Spike Aerospace is developing a supersonic business jet. The company announced that instead of conventional windows, it will use curved, super-thin digital displays. The S-512 will reportedly cost $80 million when it becomes available in 2018.

The jet will use micro-cameras to create panoramic views on the curved displays in real time. This has several advantages - you can display whatever you want on these displays, it eliminates glares, it reduces the aircraft's weight, part count and drag and will also simplify the aircraft construction and integrity.

The SID Display Week, the world's leading display industry showcase is scheduled for June, but the organizers already published the list of papers to be presented in this show. Hiding in this long list of technical achievements and research projects are some interesting new OLED developments. So here's some of the achievements to be announced during the show (at no particular order).

TCL's China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) managed to fabricate a 7" QVGA (320x240) flexible PMOLED display. The display uses a thin PEN substrate, processed at Gen-4.5. The company also proposes a design for a 14" QVGA PMOLED panel. CSOT also developed a 31" Full-HD AMOLED panel that uses a IGZO backplane. The 31" direct-emission panel was produced on a Gen-4.5 glass substrate using FMM.

In September 2013, Veeco acquired Synos Technology for $185 million. Synos' FAST-ALD encapsulation technology is aimed towards flexible OLED displays. Back then Veeco said that the company's first FAST-ALD pilot production system has already been installed, and they expect a manufacturing ramp to begin in 2014.

Yesterday Veeco reported their financial results for Q4 2013 (which was a challenging year for Veeco). The company said that they "received a purchase order from the world leader in mobile OLED displays for a first-generation FAST-ALD prototype system". The world's leader in mobile OLEDs is certainly Samsung Display (as they currently hold a market share of over 95%).

The EU announced a new SSL lighting project called LASSIE (Large Area Solid State Intelligent Efficient luminaries) that aims to develop hybrid inorganic and organic lighting technologies. The aim is to develop a device with the efficacy and long life of high-power LEDs and the color-tunable diffuse lighting of OLED panels.

It's not clear, but it seems that the project will use the LEDs for the actual light output and fluorescent-based soluble OLED materials for tuning the color. According to CSEM (one of the project partners, the OLED material swill be deposited using a roll to roll process.

In October 2013 Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer announced that they plan to start producing printed OLED lighting panels in 2014. Now Verbatim announced that it will bring an OLED panel produced using a "web coating process" to the Light + Building exhibition in April. Verbatim will also demonstrate a flexible OLED lighting panel for the first time.

We don't have any more information regarding Verbatim's new panels. In October 2013, however, Pioneer and Mitsubishi said that their panels use coating only for the bottom layer, while the emissive and top layers are deposited using VTE.

I just got word from Philips that the company intends to soon launch their first own OLED luminaire for office and retail. Philips has high hopes for this luminaire.

The luminaire is modular, and each module will use four of the Philips newest OLED panels which will be unveiled at the Light + Building show in April. Philips says that this lamp will meet "lighting norms" for workplaces.

LG Chem introduces what I believe to be the largest OLED Lighting panel on the market at 320x110 mm. The panel features an efficacy of 60 lm/W, a high CRI (90) and is only 1 mm thick. It comes in two color variants: 3000K and 4000K.

Together with this large bar-type panel (model N6BB), LG Chem also released a circular panel with a diameter of 100 mm. The N6OA has the same features as the bar panel, and both panels will be shown at the Light + Building exhibition in April.

Back in June 2012 LG was awarded with Korea's ambitious Future Flagship Program that aims to develop 60" flexible transparent UHD OLED displays by 2017. This project raised a few eyebrows and was never mentioned again. Now we hear that LG Display is still developing the technology, and still says that the want to be ready with a real product by the end of 2017.

Flexible OLED TV concept (Sony)

LGD is currently developing a 17" transparent flexible OLED and they hope to ready a prototype by the end of 2014. If this is successful, LGD will move on to the next stage - the 60" UHD panel. This panel will feature 40% transmittance and a curvature radius of 10 cm.

Konica Minolta announced that they will show flexible OLED "demonstration models" at the Light + Building 2014 Frankfurt trade show next month. KM says that not only are these the thinnest OLEDs ever on display, but the panels will also be color tunable, making them the first color-tunable flexible OLEDs in the world.

In the image above, you can see the three models Konica Minolta will have on display. From left to right: the Irodori (with color-tunable OLEDs) which rotates slowly, the Ibuki - a couple of those world's thinnest 70-micron OLED panels that seem to float in the air, and finally the Habtaki 2.0, which gives an impression of a bird fledgling leaving the nest.

There's an interesting article over at JapanTimes, covering the Lighting Japan 2014 event that took place last month. They also posted a nice video from the conference, showing several OLED installations from NEC Lighting, Philips, PIOL and others. There are also some flexbile (formable) OLEDs on display, I'm not sure if these are from LG Chem or Konica Minolta (the only two companies that actually produces flexible OLED lighting prototypes).

NEC Lighting is developing OLED lighting for a long time (over 10 years), and during the video you can see demonstrations of the company's OLED panels, including transparent ones (these were unveiled in 2013).