This is a sponsored post by Coherent

Lasers are utilized for numerous processes in flexible OLED production, just as they are in the manufacture of other display technologies. In fact, it can be reasonably claimed that lasers are a key enabling technology in the fabrication of modern, flat panel displays. And it’s likely that they will continue to perform essential fabrication steps as flexible and foldable displays become more commonplace.

There is a variety of processes within the flexible display production line where lasers have an essential contribution to enable high throughput, high yield mass production. Nowadays, the complexity of the displays is getting larger and the number and tasks of lasers within flexible OLED production is increasing.

For this reason, choosing the right laser really means choosing the right laser supplier. Manufacturers need a partner who has the specific technical and applications development resources to identify the best and most cost-effective solution. Coherent is that partner

DSCC estimates that OLED smartphone display shipments will decrease 5% in 2022, to 592 million units. Flexible OLED shipments will rise by 2% (and will decline 10% in terms of revenues) but rigid OLED shipments will drop 14% (and revenues will decline 32%).

DSCC sees the OLED smartphone market declining 16% in 2022 to $317 billion (smartphone sales), and explains that this is due to macroeconomic headwinds, weakened consumer demand and problems with supply chains and inventories.

TCL's CSoT demonstrated a new prototype AMOLED display - a 17" IGZO foldable panel, that was produced using inkjet printing. The company says this kind of panel can be used in tablets, monitors and laptops.

CSoT is progressing with its inkjet printing technology, and aims to start production in 2023. Last year the company demonstrated a 65" 8K inkjet-printed OLED TV panel, in addition to a 14" rollable panel.

On July 14 2004, I published the first post on OLED-Info, and so our site is now 18 years old! It is great to see how the industry matured and grew from these early days, and how OLED-Info became the world's leading OLED knowledge hub and publication.

The first post was an announcement by OSRAM of a new 80x48 monochrome PMOLED display. OSRAM since withdrew from the OLED display market, and later from the OLED lighting market as well.

Today we are happy and proud to announce a new MicroLED Industry Association, created to help accelerate the adoption of microLED display technologies.

The new association will bring together companies, academia and organizations active in the MicroLED industry and provide an ideal forum for solving common technology issues, fostering cooperation and sharing relevant information, resources and tools. The association will also work to promote its member companies, their technologies and products.

You can read more about the MicroLED Industry Association, including the complete list of member benefits, here: https://www.microledassociation.com

This page is still at an early stage, and we are working on a new design which will be updated shortly.

DSCC estimates that the OLED market will increase 2% in 2022, to reach $42 billion. Revenues for smartphones, the leading OLED application, will actually decline by 4%, but this will be offset by increases in other applications.

In fact, some applications will experience very fast growth: OLED monitors (641% unit growth, 279% revenue growth), OLED laptops (64% units, 39% revenue) and automotive displays (73% units, 68% revenue).

Omdia says that the market share of Korea's OLED producers, SDC and LGD is eroding, as Chinese OLED makers increase their OLED shipments. A main driver is Apple's increased iPhone AMOLED orders from BOE.

Omdia says that BOE's market share has increased from 5.6% in 2019 to almost 12% in 2022 (first quarter). The market share of all AMOLED makers in China is now above 20%, from from less than 10% in 2019.

According to reports from Korea, Samsung Display is considering to start producing OLED microdisplays, to support its customer needs. Apparently Samsung Electronics, Apple, Meta and others have been reaching out to Samsung regarding OLED microdisplay production.

Samsung 2011 OLED microdisplay prototype

The microdisplay market is seeing strong demand, or at least strong interest, as all major tech companies are developing solutions for AR and VR. Samsung Display has refrained from developing OLED microdisplay technologies, as it believed profitability will not be good in this market, but this could change now.

Panasonic Avionics launched off a new aircraft internal entertainment platform, called Astrova, that is based on OLED displays.

The platform includes three screen options: 13-inch, 16-inch and 22-inch 4K screens. All of these are OLED displays.

Market research firm Omdia sees higher demand for OLED solutions for the automotive sector. Omdia says shipments of OLED panels will grow from around 500,000 units in 2022 to almost 6 million units by 2028.

Currently most automotive makers that use OLEDs adopt flexible panels, but Omdia actually sees the adoption of rigid glass-based OLEDs (single stack) growing faster than that of flexible OLEDs (tandem stack), and by 2027 the share of rigid automotive OLEDs will be higher than that of flexible ones. This is an interesting forecast.