November 2012

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL) started to offer OLED lighting kits. For ¥78,500 (about $950) you get three OLED lighting panels, two stands (which including dimming controls) and an AC adapter. The OLED lighting panels are 97x90 mm in size (2 mm thick), offer a luminance of 3,100 cd/m², a lifetime of 10,000 hours (LT70) and an efficiency if 26-30 lm/W. Each panel in the kit has a different color temperature (3000K, 4000K and 5000K).

PIOL's panels have a high CRI (over 90) and they target museums and exhibitions. Panasonic made panels have already been used in at least two museums: Kyoto's MOMAK museum and Panasonic's own Shiodome museum.

DisplayBank says that AMOLED production shipments grew in Q3 2012 due to better yields at Samsung's 5.5-Gen AMOLED fabs. Q3 shipments grew 6.5% compared to Q1 and Q2 (which were flat). By area of panel shipped, shipments increased 15.9% compared to Q1 and Q2.

Compared to last year, Q3 shipments increase 42% (92% by area) - but still it is evident that the OLED market is not really increasing its capacity as fast as people thought. Hopefully in 2013 we'll see more players with mass production (including LGD for OLED TVs, AUO and CMI) and also more capacity increases from Samsung (for small panels and large OLED TV ones, and maybe flexible OLEDs as well).

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) claims that Taiwan can still compete with Korean panel makers (Samsung and LGD) in the flexible AMOLED market. The institute says that help from the Taiwanese economics bureau will be required. Upstream suppliers will need to ramp up their development effort and boost production facilities and materials.

Samsung had plans to release their first plastic-based flexible OLEDs in 2012, but this has been delayed to early 2013. LG Display hopes to start flexible OLED production towards the end of 2013.

Universal Display announced it has awarded a $150,000 SBIR phase I program from the US DOE to develop low cost single layer outcoupling solution for OLED lighting. UDC says that to date no one has demonstrated an approach to achieve desired extraction efficiency targets in a thin form factor and cost-effective manner. UDC's solution has the potential to increase the light extraction by greater than a factor of two while being cost-effective and compatible with low-cost OLED manufacturing techniques.

UDC is also developing single-layer thin-film hybrid organic-inorganic encapsulation layer (they call this UniversalBarrier). Obviously these two technologies can be combined to create thin-film low-cost and efficient OLED lighting panels.

OSRAM has unveiled a cool new automobile rearlight prototype based on OLED Lighting panels:

The Automobile market is attracting many OLED producers. Just last month Astron Fiamm showed an updated Car.Bones prototype with OLED headlights, inside-lighting, turn indicators, and more. Audi has also unveiled some very unique OLED lighting designs, in collaboration with Philips.

Sony unveiled a new 20.5" monochrome OLED monitor for the medical industry. This monitor offers 2048x2560 resolution, high luminance, wide viewing angle, high contrast and deep, rich black reproduction (the black level is less than 0.001cd/M² and 500 cd/M² luminance). The monitor isn't available yet, and apparently it doesn't have a model number yet.

Sony is already offering the full-color 25" Trimaster EL PVM-2551MD medical monitor, which has recently received FDA approval for use in surgery (the first OLED panel to do so). It costs €6,000 (which is 50% more expensive than the equivalent LCD monitor from Sony).

2012 is soon over, and now we enter the holidays season. I'm happy to extend a special discount for the The OLED Handbook (2012 edition). We offer $17 off the regular digital edition (PDF) price, so you can now get our leading OLED technology, industry and market guide for only $80! To claim your discount, simply buy the book here and use this coupon when you checkout: OLEDAY2012. The offer is valid throughout 2012.

Reading this book, you'll learn all about:

• What is an OLED and different types of OLEDs
• OLED displays and lighting
• OLED production technologies
• What kind of OLED displays and lighting panels are available today
• Super AMOLED, Super AMOLED Plus, ClearBlack and more
• The future of OLED displays and lighting
• Where the OLED market is headed
• Existing and future OLED fabs
• How to best invest in the OLED revolution
• Other emerging display technologies
• Over 100 OLED related companies
• And lot's more!

Samsung announced that they sold over 5 million Galaxy Note II phones. In the beginning of November they announced 3 million units sold - so it means they sold 2 million in less than a month. The Note II has a 5.5" HD Super AMOLED display (1280x720, non-Pentile), a quad-core 1.6Ghz processor and a large 3,100mAh battery. It's only 9.4mm thick.

The Note 2 started shipping in September 2012. It's available for AT&T ($250), and also unlocked in the US for $775 (international version).

Nokia's Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 is now available from AT&T (free with a contract). The Lumia 820 features a 4.3" 800x480 Clearblack OLED display, a 1.5Ghz dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage (and a microSD slot) and a 8mp camera.