Earlier in 2020 Taiwan-based INT Tech signed an agreement to establish a $143 million OLED display fab in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province, China. The company now updated us that the plant construction is progressing and production of the company's first displays (0.7-inch RGB AMOLED) is expected to begin in Q4 2021.

INT Tech developed a proprietary glass-based high pixel density OLED technology - which enables ultra high-resolution displays on glass TFT backplanes. The company is aiming to produce lower-cost and higher-performance microdisplays for the AR/XR markets. Earlier this year INT Tech announced that it has produced its first prototype - a 0.7" 2,300 PPI real RGB side-by-side AMOLED display, which will be the company's first commercial display.

Panasonic has been showing transparent OLED display prototypes and concepts since 2016, using panels produced by LG Display. Last year Panasonic said it plans to release its first transparent OLED product in 2020, and true to its word, today Panasonic launched the TP-55ZT110 and TP-55ZT100 transparent OLED modules.

The new transparent display is 55-inch in size, and offers a resolution of 1920x1080 (not a surprise as this is the spec of LG's and the world's only transparent 55" OLED panel in production). The whole display weighs just 1.75 Kg. Interestingly the operation temperature range is quite limited at 0-40 degrees Celsius.

BOE has unveiled a new display, a 55" 4K quantum-dots panel, which it calls AMQLED (active-matrix Quantum Dot LED) display. This display uses electroluminescent QD technology - which is similar to OLEDs but with QD emitters. BOE says the display achieves a color gamut of up to 119% NTSC, and a contrast ratio of 1000000:1.

The reports claims that BOE launched this as a commercial product, but the details are not clear. This technology has been under development for many years, but it hasn't reached the performance required by commercial products, so this is a bit puzzling, hopefully we'll learn more soon.

Yesterday Oppo hosted its Oppo INNO Day 2020, during which it unveiled two interesting concept devices. First up is the Oppo X, a rollable OLED smartphone that can open up to increase the display size:

When closed the Oppo X has a 6.7-inch AMOLED, and when rolled open it can reach 7.4 inches. Inside the phone the display scrolls around a 6.8mm 'scroll motor'. Oppo says it applied 122 patents for this specific phone, with 12 patents protecting the scroll mechanism. This is still just a concept, and Oppo did not disclose any commercialization plans.

According to UBI Research from Korea, Samsung Display has managed to improve its quantum dots nanorod LED (QNED) technology, and the company aims to start buying production equipment next year.

Apparently SDC's plan is to replace the fluorescent blue emitters in its QD-OLED TV production process, which will of course turn these TV panels into QD-QNED ones.

Oppo is hosting its Oppo INNO Day 2020 today, and the company is set to announce some interesting new devices. The teaser released yesterday hints at a rollable smartphone:

Hopefully we'll learn more today, but it is certain that in the near future we'll see more rollable OLED smartphone devices and prototypes. LG Electronics already announced that it is set to release a rollable OLED smartphone in 2021.

Business Korea reports that Ireland-based OLED IP company Solas OLED recently dropped two lawsuits it filed in the US against Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. According to Solas Samsung Electronics infringed on its patent on OLED panels in its latest smartphone products including the Galaxy Z-Fold 2, and LG Electronics infringed on an OLED TV patent.

Apparently Solas dropped both lawsuits.

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) announced that it has developed a new film that can help correct the blue tint problem that occurs in OLED panels when viewed from an angle.

The new film, which is marketed as "Blue Shift Control Film" is produced using a proprietary fine patterning technology that DNP developed. The company aims to supply this films to OLED producers and is planning to generate sales of around $23 million in annual sales from 2023.

Researchers from Canada's Polytechnique Montréal and the Université de Montréal developed a new near-infrared (840 nm) TADF OLED device that is 300% more efficient than existing ones. The IQE of the new deice is 3.8% - which is the best all-organic OLED emitter ever developed above 800 nm.

Photograph of the Polytechnique Montréal crest taken using visible and infrared illumination. Credit: Pr Sébastien Kéna-Cohen

To create the new OLED device, the researchers developed two new organic compounds - and were inspired by a class of molecules previously used for biomedical imaging.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin posted its financial results for Q3 2020. While the company had a strong quarter in its main military market, but eMagin total sales were lower than expected as the medical and commercial markets were effected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

eMagin reports revenues of $7.3 million, a decline of $0.6 million from Q3 2019. Net loss for the third quarter of 2020 was $3.5 million compared to a loss of $0.3 million in 2019. At the end of the quarter, eMagin had cash and equivalents worth $10.3 million. The company's backlog at the end of the quarter was $10 million.