JOLED's head of business development, Tomoaki Tsuboka, announced that the company developed two OLED panels, a 12.2" FHD (180 PPI) panel and a 19.3" 4K one (230 PPI) - made using printing technologies. JOLED aims to mass produce such panel in 2018.

Tomoaki updates that JOLED is preparing a Gen-4.5 fab to produce such OLEDs - probably using printing technologies. Reports from 2015 suggested that JOLED plans to invest $160 million in a new R&D and production facility - that will indeed commence production by 2018.

OLED material developer Molecular Glasses announced that its phosphorescent host material was demonstrated to improve the lifetime of OLED devices by up to 1,500%, with external quantum efficiency of 20% and minimal luminance roll-off. This is in comparison to the "state-of-the-art phosphorescent host mCBP".

It is not clear to which host this is compared to, but the company says that these results were obtained following a 96 prototype device experiment that was recently completed at OLEDWorks' DOE approved laboratory.

Corning and OLEDWorks launched a new OLED lighting design contest - calling designers to integrate thin, lightweight and cool-to-the-touch OLEDWorks lighting panels into functional luminaires that are practical yet creative.

All proposals must be submitted by June 30, 2016. Up to five winners will be announced in September 2016 - and each will be rewarded with $10,000. The contest is open to the public, including students, emerging professional designers, and professionals working at design studios and luminaire companies.

Report from Japan say that Sharp developed a new 3.4" bendable OLED prototype. The AMOLED display features a resolution of 540x960 (326 PPI), it has an aperture ratio of 57% and a thickness of 70um. The bending radius is 10mm, and the whole panel weighs 2 grams. The backplane is IGZO.

While this is reported as news, this panel seems to be quite similar to OLEDs Sharp unveiled at SID 2012 (yes, almost four years ago!). According to the reports, Sharp says that the display has a long lifetime and is "color shift free", as a result of newly developed tandem structure.

The Fraunhofer FEP is demonstrating their new full-plastic OLED lighting panels at LOPEC 2016. In the video below, you can see Fraunhofer's new transparent flexible OLED tiles.

The most interesting demonstrator is the "night fly", which was developed as part of the Flex+ project. Those OLEDs (also flexible and transparent) are 0.3 mm thick and feature a new lime yellow emission color. The OLEDs in the "night fly" were processed on flexible substrates and finished graphically with screen-printing in a second step. The three-dimensional body of this fly is formed through a simple sticking together with an additional film. Extremely thin conductors are provided for electrical contacts that simultaneously serve as structural supports for the fly.

LG Display announced that it has signed a deal with the city government of Hai Phong, the third-largest city in Vietnam, to build an OLED TV module factory. LGD will invest $100 million to establish a local office in the city and begin construction of the factory later in 2016.

LG Display aims to start operating the new factory next year. The company hopes that the low costs in Vietnam will enable them to produce OLED TVs at a lower cost - while still being very close to China. The panels themselves will of course be produced in LGD's fabs in Korea.

Last week we reported that Kyushu University spun-off a new company, called Kyulux, to commercialize the TADF emitters developed at Kyushu. Kyulux raised $13.5 million USD, and today the company made an official announcement - including the full investor list.

It turns out that besides LG Display, Kyulux lists Samsung Display, Japan Display and JOLED as investors. The round was led by Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and other participants include top tier Japanese venture capital funds, and a Japanese Government affiliated venture fund.

LG recently launched a new commercial OLED unit, offering OLED displays for retail and signage applications. LG Electronics published two nice videos showing and praising the large OLED installations the company recently installed at Seoul's Incheon Airport and the N Seoul Tower in Seoul itself:

At the N Seoul Tower LG installed four different OLED installations with 248 55" OLED TV panels. On the tower's first floor, LG installed the OLED Panorama and OLED tunnel. On the second floor is the OLED circle and on the fourth floor there is the 24-meters long OLED Wave.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) awarded OLEDWorks with $100,000 to develop white and amber OLED panels prototypes and get feedback from doctors and nurses at Highland Hospital. The amber light is blue-light free and so may not disrupt patient's sleeping patterns like LED does.

This is not the first time OLEDWorks develops Amber OLEDs. In July 2014, Acuity Brands unveiled new use cases for its Marker OLED luminaire, which uses Amber OLED panels made by OLEDWorks. The Amber OLED panel in 2014 emitted light at a 590 nm peak, and had a fixed luminance of 600 cd/m².

According to UBI Research, the market for OLED emitting materials grew 17% from 2014 to 2015. Universal Display (the top supplier in terms of revenues), Dow Chemical and LG Chem saw a decrease in sales while Novaled, Idemitsu Kosan and Samsung SDI saw improved revenues.

Samsung Display is the largest OLED producer by far, and so when it changes suppliers it changes the whole market. UBI says that in 2015 Idemitsu Kosan, the second supplier in terms of revenue started delivering blue fluorescent emitters to Samsung Display, and also enjoyed the ramp-up in OLED TV production by LGD.