We are happy to announce a new Metalgrass knowledge hub, MicroLED-Info.com. Our new site will focus on Micro-LED display technology and its future market. MicroLED is quickly becoming a promising future display technology.

Many expect the first Micro-LED devices to hit the market in the very near future, with first applications in the wearable market - and also in HUDs and HMDs. MicroLED promise great performance, very high efficiency and brightness - and may indeed compete with OLEDs in the future. There are still many technical challenges ahead, but this is certainly a technology that any display expert should not ignore.

The phosphorescent OLED emitter market is currently dominated by Universal Display who owns the basic patents to phosphorescent OLED emitters. All the major OLED makers (including Samsung and LGD) are using UDC's materials in order to achieve higher display efficiencies, beyond what is available from fluorescent emitters.

Universal Display holds over 4,000 issued and pending patents, but some of its basic phosphorescent patents are set to expire by the end of 2017. Honestly, it is very difficult to know exactly what effect this will have on the market - some analysts believe that it will carry very little effect while others say that this will open the door for other companies to sell competing phosphorescent emitters.

Korea's Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the country's Engineering Research Center (ERC) are jointly establishing a new OLED light therapy engineering center.

The new R&D center will initially target skin wound treatment and sleep disorder treatment, using flexible OLEDs to replace current LED-based solutions. In the longer range, the center will also look into dementia prevention and treatment, mild cognitive impairment solutions and other diseases.

Last week Japan Display announced a new strategic shift to OLED technologies, as its LCD business is losing money and the company now says that a transformation into an OLED-focused company is its last chance to become profitable.

JDI said it will need to raise new funds to finance this focus shift and overcome its losses. An interesting report from Japan claims that Foxconn is interested in acquiring JDI with an aim to integrate it with Sharp to create a Japanese OLED alliance that will be able to compete with Samsung and LGD.

A report from the Korea Herald suggests that Samsung Display decided to invest €10 million in TADF developer Cynora, which follows LG Display's €15 million investment in the company. Both companies aim to secure access to next-generation emitter technology.

The Korean report actually states €100 million from SDC and €150 million from LGD - but this is surely a mistake as it's highly unlikely that Cynora could be raising such a huge sum of money at this stage. An earlier report from ETNews claimed LGD's investment totaled $9 million.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q2 2017. Revenues in the quarter were $5.3 million (down from $5.5 million in Q2 2016) and the net loss was $2.3 million (up slightly from $2.2 million in Q2 2016).

At the end of the quarter, eMagin had $4.9 million in cash and equivalents. eMagin is focused on expanding its presence in military programs, advancing discussions with major consumer electronics companies for VR/AR products and progressing with finding high-volume production partners.

Japan Display says that it must must overhaul its manufacturing system and restructure the company as losses increase. JDI says that it has failed to keep up with the industry shift to new technologies (OLEDs), but it now plans to strategically focus on OLED displays.

JDI announced a loss of $287 million in the last quarter, three times higher than the loss last year. JDI plans to shed 3,700 jobs (about 30% of its workforce) and it says that this is the last chance to restructure.

Universal Display announced that China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay (EDO) has signed an OLED evaluation agreement. As per the agreement, UDC will supply EDO with phosphorescent OLED materials to be used in EDO's displays.

Everdisplay actually started mass producing AMOLED displays towards the end of 2014 in a 4.5-Gen line with a monthly capacity of 20,000 substrates. The company is currently producing both small AMOLEDs for wearable devices and larger smartphone displays. EDO is also developing flexible OLEDs, transparent OLEDs and OLEDs for VR and automotive applications. EDO's current OLED displays can be found in the OLED Marketplace.

Universal Display reported excellent financial results for Q2 2017. Revenues increased 59% (compared to Q2 2016) to $102.5 million, with material sales increasing 110% to $46.8 million. Net income increased $25.4 million to $47.2 million.

UDC has $380 million in cash and equivalents, and is on the lookout for opportunities to use this money. UDC also increased its guidance for 2017 to be in the range of $285 million to $300 million.

LG Electronics announced that its next flagship smartphone will be the first phone to adopt LG Display's plastic OLED FullVision display. This will be the first LG phone to use an AMOLED display since the G Flex 2 in 2015, and this is the first step in LG's plan to extend its OLED leadership from TVs to smartphones.

The new phone (which will be the V30) will have 6" QHD+ (1440 x 2880) display that is similar in size to the display used in the V20 - but the phone's body will be smaller as the upper and lower bezels were reduced by 20% and 50% compared to the V20. LG further discloses that the new display will achieve a color gamut of 148% sRGB 1 color space and 109% of DCI-P3. The edges of the display will be curved following Samsung's popular edge-type phone design.