January 2016

Photonics-based solutions provider Coherent announced their financial results for Q4 2015, which were below estimates, but the company reported high bookings, mostly for its Linebeam systems which are used for laser annealing (turning a-Si into LTPS) for OLED producers.

Last quarter Coherent reported that they shipped their third $20-million Linebeam 1500 OLED ELA system in the quarter. Back then Coherent expected substantial new OLED orders in 2016 and now they confirm that. Coherent reports that they received a large (well in excess of $150 million) for OLED systems - and they have a "significant number" of orders pending for the balance of the second quarter and for the remainder of fiscal 2016. Deliveries of the new systems will begin in June 2016 and will run through 2017.

When LG launched their 55EG9100 in 2015, the price of the 55" curved FHD OLED TV was set at $2,499. Shortly after LG dropped the price to $1,999. Today Adorama started offering this TV for $1,399 on eBay. This is a limited time offer, but still a great deal for a Full-HD 55" OLED!

The EG9100 is LG's entry-level 2015 OLED TV, and it features webOS 2.0, a dual-core CPU, magic remote and passive 3D (2 glasses included).

Earlier this week LG Electronics announced their financial results for Q4 2015, and the company stated it saw improved OLED TV sales in the quarter. During the company's English conference call, Hee Yeon Kim, LGD's Head of IR Division, said that LGD shipped around 400,000 OLED TV panels in 2015, out of which 50% were sold in Q4. In 2016 the company aims to ship 1 million panels - 40% of which will by 65% in size.

LGD also announced that it will invest $380 million to expand its OLED TV production capacity. LGD will convert an existing LCD production line to OLED production and the line will be completed by Q2 2017. LGD now stated that the new line will have a monthly capacity of 25,000 substrates.

Earlier this month we heard reports that Samsung Display is expected to make a final decision regarding a future OLED TV panel production facility investment. Today SDC confirms that it will proceed with projects for the development of large-sized OLED displays, although the company's focus remains on small-sized OLEDs.

According to Merck, Samsung will indeed return to the OLED TV market, and will do so by 2017. Samsung released their first OLED TV, the KN55S9C, back in June 2013. The TV was available worldwide for a short time for around $10,000, and then dropped to around $6,000 (and even lower) - but Samsung soon stopped production and never released another TV. In 2014 Samsung officials repeatedly said that Samsung will not resume OLED TV production until 2016 or 2017, which coincides with Merck's estimates.

LG Display teamed up with the Fursys Group, an office furniture supplier in Korea, to offer an OLED lighting desk lamp for Fursys' ilroom brand. LG says that this is the world's first "convergence" between OLED lighting and furniture.

The new desk lamp is separately attached to the ilroom desk shelf, and it uses two 213x113 mm OLED panels. LG says that this is the best light source for a studying environment. The OLED desk light is now shipping in Korea for KRW200,000 (about $180).

Colnatec just told us that a large European customer is building an OLED deposition machine that is headed for China. The machine will adopt Colnatec's temperature-controlled Tempe system.

Colnatec would not reveal much, besides that the substrate size is "larger than anything currently on the market", and the customer ordered a "large number" of Tempe Systems. This is very interesting news, and hopefully we will know more in the future. If this is indeed the largest substrate-size OLED fab ever, it is bound to produce OLED TV panels, and it will be great to finally see competition for LG Display's OLEDs. Of course it may take a couple of years before mass production actually begins.

LG Electronics announced their financial results for Q4 2015, with an operating profit of $300 million from sales of $12.5 billion. Full-year operating income was $1 billion, down from $1.58 billion in 2014, from revenues of $48.8 billion (down from $50.1 billion in 2014) due to sluggish demand for TVs and soft mobile phone sales.

On the positive side, LG saw improved OLED TV sales in the fourth quarter, and LG believes that 2016 will see wider acceptance of their new OLED TVs and the company will continue to expand its TV marketing initiatives.

According to HD Guru, LG Electronics is running a limited-time VIP pre-launch program for its new 65" 4K Signature OLEDG6P OLED TVs. LGE selected several US retailed that will receive in-store demo units and will accept advance pre-orders. The pre-launch program will start after the 2016 Superbowl on February 7th.

HD Guru also reports that the new G6 TVs will cost $7,999 - a thousand dollars more than the new 65" OLEDE6 TVs (which are not shipping yet either, but have been priced at $6,999), and $3,000 more than the 2015 65" EF9500 models. The G6 TVs will actually start shipping towards the end of March 2016.

MagnaChip announced that since 2007 it has shipped over 160 million AMOLED driver ICs. Most of these ICs went to smartphones, but MagnaChip says they also shipped drivers to digital cameras and tablets. The company's latest AMOLED drivers target the VR headset and automotive markets.

MagnaChip says the company has a unique proprietary foundry model. This model allows MagnaChip to apply its own unique AMOLED process patents as well as other intellectual property, proprietary process design kits and custom design-flow methodologies using internal and external foundries. MagnaChip's technology current uses 55-nm process nodes, and is developing sub 55-nm processes.

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) is a UK based R&D institute that helps companies develop and scale manufacturing processes. The CPI has an OLED and OPV prototype line that was designed to enable materials companies, device designers and end users to develop their technology within a fully automated, controlled environment.

The CPI released the nice video you see above, demonstrating a bendable patterned OLED lighting panel produced at the centre's prototype line. CPI's system supports both small evaporized and soluble OLED materials. The line uses slot die technology to allow the coating of substrates in a highly repeatable and reproducible manner with a uniform film thickness of under 50 nm.