May 2013

The USPTO revealed a new Apple patent application (#306554) that describes a device with a flexible OLED display (the patent application specifically says it's an OLED) that can detect when force is applied - which means that you can press the screen as part of the user interface.

The force-measurement layer, which will be placed on top of the OLED (or embedded inside the OLED panel itself, like the touch layer in Super AMOLED panels), will track whether the panel is being flexed using magnitude detectors such as strain gauges and optical sensors.

Verizon is now accepting pre-orders for the Blackberry Q10, with its square 3.2" 720x720 (330 ppi) Super AMOLED display. The Q10 costs $200 with a two-year contract, or $600 unlocked. Verizon will ship this phone on June 6.

Other Q10 features include a hardware keyboard, LTE, 1.5Ghz dual-core CPU and 2GB of RAM. This is Blackberry's first hardware keyboard device to sport the company's new BB10 OS.

Back in 2010 Samsung said it cannot meet customer demand in its AMOLED fab. As a result, HTC couldn't produce some phones and had to switch from OLED to LCD in some models. Now HTC says that this was a strategical decision by Samsung which is "using their component supply as a competitive weapon".

HTC Desire

In the meantime Samsung's AMOLED capacity has grown dramatically, and since then HTC returned to AMOLED displays on some phones models. HTC is still buying OLEDS from Samsung, but we know it wants to change a supplier.

We heard speculation about Motorola's upcoming "X" phone for a while now. Today Motorola's CEO Dennis Woodside confirmed that the company is developing a new flagship phone that will be called "Moto X". The Moto X will sport an OLED display and advanced sensors. Motorola wants to launch it in October 2013, and this will be the first phone designed after Google bough Motorola.

One of the key features of this new phone will be the low power consumption. It will include two processors, and I assume that it will use a Super AMOLED Advanced display - which use red and reen phosphorescent emitters to cut the power consumption by 25% compared to normal Super AMOLED displays (except for the one used in the GS4). Motorola already uses these panels (or regular Super AMOLED ones) in several of their mobile phones, including the relatively new RAZR i, RAZR HD and RAZR M.

IDTechEx released a new OLED lighting report (OLED vs LED lighting 2013-2023) in which they analyze the OLED lighting market, and compare it to the LED market. The company says that in the "most likely" scenario, the OLED market will grow to $1.3 billion in 2023.

According to IDTechEx, there are two main issues with OLEDs. First of all the performance: LEDs last much longer (typically 50,000 hours compared to 5,000-15,000 in current OLED panels) and they are more efficient (90-100 lm/W compared to OLED lighting which is currently at 20-50 lm/W). Personally I think this gap will close in time. LG Chem for example are expected to release new panels in July 2013 which will feature 80 lm/W and 20,000 hours (LT70).

Aixtron announced that the European Smartonics project (which aims to develop smart machines, tools and processes for the precision synthesis of materials for organic electronics) will use the company's OVPD evaporation process and roll-to-roll printing machines. Aixtron is one of the project's partners and they will develop a small R&D OVPD cluster system that will use the company's latest 200 mm R&D platform, which is optimized and qualified for manufacturing of organic photovoltaic devices.

OVPD (Organic Vapor Phase Deposition) organic material deposition technology was developed by Universal Display. Aixtron holds an exclusive license to produce OVPD manufacturing equipment.

During SID 2013 AUO unveiled a new 4.4" AMOLED panel prototype. The panel is 4.4" in size and features a PPI of 413 (1600x900 resolution). The brightness is 250 nits and the color gamut is 105% NTSC. This panel uses the WRGB structure and an LTPS backplane.

Last month AUO unveiled an AMOLED with an even higher PPI (5" Full-HD, 443 PPI). It's nice to see AUO unveil new prototypes, but what we really want to see is for them to start actual mass production. Some reports suggest that AUO's yields are still very low (around 40%) and the company won't stat mass production until 2014.

Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 phone uses a new OLED panel which adopts a green PHOLED emitter - which cuts the power consumption by about 25%. During the latest SID conference, Samsung demonstrated this very nicely:

OLED Technologies & Solutions (OTS) released a new corporate presentation video which introduces the company and their new inkjet-printing based OLED processing line, the PCA-48:

The PCA-48 line is a 4.5-Gen (730x920 mm) line that incorporates TFE, Ink-Jet Printing, and high vacuum transportation technologies. OTS uses Merck polymer and Small-Molecule materials and their production line supports all substrates (including a-Si using Ignis' technology). OTS that they can deliver and install a complete production line within 12 months, and a single line will be able to produce 40 million smartphone displays in a year. This is the line that AIV-BEX wants to use in their proposed AMOLED production fab.