Back in May 2010 Dupont announced that they can print a a 50" OLED TV in under two minutes, using their new printable OLED materials and a custom-made printer from Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Today we learned that Dupont estimates that their new OLEDs will be cheaper than LCDs - by about 40%! Regular OLEDs cost about twice as much  as LCDs to manufacture.

Dupont's new manufacturing process uses a continuous stream of ink (rather than droplets used in 'classic' inkjet design), and moves over a surface at rates of four to five meters per second while patterning a display. The spray-printer developed with Dai Nippon Screen works on Gen-4 substrates (730x920). Dupont is using a common structure for each pixel (red, green and blue) and isn't optimizing each pixel. This is less efficient, but results in faster throughput. 

Samsung's Galaxy S2, the successor to the popular Galaxy S is now official -and it has a 4.3" Super AMOLED plus display, 1Ghz dual-core processor, NFC, Bluetooth 3 and HSPA+.

According to reports, the display offers 800x480 (WVGA) resolution - the same as the Galaxy S' Super-AMOLED which is smaller at 4". This is rather strange...

Update: The next workshop dates are 23.2, 6.4 and 26.5.

We just got word that Philips will be holding new three-hour long OLED lighting workshops at the Lumiblade Creative Lab in Aachen, Germany. The workshops offer a chance to experience and experiment with Philips' OLED lighting panels, learn about OLED technology today and in the future.

If you want to participate, you can get send an e-mail to Philips (info.lumiblade@philips.com). If you're interested in Philips' OLED panels, be sure to read our hands-on review!

Frost & Sullivan released a new report titled "European OLED's market". This report analyses the current and future trends in the European OLED's market with analysis by each OLED types (lighting and displays), opportunity and competition in the European market, market drivers and restraints along with the industry challenges. The research also highlights the trend in the LED's market.

Regarding OLED lighting, F&S says that OLED's energy efficiency offers offers numerous opportunities for large-scale adoption. The EU are investing sizeable amounts in R&D - and they want to develop a large-scale, geographically extensive OLED lighting industry. This leads to an increased optimism regarding the future of OLEDs. The reports suggests that EU will also help to adopt OLEDs in the long-term with funding and legislations.

OSD Displays announced a new blue (1bit/pixel) PMOLED module. It offers 128x32 resolution and the size is 2.23" diagonal (62x24x2mm outline). The new display (OSD-12832P0906) has parallel, I2C, and SPI interfaces via a standard 24 conductor ZIF-type 0.5mm pitch flex interface.

Remember Recom Group's OLED Video-Name Tag? It's a 2.8" OLED display (320x240) that can show video for about 6 hours and can be used for advertising, waiters, promotores, etc. It costs $200. They have just announced a couple of accessories for this product - a wrist-band and a belt-buckle. Both the band and the buckel cost $79 (and the belt itself goes for $24).

Recom has been showing the name tag at CES - embedded in a hat, it was pretty neat:

Verbatim (a subsidiary of Mitsubishi) announced their new color-tunabe and dimmable OLED lighting panels called VELVE (these are made together by Mitsubishi and Pioneer). Verbatim says that the panels are already available - which makes the VELVE the world's first color-tunable OLED lighting panels. Verbatim apparantly offers just one size - 14x14cm, which is similar to Lumiotec's OLED panels.

Verbatim also announced that they will display the new panels at Fuori Salone, an exhibition held in Milan, Italy on April 12-17. Verbatim's stand was designed by Mr. Satoshi Uchihara, a lighting designer who was involved in lighting up such important sites as the famous Japanese temple Kinkakuji, and the New Terminal Building at Haneda Airport.

Today we learned that Apple filed three OLED display related patents lately. The main patent (#20100321305) is about driving an OLED display structure that is integrated with a touch sensor (Samsung's Super-AMOLED is such a device, and we know that AUO is also developing an integreated multi-touch AMOLED). 

The second patent (#20100265187) discusses signal routing to an OLED structure that includes a touch actuated sensor configuration. The third patent (#20100265188) discusses the  integration of a touch actuated sensor configuration with an OLED structure.

Victrex and the Holst Centre presented progress in flexible substrate development based on Victrex's APTIV PEEK polymer film. The results are promising and Victrex decided to step into a full partnership with the Holst Centre. Victrex's material can withstand high processing temperatures in comparison with other thermoplastic materials, and can be used as a substrate for flexible and printed electronics such as OLED.

Specifically, enhancements were applied during the manufacturing process of APTIV PEEK film in order to fulfill the dimensional stability requirements of flexible substrates used in plastic electronics applications. In the study, the performance of the APTIV flexible electronics grade was compared to that of the standard extruded APTIV film along with other competing candidate films. Critical performance parameters were measured, such as the coefficient of thermal expansion, thermo mechanical properties and dimensional stability, mostly at up to 230ºC.

There are reports that Samsung developed a new technology that allows them to create larger AMOLED panels from their existing 5.5-Gen (1,300x1,500mm) production lines. Up until now Samsung had to cut the substrate to at least 3 parts and so the largest panel was 32". Now the company can make one 65" panel from each substrate - to make 65" OLED TV panels. This new technology will be implemented in Samsung's second 5.5-Gen line (scheduled for 2012).

Samsung's first 5.5-Gen line (A2 in Tangjeong) is scheduled to start producing AMOLEDs in 2Q 2011. This line will be used only for small panels (for mobile phones, cameras, etc.). The second line (A3, also in Tangjeong) is scheduled for 2012 and using the new technology this line can be used to make large panels - up to 65".