LG Display reported an excellent Q4 2016, with the company's highest quarterly operating profit of $775 million USD. The main drivers for this profit were higher prices of large size LCD panels and a weak Korean Won rate (which also boosted Samsung's profits).

LGD also updated on its OLED program. The E5 flexible AMOLED fab is expected to start production in Q3 2016 - which is a slight delay because LGD aimed to start production in the first half of 2016.

China's Yeolight has opened an OLED lighting exhibition center, located in GU’an city Hebei province, China. Yeolight says that at 431 sqm, this is the largest OLED lighting gallery in China. Most of the OLED panels on display are produced by Yeolight, but some are made by LG Display.

The exhibition center has six different "experience" areas that demonstrate a range of OLED installations, including commercial lighting, interior lighting and automotive lighting. The center also includes explanations of OLED lighting technology and fabrication processes.

Solomon Systech announced that it has shipped over 200 million units of its SSD1306 PMOLED driver. The company believes that this is the best selling OLED driver ever. The SSD1306 has been introduced in 2008 and is (according to Solomon Systech) the de-facto PMOLED module design standard.

Solomon Systech says that is has a market share of over 50% of the global PMOLED display driver IC market. The SSD1306 is the world's first OLED driver IC with built-in charge pump, which means that external DC / DC converter and associated passive components are no longer necessary. The SSD1306 also features programmable frame rate and multiplexing ratio, as well as screen saving continuous scrolling function in both horizontal and vertical direction which enables smooth content display. It can connect to different MCU interfaces, including I2C, 8-bit 6800/8080-series parallel interface, 3/4-wire serial peripheral interface and more.

According to the OLED Association, BOE Technology's first 6-Gen OLED fab in Chengdu, which BOE started constructing in May 2015, is on track to begin production in the 2nd half of 2017 (later than first estimates, but earlier than the revised ones). Production capacity will be 45,000 glass substrates.

BOE will invest a total of $3 billion USD in this new fab, but part of that is funded by Chengdu's High-Tech Industrial Development Zone. The new fab follow BOE's current 4.5-Gen pilot line that is already producing AMOLED displays.

Despite the huge Galaxy Note 7 recall, Samsung Electronics announced an excellent quarterly report for Q4 2016. The company's operating profits were $7.9 billion - 50% higher than Q4 2015, and the company's highest profits in over three years.

The main drivers of Samsung's earnings were good chip and display sales - combined with a weak Korean Won rate. The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge (and other mobile phones) enjoyed solid sales as well.

ALD equipment maker Encapsulix announced that a leading Asian AMOLED manufacturer has chosen its ALD-TFE deposition systems, to be used as flexible AMOLED encapsulation. The first tool is already under construction and will start operating in the spring of 2017.

Encapsulix says that the order was awarded following an extensive evaluation of available ALD platforms, and this confirms the technological superiority and leading cost-of-ownership of the company's ALD-TFE equipment.

Luxury British automaker Bentley plans to add new cutting-edge technologies to its future cars - including plug-in hybrid engines and transparent OLEDs. One concept designs apparently shows a transparent OLED on top of wood veneers - so the display is invisible when not in use.

It's great to see another automaker looking into OLED displays - but this won't be easy to achieve in the near future as transparent OLEDs are not in production yet. Both LG Display and Samsung demonstrated transparent OLEDs for the automobile market, though - and of course it makes sense that high-end luxury cars will be the first to adopt these new displays.

Toshiba announced that it will launch its first OLED TV later this year (probably in March). Toshiba will offer 55" and 65" 4K OLEDs in Japan for ¥700,000 (about $6,100) and ¥900,000 (about $7,900) - which is reportedly similar to LG's high-end OLED TVs in Japan.

Toshiba will use panels produced by LG Display - which is also supplying OLED TV panels to Japan-based Sony and Panasonic.

Philips announced its first OLED TV, the 901F, in September 2016, and the TV is now starting to appear in European stores. The price for the TV (which comes in 55" only) is €3,500 in Germany.

Philips' 901F has s 55" 4K panel (LGD WRGB) and features include three-sided Ambilight (LED strips that add external illumination), HDR, Philips' own Perfect Pixel Ultra HD picture processing, integrated 6.1 sound system and a Smart TV powered by Android.

According to reports in Japan, Sony is set to return to the mobile phone market. The Japanese company is apparently planning to use AMOLED displays in its flagship phones that will be launched in 2018 or 2019.

In the past Sony used AMOLED displays in many of its products - including digital cameras, PDAs (remember those?), MP3 players, VR headsets - and its 2007 11" XEL-1 OLED TV, its PSP Vita mobile gaming console, its latest 2017 A1E 4K OLED TV and its high-end professional monitors. But Sony never actually used an OLED in a mobile phone. Ten year ago, Sony Ericsson did release some phones with PMOLED displays, though - for example the Z610 with its 128x36 PMOLED that was not visible when off.