Universal Display was granted a new patent that describes a novel hybrid MEMS display that uses patterned red, blue and yellow sub pixels combined with a MEMS-LED display.

The idea here that the whole display sits on top of a blue-emitting edge-lit LED structure. The blue light only goes through small subpixel-sized "holes" which are controlled using tiny MEMS shutters. A blue LED is much more efficient and long lasting than a blue OLED, so the idea here is to combine the efficient red, green and yellow phosphorescent OLEDs with the efficient blue LED.

The Holst Center presented a new functional demonstrator that uses the Holst' in-mold electronics (IME) technology to show new human-machine interfaces in automotive electronics and consumer appliances. One of the new technologies embedded in this demonstrator is flexible OLED lighting that is used to illuminate touch controls.

The Holst Center says that this is the first time a flexible OLED has been used to illuminate touch controls. Usually several LEDs, light guides, complex wiring and bulky PCBs are required to achieve this effect. Flexible OLED lighting provides a much easier solution with complete design freedom.

IHS says that demand for flexible OLED is sharply increasing and in Q3 2017 the company expects revenues of flexible OLEDs to surpass those of rigid OLEDs for the first time.

Flexible AMOLED revenues in Q3 will reach $3.2 billion while those of rigid (glass-based) OLEDs will reach $3 billion. Flexible AMOLED revenues will continue to climb throughout 2018 and reach about $4.5 billion in Q4 2018. Revenues of rigid OLEDs will actually start declining in 2017, according to IHS - which is a bit of a surprise, even if average panel price will decrease. Rigid OLED shipments is rising even from existing fabs as yields are improving.

First-O-Lite (FOL) was established in 2010 in Nanjing, China with an aim to become an OLED lighting developer and producer. Based on its hybrid tandem architecture, FOL has a 2-Gen OLED lighting production fab that is currently producing 70 lm/W OLED lighting panels.

This article details the company's OLED lighting panels, its strategy to create an initial health-lighting niche market in china, its current product families and its technology and business roadmaps going forward.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab S3 is now shipping in the US for $699 (Wi-Fi edition). This gaming and entertainment optimized Android V7 tablet features a 9.7" QXGA (2048x1536) Super AMOLED display, a quad-core Snapdragon 820 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, microSD slot and quad-stereo speakers.

According to report from Korea, Samsung Electronics has decided to start adopting OLED displays in all of its tablet devices and to increasingly use OLEDs in laptops. The Galaxy Tab S3 is the company's latest OLED tablet.

In January 2017 we reported that Konica Minolta and Pioneer are set to merge their OLED business unit, and today Konica Minolta officially announced a joint-venture with Pioneer to accelerate automotive OLED lighting.

Konica Minolta and Pioneer will setup a joint venture, which will be called Konica Minolta Pioneer OLED. The new 50:50 JV company will be established in May 2017 with an initial capital of 490 million yen (about $4.4 million) and a focus on OLED lighting for automotive applications.

A report from SinoCast claims that LG has decided to sell OLED production equipment to Tianma. The deal was signed in May 2016 and deliveries of the equipment have now commenced.

TianMa 6-Gen AMOLED fab, Wuhan

This is a rather strange report. First of all, the company mentioned was LG Electronics, which do not produce OLED displays - LG Display (the report does say that "LGD uses the same equipment").

According to the Korea Herald, Samsung Electronics demonstrated several new display technologies in a private room during the Mobile World Congress last month. All of these technologies are expected to enter production within the next year or two, according to the source quoted by the report.

1,200 PPI AMOLED for VR

The report claims that Samsung demonstrated a high-resolution AMOLED panel for VR applications. The AMOLED on display featured a 1,200 PPI - much higher than Samsung's current highest density displays which are 577 PPI. Samsung's aim is to reach 1,500 PPI which will greatly enhance the VR experience.

In November 2016 Sunic Systems announced that it developed an plane-source evaporation-FMM based AMOLED production process that can reach very high densities. The 100um mask announced in November can achieve a PPI of 1,500. This may be the system that Samsung is now testing. Sunic says that eventually this technology will enable even 2,250 PPI.

Taiwan's AU Optronics starts shipping a new AMOLED display for wearable (and other) applications. The new AMOLED is a square 1.3" (active area 23.28x23.28 mm) panel with a resolution of 240x240 (261 PPI).

A few days ago we reported that AUO has reportedly managed to increase its AMOLED production yields, and the company is now indeed launching new AMOLED displays and resumes production of smartphone-sized AMOLEDs.

The National Centre of Flexible Electronics (FlexE Centre) at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur announced that it assigned UK-based RK PrintCoat Instruments to manufacture and supply a bespoke roll-to-roll (R2R) pilot line that will be used for R&D and prototyping projects in the field of printed and flexible electronics.

The National Centre for Flexible Electronics (FlexE) was established in 2014 at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, with an aim to bring together Indian academia, industry and public research organizations for research and development of large area flexible electronics. The FlexE center develops OLED lighting and OLED signage applications and is collaborating with industrial partners in both fields. The center explores evaporation, printing and hybrid processing for OLED production.