China's Skyworth Group (makers of CRT and LCD TVs) has set up a new R&D center for OLED displays together with the South China University of Technology (SCUT). The new center will be located in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, south China.
Fujitec is showing cylindrical (tubular) OLED lighting panels and OLED lighting processing equipment. The OLED panels are either blue, red or green, 70mm diameter and 80mm in length. The luminance is 100cd/m2 for red or blue and 1000cd/m2 for green - which also features 24lm/W efficacy level. The lifetime is just 100 hours currently.
According to the company by middle 2011 they will be able to produce white-color panels (45mm diameter, 70mm in length) featuring 20lm/W at 1000 hours lifetime. The aim of their current project is to reach a white OLED at 30mm diameter and 200mm length, 30lm/W and 10,000 hours of lifetime.
Remember the man with the OLED hat at CES? He was showing Recom's OLED Video-Name Tag products (with a 2.8", 320x240 OLED display). Now we've found a video of this guy:
Recom's OLED tags last for about 6 hours and Recom thinks it'll be useful for waiters, business man, promoters, service reps,
advertising, etc. They cost $200 each.
Update: Sony announced the PSP2 (NGP) - which indeed includes a 5" touch AMOLED!
There are some reports from Japan that the new Sony PSP2 mobile gaming console will have an OLED display. The report says that the display will be 'larger than normal' - the original PSP has a 3.8" (480x272) LCD, so we assume that the OLED will be 4" or more.
Sony are expected to announce the new PSP later this week. Other unofficial features include 3G support (for over-the-air multiplayer gaming and game downloads) and Wi-Fi. This is not the Playstation Phone that is also expected from Sony, and the PSP2 will not include phone capabilities.
The US Patent Office published a new patent application from Apple - combining the Magic Mouse touch interface with a flexible OLED or another specialized display surface made of collimated optical glass that contains a unique magnifying capability.
The idea is that the display can be used for all sorts of application - for example displaying a calculator when in use with Apple's Numbers application or magnifying text when using Apple's Pages application. Apple wants to use a flexible display because the mouse's surface is non-planar.
Update: The Galaxy Tab 2 is now official, here's more details along with the new Galaxy S2 phone.
Update: We understand that Samsung wants to introduce the Galaxy Tab 2 soon, and it's not clear whether they'll be able to actually deliver 7" Super-AMOLED displays in time - some say that it will use an LCD like the original Tab. It's not clear also whether this video is real or is this a fake...
We found a "leaked" video announcing the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. The leaked specs include a 7" 2048x1200 Super-AMOLED display (which is probably a Super AMOLED Plus, really, because of that resolution). Samsung unveiled a 7" Super-AMOLED in a tablet prototype back in November 2010, so this isn't a huge surprise. Here's the video:
After years of refraining from having a smart phone, I finally bought a Galaxy S. The Super AMOLED display is terrific - and everyone I show it to says it is impressive ("so That's what you've been talking about all those years...").
Tera-Barrier Films announced today that Kisco has become a strategic investor in the company, and will be the exclusive distributor of their products. The funds will be used by Tera-Barrier to commercialize their moisture-resistant films for flexible OLEDs and organic solar cells. The company is already providing small-volume samples and expects to start large-scale manufacturing in the 'near future'.
Tera-Barrier says that defects such as pinholes, cracks and grain boundaries are common in thin oxide barrier films when fabricated onto plastic substrates. Current barrier technologies focus on reducing these defects by using alternate organic and inorganic multilayers coated on plastic. These multiple layers stagger corresponding pores in adjacent layers and create a ‘tortuous’ lengthy pathway for water and oxygen molecules, making it more difficult to travel through the plastic.
LG Display reported heavy losses, as the company sees continued weak demand from TV makers. Interestingly, BNP Paribas bank estimates that the LCD TV industry has peaked - and will shrink by 3-4 percent a year. This is due to new displays such as AMOLEDs.
This seems a bit optimistic - as in all probability it will take at least 2-3 years for OLED TVs to really start to gain market in share.
Update: It turns out that the new manufacturing process that is discussed here is LITI (currently they use FMM). More details here!
We've got some interesting updates about Samsung's upcoming Super AMOLED Plus displays. We know that Samsung said that the new displays feature 50% more sub-pixels, and today we confirmed that Samsung no longer uses Pentile matrix in the new displays - which is great news - they are using regular RBG. Samsung's new manufacturing process allows them to reach over 300ppi - which is comparable to the iPhone 4 "Retina Display" (which features 326ppi).
Samsung Super AMOLED Plus display
The last bit of information is regarding the OLED materials - it turns out that Samsung aren't using a Green Phosphorescent material yet. The Super AMOLED Plus displays (like the first-gen Super AMOLED) use just a Red Phosphorescent with a Green and Blue Fluorescents.
