February 2016

ZTE had a large booth at MWC 2016, and the Chinese phone maker introduced and demonstrate three OLED phones. All these phones sport SDC-made Super AMOLED displays.

First up we have the Axon Mini, an Android 5 smartphone that features a 5.2" FHD (424 PPI) Super AMOLED display, an octa-core CPU, 13 MP camera, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage and Dual-SIM support. The Axon Mini was actually introduced a few months ago, but only now did ZTE provide the specifications.

This is a sponsored post by Organic Lights

About a year ago, after talking to lots of people in the business, we spotted a gap in the OLED market. Whilst OLED was a term that was being bandied around as the technology that allowed lamps and lighting to move into a new generation, designers and enthusiasts were finding it difficult to get information on the available products and get hold of the panels and lamps themselves.

So, we created Organic Lights to offer a platform that brings everyone together to enjoy the brilliance of the lighting source of today. Organic Lights can unite designers to manufacturers to DIYers in order to share a common interest in OLED. We have the perfect mix of expertise, marketing power and a huge network of business contacts. We are the only solely OLED-based company in the World which means that OLED always takes precedence; the lamps and panels take pride of place and are not tucked in the back pages of a design catalogue. This feeds into our company philosophy that OLED technology deserves to be championed in its own right.

LG's mobile division Chief, Cho Juno, said that LG has big hopes for the new G5 smartphone, and hopes to sell at least 10 million G5 phones by the end of the year - which will be a new record for LG.

The G5 uses an LCD display, but Cho says that LG could start using OLED displays for its flagship phones by the second half of 2017. LG will not purchase panels from Samsung Display, but it is waiting for LG Display to start producing OLEDs for mobile phones.

Acer has two new OLED phones. First up is the Liquid Jade 2, announced during MWC 2016 last week. This is an Android 6 smartphone that features a large 5.5" FHD Super AMOLED display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a microSD slot and Dual-SIM.

The second phone is the Jade Primo - a Windows 10 smartphone that features a large 5.5" Full-HD AMOLED display, an octa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, a 21MP camera and Dual SIM. The Jade Primo will ship by the end of March 2016.

Back in 2014 we reported that BOE Display will build a Gen-6 LTPS AMOLED fab in Chengdu, China. The company started working on the new fab in May 2015, and said that the total investment will reach around $3.54 billion.

Today BOE filed a statement today in which they confirm the new fab and disclose that it is going to produce flexible OLEDs. BOE announced an investment cooperation with the Chengdu Municipal Government, and discloses also that the fab will have two lines with a capacity of 24,000 monthly substrates for each line. The new fab is expected to begin mass production in 2017.

According to a leaked image on Weibo, Vivo's upcoming XPlay5 phone has a dual-edge display, similar to the flexible OLED displays used in Samsung's Edge phones (such as the recently announced Galaxy S7 Edge).

According to the Chinese press, Xiaomi and Huawei also aim to release new phones soon with similar edge displays. This is an interesting development as usually Samsung Display only ships the newest displays to Samsung Electronics - and in any case SDC's flexible OLED production is in rather short supply as it is.

At MWC 2016, Gionee showcased several mobile phones, and the center stage was taken by two AMOLED phones. First up is the new S8 which is a large smartphone that features a 5.5" FHD AMOLED display, a quad-core CPU, a 16MP rear camera (and a 8MP front one), 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, microSD slot, Dual-SIM, Android v6.0.1 and 3D touch. The S8 is expected to ship next month.

The second phone is the Marathon M5 Plus - a large smartphone that features a 6" FHD AMOLED display, a large 5020 mAh battery, an octa-core 1.3Ghz CPU, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, Dual-SIM, Android 5.1 and a fingerprint sensor. The M5 Plus is already shipping.

According to reports from Japan, JDI (Japan Display) wants to acquire JOLED. JOLED was launched in August 2014 by JDI itself together with Sony, Panasonic and the INCJ. JOLED is focused on medium-sized OLEDs for tablets and laptops, and reportedly aims to start pilot production in early 2017 and mass production towards the end of 2017.

According to the new report, JDI was interested in Sharp's LCD division, but Sharp finally decided to sell out to Foxconn (although that deal is not final yet). JOLED is JDI's second choice, and the Japanese companies aims to integrate their business by the of 2016.

Epson launched its latest augmented reality headset, the Moverio BT-300, at the Mobile World Congress last week. The main update in that version is the OLED microdisplay - which replaces the old LCD one.

The OLED is a 0.43" microdisplay-on-silicon that features a resolution of 720p, a brightness of 1,200 nits and a contrast of 100,000:1. Other features include an integrated 5mp camera and an Android 5.1 wired control-box that is based on a quad-core (1.44Ghz) Atom X5 chipset.

Samsung Display recently confirmed that it is still developing large-sized OLED panels, and a couple of weeks ago it was reported that Samsung is discussing a large investment (around $3 billion US) into a new OLED TV panel fab.

New reports from Korea gives more details about Samsung's OLED TV plans. Samsung is actually considering a slightly larger investment - around $3.3 billion in a new fab, with an aim to enable Samsung Electronics to launch OLED TVs by 2018. Samsung is looking to build a Gen-8 (2200x2500 mm, or six 55" panels) fab - and will need to start ordering equipment soon. The new fab will enable Samsung to produce about 495,000 square meters in 2017 (7,500 monthly substrates) and over 2 million square meters in 2018.