July 2017

Wisechip, the Taiwan-based PMOLED maker, demonstrated its latest display panels and prototypes at the TADF Workshop last week in Fukuoka, Japan. This was an impressive display and a great chance to experience the latest PMOLEDs displays from Wisechip.

So first up we have the company's transparent PMOLED. This is a 4.1" (106x37.9 mm) segmented T-OLED specifically aimed for automotive HUD applications. The display has 4 colors (red, orange, green and blue) and offers a typical brightness of 800 nits (max is 1,500 nits). According to Wisechip the display will soon hit the market for a specific automotive partner.

Business Korea reports that LG Display is in talks with Google regarding a large investment in LGD's OLED facilities towards the development and production of VR displays. BK says the investment will amount of hundreds of billions of Won (equivalent to hundreds of millions USD).

The report is somewhat confusing, though. On the one had it says that Google is interested in OLED microdisplays, and on the other it says that LG will produce the displays in its existing flexible AMOLED lines, which use a different technology than microdisplays (which are produced on Silicon).

Leading simulation and measurement tool provider Fluxim recently released a new version of its large-area OLED simulation software LAOSS. The new version adds a simulation capability for temperature estimation and cross-coupling the temperature generated by the device operation itself (in the organic stack and the electrodes) and the changes in device operation due to this increased temperature (leading again to different heat generation and so on).

LAOSS is a software tool that simulates large area semiconductor devices (OLED and PV), taking into account the voltage drop in the electrodes due to important resistive effects when the size of the device increases. LAOSS facilitates electrode layout optimization and material choice, which can save substantial time and resources. Both OLED lighting panel design and study of AMOLED pixel cross-talk is just a click away.

UBI Research says that as OLED makers are diverting all efforts into flexible OLED production, thin film encapsulation (TFE) is gaining in popularity. Between 2017 and 2021, TFE will be applied to about 70% of all OLED panels in production. The OLED encapsulation equipment market will generate $11 billion in sales.

TFE encapsulation started out as a complex technology that required 11 layers and was slow and expensive. Recent advances allowed OLED makers to reduce the number of layers to just 3 and increase productivity and yields and so lower the production costs. Some film OLED makers opted for hybrid encapsulation (which uses a barrier film) but TFE seems to have become the technology of choice.

The Korea Economic Daily reports that Apple has signed a deal with LG Display to secure flexible OLED capacity. Apple will pay $2.7 billion to LG Display in order to secure 45,000 monthly substrates in LGD's upcoming 6-Gen production facility, starting in 2019.

The newspaper says that the two firms agreed to keep this deal confidential as Apple also partnered with Samsung Display for the supply of OLED capacity. Apple was always assumed to want a second OLED supplier, and earlier this week LGD confirmed it is seeking financial help from strategic partners as it embarks on an aggressive OLED expansion plan.

Samsung Electronics reported a record-breaking quarter, with revenues reaching 61 trillion Won ($54 billion USD) and an operating profit of 14 trillion Won (about $12.6 billion USD). The company's enjoyed a very strong chip and component business, which offset a slight decline in mobile devices revenues.

Samsung Display posted an operating profit of 1.7 trillion Won ($1.5 billion) from revenues of 7.7 trillion Won ($6.8 billion). SDC's OLED business is strong and the company forecasts increased sales of flexible AMOLED displays as more smartphone makers are adopting flexible OLEDs.

A few days ago LG Display disclosed its financial results for Q2 2017 and announced a large OLED investment plan to increase capacity for both OLED TVs and small-sized flexible OLEDs.

During its investor conference call, LG Display disclosed that it plans to finance some of the capacity increase through strategic partnerships such as customer commitments. In the past months we heard reports that both Apple and Google are in talks with LGD regarding an investment to secure OLED capacity. It seems likely that LGD now verified these reports - but the investments are probably not finalized yet.

Truly Semiconductors signed an agreement with the Meishan City government (in Sichuan, China) to establish a joint-venture to construct a 6-Gen AMOLED line. The fab will be mostly used to produce small-sized AMOLED smartphone displays. In addition to the AMOLED line, Truly's new plant will also host a new 5-Gen TFT LCD production line.

Truly estimates that the project will cost a total of 40.4 billion Yuan (almost $6 billion USD). Construction of the AMOLED fab will begin in October 2018, and production is expected to begin in 2021. The cost of the AMOLED fab (which is the second stage in this project, the LCD line will come first) will total $4.1 billion USD. The AMOLED line will use 6-Gen substrates (1500x1850 mm) and will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates (equivalent to over 52 million 5" panels annually).

DSCC expects the OLED market to rapidly grow in the near future, as AMOLED production capacity will increase at a CAGR of 41% from 2016 (5.3 million square meters) to 2021 (29.4 million square meters). OLED revenues will reach $21 billion in 2017 (a rise of 46% compared to 2016) and will reach $46 billion in 2021.

Smartphones are still the largest OLED application by far - with a 86% market share (revenues) in 2017 and 81% in 2021. The second largest application by revenues are OLED TVs, and other applications follow with a small market share - but one that will increase as supply looses in the future. If we look at shipments, then smartphones acount for 94% of OLED shipments, and the 2nd and 3rd applications are VR headsets and smart watches. OLED TV shipments will reach 6.5 million in 2021 (rising at a CAGR of 49% from 2016 to 2021).

In March 2016 the EU launched the PI-SCALE with an aim to create a European-wide pilot line which will enable companies of all sizes to quickly and cost effectively test and scale up their flexible OLED lighting concepts and turn them into market ready products. PI-SCALE members recently managed to produce 10-meter long OLED lighting panels.

The PI-SCALE project now launched a flexible OLED design competition, calling out designers to propose OLED lighting and signage applications that highlight the special features of OLED technology: foldable, twistable, bendable, conformable, transparency, large area illumination.