MicroOLED was founded in 2007 - to develop and produce OLED microdisplays. The company had plans to release their first product towards the end of 2009, but these plans were scrapped. Last month the company announced that they are about the ship their first-gen product in 2 months, and already received orders for over 10,000 microdisplays. MicroOLED's first-gen display is a 9.6mm 800x480 (WVGA) OLED microdisplay that uses white SM-OLEDs and RGBB color filters. Power consumption is 25mW for 60Hz video at 150cd/m².

Eric Marcellin-Dibon, MicroOLED's co-founder, CEO and head of strategy and biz-dev was kind enough to answer a few questions we had. Eric has more than 20 years experience in the field of high technologies and consumer electronics. Previously director of the display strategy and general manager of the strategic sourcing group at Thomson, Eric held several management positions in France, Germany and in the UK.

MagnaChip announced that they are providing 480X800 AMOLED display driver ICs for multiple Microsoft Windows-based smartphones. The company didn't say which companies they are supplying to, although it's probably Samsung. Samsung, Dell and Nokia are all producing Windows Phones (although Nokia's Lumia 800 has a different resolution - 854x480, which rules it out).

A couple of months ago MagnaChip announced that they are providing AMOLED drivers for the new Galaxy S2 LTE smartphone.

There's an interesting article at CENS discussing Wintek's partnership with Shanghai Tianma (which was reported back in June 2011). According to the new article Wintek already began construction of the upcoming 4-Gen LTPS OLED plant in Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP). The company says that the new plant is scheduled to begin production in 2014.

Wintek are collaborating on OLED technology with Tianma. This new report suggests that the Wintek will ship AMOLED panels in 2014 - both self-produced and those made by Tianma.

Update: The giveaway is now over, and we have three lucky winners...

We're happy to announce OLED-Info's holiday giveaway - with a chance to win a free copy of The OLED Handbook, and two phosphor world-time E Ink watches (which were kindly sent to us by E Ink). These three cool prizes will be randomly given to three lucky fans of our facebook page on January 1st. To participate, click like on our page, and also like the giveaway post. Just a couple of clicks...

The Phosphor world-time E Ink watch has a SURF (segmented) E Ink display that offers 24 time zones and several displays modes. It's a large watch, and it takes some time to get used to, but it looks good and draws a lot of attention... Here's our sister-site E-Ink-Info's on hands review of this watch. This watch costs $125 at Amazon.com (although it's currently out-of-stock).

Google's chairman Eric Shcmidt told a reporter that Google plans to market a tablet "of the highest quality" in the next 6 months. It may be that Google is simply planning a "marketing push" for Android tablets, but it's more likely that Google will launch their own branded Tablet - just like the Nexus range of phones.

If indeed they plan a high-quality product, it's quite possible that it will have an AMOLED display. Google's entire Nexus range of phones had AMOLED displays - the 3.7" WVGA OLED of the Nexus One, the 4" WVGA Super AMOLED of the Nexus S and the 4.65" HD Super AMOLED (1280x720) of the Galaxy Nexus. Samsung are already producing 7.7" Super AMOLED Plus displays, as used in the upcoming Galaxy Tab 7.7.

Update: according to Reuters, Sony shipped 321,400 Vita units in the first two days and are reportedly very happy with these numbers, but the following week sales were rather low

Sony's PSP Vita, announced back in January 2011, is finally shipping in Japan. According to reports Sony saw "massive pre-order demands" for the Vita. They originally planned to ship 500,000 units in Japan in the first day but have added 200,000 units - so first day shipments may reach 700,000 units. The Vita will launch in the US and the EU on February 22nd, 2012. You can already pre-order it over at Amazon.com ($249 for the Wi-Fi model and $299 for the 3G/Wi-fi model).

The Vita features a 960x544 5" touch AMOLED display (made by Samsung), a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and a quad-core PowerVR (SGX543MP4+) GPU (Sony says that it is as powerful as a PS3), Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and 3G (AT&T, optional).

The Federal President of Germany Christian Wulff awarded the German Future Prize (Deutscher Zukunftspreis) 2011 to three organic electronics researchers: Prof. Karl Leo from Technical University of Dresden and Fraunhofer IPMS COMEDD, Dr. Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth from Novaled and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer from Heliatek. Both Heliatek and Novaled are spinoffs from TU Dresden.

The German Future Prize is worth 250,000 euro and is Germany's most prestigious award for science and innovation. Congratulations guys!

Verizon starts selling the Galaxy Nexus - for $300 with a 2 year plan. The Galaxy Nexus is the first Android v4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) smartphone - made by Samsung. It features a 4.65" HD Super AMOLED display (1280x720, using PenTile technology) with a curved glass, a dual-core 1.2Ghz CPU, Full-HD video encoding, 5nmp camera, NFC, 1GB of RAM and 16/32GB of internal memory.

Back in April 2010 Plextronics and Cambrios started to develop a new electrode material for OLED panels. The two companies announced today that they have begun to co-market the new electrode aimed towards OLED lighting devices.

The transparent conducting hole injection (TCHI) electrode is based on Plextronics' Plexcore OC HIL material and Cambrios' ClearOhm material. This new electrode is a cheaper alternative to ITO. The development was funded in part by the DOE (which gave $1.2 million out of the total $1.8 million project cost).

Sony's FDA-EV1S XGA (1024x768) OLED viewfinder is now shipping for $349. The viewfinder is an accessory for the NEX-5N mid-range mirrorless interchangeable-lens 16mp camera. The NEX-5N itself costs $599 (body only).