July 2023

LG Display reported its financial results for Q2 2023, with revenues of 4.74 trillion Won ($3.7 billion USD) - up 7% from last quarter, and an operating loss of 881 billion Won ($690 million USD). LGD says that demand for display panels increased during the quarter.

LGD is on track to begin mass production of medium-sized panels in the first half of 2024, building a new 6-Gen production line, that is reportedly aimed to supply for Apple's iPad Pro, the first Apple tablet to sport an AMOLED display.

According to a report from Korea, Apple approached both LG Display and Samsung Display, asking its suppliers to develop a completely bezel-less AMOLED display for future iPhones.

Designing an OLED without a bezel is a challenge, mostly because of the encapsulation layer that has to protect the OLEDs. Using an under-the-display camera is also said to be a problem for the OLED makers in such a design.

Market research firm Omdia says that according to its latest forecast, the OLED market will grow at a CAGR of 11% from 2022 to 2030, by total display production area.

The main OLED application is smartphone displays, and Omdia says that in 2022 the penetration of OLED displays into that market reached 42%. The market share of OLED smartphones will rise steadily in the future. The OLED TV market is experiencing a slowdown, but Omdia says it will resume growth in 2024.

In 2021, TCL's CSoT started producing foldable OLED panels, and the OLED Marketplace  now lists the first such panel, a 8.01" 60Hz 2480x1860 AMOLED smartphone display, with an embedded touch panel.

If you are interested in this display for your device or new project, contact us now, or check out more information over at the OLED Marketplace. It is available in sample quantities, and in large volume orders.

Audi unveiled the upcoming 2024 Audi Q6 e-tron, with its second-gen OLED taillight technology. The new taillight lighting system use a total of 360 individual OLED panels built into 6 different lighting panels (each made from 60 OLED panels, or segments as Audi calls them), and is able to show warnings and signals to other drivers. The OLEDs are likely produced by OLEDWorks, like all of Audi's recent OLED panels.

Audi will ship the cars with 8 pre-configured digital light signatures, and customers will be able to add their personal light signatures using the myAudi app. 

MIni Cooper unveiled the interior design of its upcoming 2025 model, with a large round OLED display (this same display was shown a year ago in a Mini concept car design).

The display is 9.4" in size, and is produced by Samsung Display. Mini Cooper developed its own unique software, called Mini Operating System 9, complete with several experience modes that control  the complete interface and Mini's new personal assistant dog called Spike.

Samsung announced several new devices today, all utilizing AMOLED displays. We'll start with the two new foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Fold5 and Z Flip5.  The Fold5 offers a foldable 7.6" 120Hz 1812x2176 foldable AMOLED display, and a 6.2" 120Hz 904x2316 cover AMOLED. The phone has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, 12 GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage and a triple camera setup.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip5 smartphone offers a foldable 6.7" 120Hz 1080x2640 foldable AMOLED display, and a small 3.4" 720x748 cover Super AMOLED display. The phone has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, 8 GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage and a dual camera setup.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 26,2023

An interesting video review shows a new repair system, based on lasers, that can fix defects in smartphone AMOLED displays. The system uses optical microscopy to find defects in operating OLED displays, and then a laser is used to fix the problems:

Such systems can be useful, but of course won't be able to fix all problems and defects in AMOLED displays, only ones that were caused by physical problems in conductive lines in the OLED module, that can be fixed by lasers. It will be interesting to see if these machines will truly find a place in the OLED repair aftermarket scene.

According to reports from Korea, Samsung Display is interested in acquiring OLED IP and patents from Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL). These patents detail an OLED production process that does not require the use of fine metal mask (FMM) evaporation.

The use of FMM to deposit and pattern OLED displays is seen as a major setback towards higher density OLED displays, and it also limits the aperture ratio. It is no wonder that Samsung is interested in such technology, as other display makers have developed similar technologies that offer massive performance boost over the standard FMM process.

According to market research firm Omdia, the OLED automotive displays market is set to grow to $2.17 billion in 2027, up from $481.75 in 2023 (that's a 4.5X growth in sales). In terms of shipments, the market will reach 9 million units in 2027, up from 1.48 million in 2023 (a 7X growth). 

Omdia is actually more optimistic about the automotive market than it was last year, as the industry is growing faster than expected. There is a rapid uptake of AMOLED displays in premium cars, as the displays offer a better image quality, lower power consumption and lower weight compared to LCDs, which is all very important for electric cars.