightness. If you measure AMOLED displays in the NTSC standard, it turns out that it is less bright than LCDs. But using the new standard, they are brighter, and the resolution is perceived to be better.

Philips has transformed the Business Center OLED Lighting into a Global Business Unit OLED. They tell us that this emphasizes the importance of OLEDs within Philips. Kristin Knappstein, Head of Business Creation in the OLED unit has kindly agreed to answer a few questions we had.

Q: Hi Kristin, and thanks for your time. You have launched the first Lumiblade panels back in 2009. How's the response so far?

The first Lumiblade panels were already available in 2008 through our Technology kit, which was very well sought after.

Since then we have had constant request for panels in all shapes and sizes. Today, people not only can order from from our webshop a wide array of standard panels which are delivered in our Lumiblade Experience Kit but also our Lumiblade modules and moreover Lumiblades of individual shapes and sizes by contacting us.

Reactions have been very positive and inspiring to us. General statements by our customers are that it is good to have a brand new technology accessible the way we as Philips give access to it. As for a customer driven company it is our strategy to have this feedback in order to align our products with the customer needs.

It seems that Samsung will be able to reach its 10 million Galaxy-S sales goal for 2010: they just announced that they have sold 9.3 million phones so far in 2010, and expect to sell at least 10 million by the year's end. In Korea, the Galaxy-S outsold the iPhone 4 during 2010 (2 million units of Galaxy S vs only 1.8 million iPhones).

Samsung Galaxy S

The Galaxy S is an Android phone with a 4" WVGA 800 X 480 Super-AMOLED display.

So, 2010 is almost over, and it's been a very interesting year for OLEDs. The biggest story in 2010 was probably Samsung's AMOLED success. During 2010 we saw several high-profile mobile phones that use AMOLED or Super-AMOLED displays: Google Nexus-One and Nexus-S, Samsung's Jet, Wave and Galaxy-S, Nokia's N8, E7 and C7, three WP7 phones, and several HTC phones. Samsung couldn't actually keep up with demand for AMOLEDs, and some models had to switch back to LCDs.

Nokia C7

Samsung is heavily into AMOLEDs. Back in May they committed $2.2 billion for a new Gen-5.5 AMOLED plant - which will go online in July 2011. This plant will increase Samsung's production capacity ten-fold. LG is also investing heavily in new lines (and plan a 5.5-Gen plant of their own) and other companies that plan to start mass production of AMOLEDs soon include TPO, AUO, Visionox, Wintek and others.

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Japan's Ulvac says that demand for OLED manufacturing equipment is strong - and it makes up for a fall in the demand for LCD equipment. Ulvac expects about ¥31 billion ($370 million) in OLED related orders for their current fiscal year (which ends on June 2011). OLED equipment amounts to about 40% of their total revenue (up from 10% last year).