The South Korean government announced a seven-year project to establish an OLED R&D and manufacturing facility in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province.

The Korean government will spend 528 billion Won (around $468 million USD), it's largest ever R&D project, to build the R&D center and manufacturing facility, which will include 61 manufacturing and production systems, including several OLED evaporation systems. The R&D facility will conduct over 66 planed projects, focusing on technologies such as flexible OLED encapsulation, cost-cutting methods, next-generation displays and more.

Huawei launched several new devices yesterday, including four new AMOLED ones. The top of the line is the Mate 20 X, a large smartphone that features several high-end technologies - a 7.2" 1080x2244 (346 PPI) AMOLED display, a triple Leica cameras setup, a GoodixTech under-the-display fingerprint sensor, a 5000 mAh battery and a graphene thermal management film.

Huawei also launched the smaller Mate 20 Pro - another high-end smartphone that features a 6.39" 1440x3120 (538 PPI) AMOLED display (reportedly produced by BOE), an Octa-Core Kirin 980 (7 nm) chipet, 6GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, an NM card slot and a triple Leica optics camera setup. The Mate 20 Pro is the first smartphone to adopt Synaptics' complete display system solution - which includes Synaptics’ flexible chip-on-film (COF) ClearView display driver and the company's ClearPad touch controllers.

In 2017 Apple introduced its first OLED iPhone (the iPhone X), and in 2018 its smartphone range include 2 OLED phones (the iPhone XS and XS Max) and one LCD phone. Earlier estimates suggested that in 2019, Apple's will move exclusively to OLED in all of its smartphones. But a new report suggests otherwise.

Known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that in 2019 Apple will continue to use an LCD display in its entry-level smartphone. The 2019 range will include two OLED iPhones (5.8" and 6.5") and the LCD model will use a 6.1" display - a similar lineup to the one they have in 2018.

Display measurement experts Display Mate posted an in-depth review of the Google Pixel 3 XL 6.3" 1440x2960 AMOLED display. The display wins DisplayMate's highest ever Overall Display Assessment Grade of A+ together with a DisplayMate Best Smartphone Display Award.

DisplayMate says that Google now joins Apple and Samsung as the top tier of smartphone displays. The Google 3 XL display is on par with the AMOLED display used in Samsung's Galaxy S9. Interestingly, it turns out that Samsung Display provides this 6.3" AMOLED display to the Pixel 3 XL, while LG Display is likely to be the supplier for the smaller 5.5" 1080x2160 display used in the Pixel 3.

In April 2018 Samsung announced it is developing QD-OLEDs (hybrid Quantum Dots - OLED) TVs. Later reports suggested that the company is building its first production line, with aims to begin pilot production in 2019.

According to a new report from Korea, if Samsung's initial QD-OLED development is successful, it plans to convert an existing LCD line (SDC's 8-Gen L8-1 line) to QD-OLED production in 2020. Samsung's projected investment in its QD-OLED production will exceed $8.8 billion between 2019 and 2021.

According to reports from China, Taiwan-based AU Optronics decided to establish an inkjet OLED production line that will be used to produce OLED monitor displays and OLEDs for automotive applications.

The new OLED line will use production equipment made by Japan's JOLED - who started commercial low-volume production of its own 21.6" 4K OLED panels, at the company's pilot 4.5-Gen line. JOLED also announced plans for a mass production 5.5-Gen line that will be established in Nomi City, Ishikawa Prefecture, by 2020, and similarly to AUO, it is focusing on monitors and automotive applications.

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Our supplier in China has received around 10,000 units of Samsung's 5.67" WQHD (1440x2560) smartphone AMOLED displays, following a canceled project.

These displays are now available for a relatively low cost. If anyone is interested in these displays, let us know, this could be a good opportunity. Click here for more information on this panel.

According to Korea's ETNews, SDC's rigid OLED production level has recovered fully in Q3 2018 and is now even higher than the production level in Q3 2017. Most of the new demand comes from China-based smartphone producers. ETNews says that SDC's A2 factory's utilization rates were over 90% in Q3 2018 (up from about 80% in Q3 2017).

Samsung's flexible OLED production has also recovered following new shipments to Apple's iPhone XS and XS Max, but the utilization rate in SDC's A3 flexible OLED fab is still lower than last year's.

OLED Korea is an international OLED-focused event, organized by UBI Research. The OLED-Info team will attend next year's event, which will take place in Seoul, Korea in March 6-7, 2019. This interesting event, focused on OLEDs, has an impressive list of speakers, an exhibition and several networking opportunities.

We'll be happy to schedule meetings - so if you plan to attend OLED Korea 2019, do contact us!