September 2016

Apple is set to announce its new MacBook Pro lineup towards the end of October. In June we reported of rumors that one of the new features in these new laptops will be an OLED touch bar, a secondary display placed above the keyboard (instead of the function keys). You can see a proposed render (this is not an official photo of course):

MacBook Pro render (Source: Martin Hajek)

Since June, more reports surfaced that confirm the secondary-OLED. It seems that most analyst now agree that the MacBook Pro will indeed come with this interesting OLED strip. A leaked Chassis image from June, which you can see above, supports these rumors. I'm sure Apple will find very nice use cases for such a display on a laptop. It is interesting to try and figure out the effect of Apple's secondary MacBook Pro OLED on the OLED market itself.

Volkswagen unveiled a new all-electric concept car, the I.D. The car uses Volkswagen's dedicated battery-electric vehicle architecture, called Modular Electric Drive (MEB).

The I.D. uses thin OLED taillights. The reports say that the headlights combine LED and OLED, and indeed from the image above it seems that the headlights are surrounded by thin OLED strips.

NFL Network, an American sports-oriented cable and satellite television network, installed several transparent OLED displays at its NFL GameDay Studio. The studio now hosts a total of six 55" FHD transparent Planar LookThru OLED monitors. The NFL Network says that the idea was to give the a show a technological forward-looking sense.

Planar Systems unveiled its first 55" Full-HD transparent OLED prototype in February 2015, and started accepting orders for the Planar LookThru displays in November 2015 for $14,995. Planar is using Samsung's 55" transparent OLED (announced in June 2015) - which was supposed to start shipping in Q2 2016 - but actually Samsung halted production last month - which means that Planar will probably won't be able to sell a lot of these displays (maybe the NFL Network will be happy to know that).

Market Analyst UBI Research estimates the flexible OLED shipments used by Apple iPhone will grow from 34 million panels in 2017 (in which Apple will, according to UBI, launch its first OLED phone) to 518 million panels in 2021 - surpassing Samsung Electronics that will sell 298 million flexible OLED smartphones.

This is a bold statement by UBI - especially as flexible OLEDs have been used by Samsung for years now with great success, and the company is actually planning to adopt foldable OLED displays in future devices - which may completely revolutionize the segment if successful.

According to a report from the Korean ChosunBiz LG had plans to adopt a flexible edge-type display in its next flagship phone, the G6. But LG Display could not produce enough such displays as it does not have enough capacity - and the Korean company will adopt a flat LCD display.

LG Display has been developing flexible OLED display technologies for a long time, and back in January 2015 the company already demonstrated the prototype you see above - a 6" plastic OLED display that curves on both edges.

On January 11-13 2017 Shanghai will be hosting the annual Printed and Flexible Electronics China conference. The OLED-Info team will visit this event - so if anyone wishes to schedule a meeting - now is a great time to do so. The event organizers were kind enough to offer a 20% discount for OLED-Info readers (to both visitors and exhibitors) - contact us for more information on how to get this discount.

P&FEC aims to bring together industry professionals for a chance to be updated on the latest printed electronics advances, while getting a chance to network with industry leaders in China - and globally.

IHS estimates that the active-matrix small and medium display market will reach $43.4 billion in 2016, up slightly from 2015. This includes AMOLED, LCD and E Ink displays.

According to IHS, AMOLED revenues will reach $14.3 billion - surpassing a-Si LCD revenue ($14 billion) - and almost reaching LTPS LCD display revenues ($14.7 billion). a-Si LCD revenues are on the decline - and IHS sees a-Si LCD as a soon-to-be legacy display technology. AMOLED is expected to grow quickly, mostly due to demand for flexible OLEDs.

Sumitomo Chemical announced that a restaurant at Tokyo's Yomiuri Land (the largest amusement park in Tokyo) will adopt its colored OLED lighting panels in a chandelier. The chandelier, called Jewelry Jardin as designed by Motoko Ishii.

Sumitomo has been developing PLED lighting panels for many years, and the company started marketing panels in 2014, producing using printing technologies. Sumitomo demonstrated its latest OLEDs at the Light+Building event in April 2016.

In January 2016 Visionect launched its JOAN Meeting Room Assistant, and we're happy to announce that Visionect now offers free shipping for our readers. JOAN uses a 6" E Ink Pearl panel - just like Amazon's Kindle does, to provide a beautiful calendar scheduling solution, connecting wirelessly to your calendar, and running on batteries for months between charges.

JOAN costs €349 - to claim your free shipping, simply use the coupon EINKINFO20A9 when you checkout. JOAN can be a great way to spruce up your meeting rooms!

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin developed a 2K x 2K OLED microdisplay based VR HMD, which is now being offered to partners (the company's first licensee is probably ODG). The company is also developing its next-gen 4K OLED microdisplays.

eMagin needs to find a high-volume production partner if it wants to enter the consumer market (eMagin announced production expansion will not be enough) and eMagin already stated that it is in talks with potential foundry partners. One of these partners is AMD - which we already know is working with eMagin.