DSCC estimates that Apple paid around $950 million to Samsung Display in the last quarter - due to lower smartphone OLED orders. Apple is committed to buy a certain amount of displays, and this payment is a fine due to lower orders.
A year ago in July 2019, Apple paid $684 million - again as compensation for lower-than-agreen-on iPhone OLED panel orders.
This is a sponsored post by Park Systems
Park Systems Corp, a leading manufacturer of atomic force microscopy systems, announced that it has scaled up its AFM tools for 8-Gen or larger flat panel displays with new Park NX-TSH, based on its Tip Scanning Head technology. According to Park Systems, this is the only automated tip scan head system that can analyze samples larger than 300 mm on the market.
Park NX-TSH is specifically designed for ultra large flat panel display glass and 2D encoders, with integrated micro probe stations for conductive AFM and electric defect analysis. The system can scan up to 100 um x 100 um (x-y direction) and 15 um (z direction), and has a flexible chuck to accommodate samples larger than 300 mm and heavier than 1 Kg, and is so engineered for OLED, LCD and other large sample analysis.
UBI Research reports that OLED makers are aiming to adopt color filters instead of polarizers in foldable OLED displays. The polarizer help prevent internal reflections by external light, but they lower the brightness and limit the flexibility of the panel.
Using color filters instead of the polarizer may enable brighter panels and also thinner ones which are more flexible. BOE has already demonstrated such a panel back in 2017 (scheme shown above) - and they said it is 23% brighter than a polarizer OLED, and it is also 110 um thinner. Samsung Display is also developing similar technology.
DSCC posted an interesting article detailing their estimates for the production costs and prices of choice flexible and foldable AMOLED displays, in China and in Korea.
We'll start with the chart above, which compares the prices and quotes of several flexible OLEDs produced by Samsung in Korea. DSCC says that as the profitability of Samsung's OLED business is highly dependent on fab utilization, it is currently losing money on this business as the yields in its flexible OLED lines are only 38% - and fixed costs such as personnel and depreciation cannot be decreased. Having said that, DSCC sees higher utilization in the next two quarters, which will result in profitability for SDC's OLED unit.
The SID DisplayWeek 2020, the premier event for the display industry, will be held on August 3-7, 2020. The entire experience will now be online. While SID says that attendees can enjoy a full exhibition and conference, we wanted to reach out to our friend Sri Peruvemba, a board director and VP at SID, to learn more about what a virtual event means for SID.
Thanks for your time Sri - can you explain to us how does this virtual event work?
An exhibitor or attendee registers themselves like they do each year; upon completion, they will get access to the virtual forum. When you click on the event platform, you will be greeted with a reception area and have the choice of going to a talk in one of the various rooms that are organized by sessions just like the physical event, or you can walk the exhibits where each booth will have product details, images, videos, downloadable materials etc; you can attend the Business Conference, the CEO Forum, or the Women in Technology; you could attend classes and training sessions or just hang out in the networking area.
Mercedes Benz announced that its upcoming 2021 S-Class cars will include up to five touch displays, and one of these will be a 12.8" OLED display with haptic feedback. The OLED display will come standard in all the cars in the series.
Mercedes is likely to be using LG Display's OLEDs, as the two companies have been working together since around 2016.
Last month Chinese OLED producer Visionox launched an under-the-OLED camera technology, branded as InV See - which enables a selfie camera in a full-screen OLED smartphone. According to new report from China, Visionox has already shipped InV See displays to Huawei and Xiaomi which will launch smartphones with these displays soon.
The report suggests that Visionox started to ship these displays in the second half of 2019 - and these deals were worth over 3.5 billion yuan (around $500 million USD).
UBI Research estimates that foldable smartphone display makers will continue to rely on both Ultra-Thin-Glass (UTG) and Colorless Polyimide (CPI) films for at least the next five years.
UBI sees demand for CPI films will reach 4.3 million units in 2020 while demand for UTG will reach 3.5 million units. Demand for both products will grow and by 2024 it will reach 37.1 million units for CPI and 30.5 million for UTG.
In July 2019, LG Display announced an additional investment of $2.5 billion in its upcoming P10 10.5-Gen OLED TV fab in Paju. In June 2019 it was reported that LG display has started to install some of the Oxide-TFT deposition equipment. According to LG's original plans, mass production at the P10 fab was supposed to begin in 2021 or 2022, but this was later delayed to 2023.
It is now reported that LG Display has decided to delay the mass production at the P10 fab to 2025 or 2026 - this pretty much means the project is now on hold. LG Display is currently seeing lower demand for OLED TV panels, due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
LG Display announced that its OLED TV displays have been recognized for maximum eye comfort by leading global independent inspection service TÃV Rheinland of Germany and UL, a leading global safety science company.
LG Display's OLEDs were recognized as "Eye Comfort Displays" - with a low blue light emission and a flicker-free operation. This is the first time in the industry that TV displays have received such certifications.
