March 2018

In August 2017, Japan Display announced a strategic focus on OLED displays as the losing display maker failed to keep up with the industry shift to OLEDs. JDI announced it will need to raise $1.7 billion as it aims to start OLED mass production in 2019, and the company started to look for partners for this project.

JDI is now set to raise around $520 million, offering new shares and selling some of its assets. JDI will offer new shares to 30 foreign funds, to Japan's LED make Nichia Corp and also JDI's largest stakeholder, the government-backed INCJ. This money will be be used to advance the company's LCD production, and the company hopes these funds will enable it to find the OLED partners and raise the $1.7 billion required for OLED production.

LG introduced its 2018 OLED TV lineup in January 2018, and later announced the pricing of most of these TVs, saying these will ship in April 2018. LG did not yet announce formally it started shipping its new TVs, but its first one arrived in Amazon today - the 55" OLEDC8 priced at $2,500 - lower than LG's official price of $2,999.

The OLEDC8 is one of LG's basic models in its 2018 4K OLED TV lineup. The C8 series (available in 55", 65" and 77") will support 4K HDR, HFR, Dolby Atmos, webOS with Google assistant and will run on LG's latest a9 "intelligent processor" that promises better color and fast smart TV (webOS) operations.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q4 2017. Revenues increased 40% from Q4 2016 and reached $6.4 million. Operating loss was $1.6 million (down from $3.8 million in Q4 2016) and net loss decreased to $0.9 million.

For the full year 2017, eMagin reported revenues of $22 million (up 3% from 2016) and a net loss of $7.8 million. As of the end of the year, eMagin had $3.5 million in cash and equivalents, but the company raised $10.6 million since (not, it seems, from Apple, Valve and LG).

Perovskite materials offer exciting properties which make them useful for solar panels, fuel cells, lasers - and even displays. Many believe Perovskites are the future of solar power and some estimate that perovskite QD adoption in display and LED applications is right around the corner. Our new video below gives a short introduction to perovskites:

For more information on perovskites and to stay updated on these exciting materials, check out our Perovskite-Info knowledge hub!

SID's DisplayWeek, the industry's leading trade show, is taking place in less than two months. The OLED-Info team will attend this event, and my good friend Sriram Peruvemba, SID's marketing chief, was kind enough to discuss the upcoming event with us.

Hello Sri, thanks for your time with this interview. SID's DisplayWeek has always been the world's leading display trade show. What can you tell us about the upcoming 2018 edition?

Ron - yes SID Display Week is the the world’s leading display trade show, but Display Week is so much more than a trade show. It is the world’s leading technical learning, sourcing and buying event focused on emerging electronic display technologies, their advancement, commercialization, and growth.

IHS Markit says that OLED materials (emitters + stack materials) revenues reached $355 million in the second half of 2017, up 20% from the first half of the year. This followed a year and a half of stagnation in revenues (sale volume increased, but this was offset by price reductions).

IHS expects the OLED materials market to continue growing in the near future, and revenues in the 2020 will reach about $1.5 billion. The growth will be driven by further Apple OLED adoption and increased OLED TV production.

Researchers from Samsung Electronics and the Ewha Womans University in Korea collaborated in a new study of the degradation in blue phosphorescence OLED materials. This study demonstrate the importance of controlling exciton-induced electron transfer, and more importantly provides strategies for the design of longer-lasting blue PHOLED materials.

The researchers say that the study reveals the charge-neutral generation of polaron pairs (radical ion pairs) by electron transfer from the dopant to host excitons. According to the study, device lifetime correlates linearly with the rate constant for the annihilation of the radical ion pair.

Merrill Lynch analyst Wamsi Mohan says that following meetings with Apple suppliers in Asia, he belives that Apple is developing a foldable OLED phone, with aims to release it in 2020. This phone will by smartphone sized and could open up to become a tablet.

This is hardly a surprise - Samsung is working on foldable OLEDs for many years and has said that it aims to release its first such phone by the end of 2018. In 2016 and then in 2017 we heard reports that Apple teamed up with LG Display to develop foldable OLED technologies. Interestingly back in 2017 it was claimed that LGD won't be ready with its foldable OLEDs until 2020.

In September 2017, Merck, OLEDWorks, OPVIUS and Kolon launched a new textile-based OLED lighting and OPV installation (called "Do we dream under the same sky") at the first Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.

Merck now brought the same installation to Frankfurt during the Light + Building 2018, and the company also gave us more details about this interesting installation.

In January 2018 Sharp's CEO announced that Sharp aims to begin commercial production of flexible OLED displays for its own smartphones in Q1 2018. A new report from Taiwan says that Sharp is progressing with its OLED plans.

Digitimes now says that Sharp has converted some of its capacity at its 4.5-Gen Taki plant from LTPS LCDs to OLED displays. The Taki Plant had a total capacity of 90,000 monthly substrate, and a third of that capacity was converted to OLEDs (but rate will be slower for OLEDs - 22,000 monthly substrates). It is not clear whether Sharp actually started producing OLEDs already.