There's a somewhat confusing report from ZDNet Korea, saying that Samsung Display's CEO is saying that Samsung Electronics is SDC's only AMOLED client, which is a problem for Samsung Display.

This is somewhat surprising. First of all, it is true that Samsung Electronics is by far the largest AMOLED client - which is good for Samsung Group. The OLED displays helped make SE the world's largest smartphone market, and it's quite natural that they will provide them with the latest OLEDs first, as differentiators. Second, we know that SDC is supplying OLEDs for many companies - including Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, Panasonic, Nikon, Oculus, Pantech, BLU and Gionee.

The Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy decided to actively help Samsung Display and LG Display to develop core future display technologies. The government, LGD and SDC will jointly invest 30 billion won ($30 million USD) over five years to develop technologies to improve OLED displays and technologies that will enable the commercialization of flexible displays, and finally technologies for foldable and transparent displays.

This project will also involve Korean research institutes and several small and medium-sized companies. The Korean government is worried that competitors (mainly from China) will grow their display market share and Korean industry will suffer. Cooperation between SDC and LGD over next-gen displays is seen as a the only way to make sure Korea stays the world's No. 1 display maker.

Back in 2012, LG Display was awarded a project by the Korean government to develop 60" UHD flexible and transparent panels by 2017. Later in February 2014, LGD said it is still on target for this project, and that it will show 17" flexible panel prototypes by the end of 2014.

True to its word, today the company announced that it has developed 18" rollable OLEDs and also 18" transparent OLEDs. LG says that it has acquired the fundamental technologies required to lead the large-size flexible and transparent display market. These are the largest flexible and transparent OLEDs ever unveiled!

In June 2013, Samsung launched their 55" curved FHD OLED TV, the S9C. This OLED TV used to cost $13,000, but prices quickly dropped to around $6,000 - and then Samsung stopped producing the TV (they are reportedly getting ready to release UHD OLEDs soon).

Today I found out that Kamdem is selling the S9C on Amazon.com for only $2,800. Yes, this is the lowest priced 55" OLED TV ever (LG's own curved 55" FHD OLED costs $4,300 at the moment on Amazon, after being sold at $3,999 a few weeks ago).

In September 2013, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron (TEL) announced that the two semiconductor manufacturing equipment makers will merge. Today the two companies announced that the new company name will be Eteris, and they also revealed the new logo. The companies expect the transaction to close in second half of 2014.

Both Applied and TEL are engaged with OLED manufacturing equipment. Applied Materials is offering two film deposition systems suitable for LTPS or Oxide-TFT backplane deposition (for both LCD and OLEDs panels). The AKT-PX-PECVD system (shown below) is used to deposit LTPS films on large glass substrates (sized from 1.6 m² to 5.7 m²), while the AKT-PiVoT PVD system is used to deposit metal oxide-based TFTs (IGZO in particular).

Update: It turns out that the researchers did not fabricate an OLED lighting panel, but a small monochrome (green) OLED device.

Researchers from Philips, Graphenea and the University of Cambridge developed a new graphene-based transparent electrode that outperforms ITO in OLED devices.

Graphene by itself is not a good electrode material because the concentration of the charge carriers is low - which means that you need to dope it with excess carriers - while leaving it flexible and transparent. To achieve that, the team used a metal oxide film (molybdenum trioxide, MoO₃) as an intermediate layer between the graphene and the OLED layers. The work was performed as part of the EU project GRAFOL, aimed at roll-to-roll mass production of graphene.

There's an interesting report from ETNews stating that OLED TV producers (LG and Samsung, at the moment) will focus on UHD resolutions on their OLED TVs. It makes sense because OLEDs are marketed as premium TVs, so they cannot have LCDs have any advantages except the price.

ETNews says that Samsung aims to re-enter the OLED TV market and release 55" UHD OLED panels by the end of 2014. This will be great, if only to show that Samsung did not really exit the OLED TV market. Samsung does face some technical challenges, and even if they do release UHD TVs, they will probably not be able to really mass produce them and so prices will be high.

In 2009, Fraunhofer's COMEDD (Center for Organic Materials and Electronic Devices) was established as a department of the Fraunhofer IPMS. Two years ago in July 2012 COMEDD was turned into an independent Fraunhofer Institute. Today we hear that COMEDD is merging with the Fraunhofer's FEP (Electron Beam, Plasma Technology) to become COMEDD FEP.

The director of the new institute, Prof. Volker Kirchhoff, is looking forward for "significant advances", especially in the area of barrier films for flexible organic components and OLED-based microdisplays. Fraunhofer FEP expertise was in processes and equipment in electron beam and plasma technology, whereas COMEDD was focused on organic semiconductors and device development.

On March 2014, Sony unveiled the Morpheus VR HMD system, specifically designed for the PS4 console. The original prototype system shown by Sony used a 5" Full-HD (1920x1080) LCD panel (Oculus's VR system uses a Full-HD OLED).

It'll take a while for Sony to release this as a product (they say it won't happen before the end of 2014) - but there are now reports that Sony is changing the display to a 2560x1440 OLED display (1280x1440 for each eye). Like Oculus, Sony probably wants a low-persistant display as LCDs simply aren't up to par with OLEDs in that regard.

In March 2014, Samsung SDI acquired Samsung's Cheil Industries for $3.3 billion. Cheil is developing and selling electronic materials - including OLED materials. In August 2013, Cheil Industries (together with Samsung Electronics) acquired Novaled for €260 million.

Before its merger with Samsung SDI, Cheil Industries sold its textile and fashion business to Samsung Everland. Today Samsung Everland, who's into fashion, construction and resort businesses announced that it is changing its name to Cheil Indsutries. The company’s resort business including the theme park, however, will continue to use the Everland brand.