October 2024

Universal Display announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Revenues reached $161.6 million (up from $141 million a year ago), while its net income reached $67 million (up from $52 million a year ago). At the end of the quarter, UDC had $930 million in cash and equivalents.

UDC issued guidance for the whole of 2024, saying its revenues will be in the range of $625 million to $645 million. This is a lower guidance than its previous issued one UDC is on track for a record year in 2024, with revenues up around 16% from 2023.

Researchers from Seoul National University (SNU), in collaboration from colleagues from Samsung's SAIT institute, have identified a critical mechanism behind the performance degradation of OLED devices, the interfacial exciton-polaron quenching mechanism.

The researches have theoretically proposed a mechanism where excitons in the light-emitting layer are quenched by the accumulated charges at the interface. They followed with with experiments that have independently observed this phenomenon, identifying three key factors: interfacial barrier, exciton-polaron distance, and exciton lifetime. 

The Elec reports that Korea's Chemtronics is constructing a new fab at Sejong City that will be able to etch 8-Gen OLED substrates. This fab is built specifically for Samsung Display's new 8-Gen IT AMOLED line. The Elec said that Chemtronics already spent almost $70 million on this new fab, with Samsung supporting it with an investment as well.

The new fab will receive finished 8-Gen IT TFE rigid AMOLED panels from Samsung Display's upcoming A6 line, on a glass substrate. The new etching fab will reduce the thickness of these OLEDs from 0.5 mm to 0.2 mm, to enable lighter and thinner tablet and laptop OLEDs.

Samsung Display announced that it has developed a new technology that can recover around 80% of the quantum dots ink used in its QD-OLED production process. The recovered inks is refined through advanced synthesis technology that revives its purity and optical properties. The company will apply this technology, to its process and it is expected to save around 10 billion Won (around $7.3 million USD) each year in QD materials cost.

It turns out that even though the QD layers are inkjet printed, there is still significant waste of materials, as around 20% of the total QD ink used in the process remains in the nozzles and cannot be used. This new technology will enable SDC to make its QD-OLED panels more competitive with other large-area panel technologies.

US-based Ares Materials announced that it Japan's Denka invested in the company, with an aim to expand its high-functional materials business. Denka invested via its corporate VC that is jointly managed with Pegasus Tech Ventures.

Ares Materials developed a design technique that utilizes materials informatics (AI) for using enethiols as a raw material and possesses the technology to produce high-performance optical films using the design technique. The company says its optical films offer high performance, low cost and a reduced environmental impact.

One year ago, Korea-based OLED materials maker Solus Advanced Materials completed the construction of a new OLED materials plant at Iksan. The company now announced that it will double the capacity of its Iksan OLED plant, and already started constructing the new facilities.

It seems as if Solus Advanced Materials is building a new production base, and it will move all OLED materials production into the new base, which will be called the Hamthermal Complex. The company aims to finish the construction by the end of 2025, with mass production of materials is scheduled for early 2026. The company received subsidiaries from the local government of Iksan City and Jeonbuk province.

A few months ago Inuru started shipping its range of OLED-powered stickers, or "holo tags" as the company refers to them. These are battery-powered flexible stickers that can be used for laptops or any other use.

The company was kind enough to send us three stickers, from their latest Cyberpunk range. These stickers cost around 20 Euros, and there are many alternative designs. The idea is that the flexible stickers include a small OLED, a battery and a button that lights up the OLED for a few seconds. The whole device is said to be waterproof, but I did not test it.

Inuru says that the lifetime of the OLED is about 5,000 hours. As the battery is limited, though, they say that each sticker is limited at around 2,500 clicks. Some of them use a red OLED, and some a blue one.

LG Display reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Revenues increased 43% over last year, reaching 6.8 billion Won (almost $5 billion USD), while the net loss amounted to 337 billion Won or $244 million USD (down from 775 billion Won in Q3 2023).

LGD continues to shift its business to OLED technology, with the proportion of OLED products rising 16% in the year, reaching 58% of LGD's revenues.

In 2022, Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has developed a "historic breakthrough in display technology" - a new OLED deposition process which they refer to as eLEAP, that is said to be cost effective and can be used to create freeform OLEDs that are brighter, more efficient, and longer lasting compared to OLEDs produced using mask evaporation (FMM).

JDI is building a small-scale 6-Gen eLEAP production line in Mobara, Japan, with plans to begin production before the end of 2024. The company is also planning to establish a 8.7-Gen eLEAP fab in Wuhu, Anhui Province, China, and in April 2024 it said it hopes to sign the agreement with Wuhu's Economic and Technical Development Zone (WEDZ) by October 2024. Now JDI has made a rather confusing announcement, saying that while it decided not to extend its current MOU with the WEDZ.

BOE Technology Group and Canada-based Omniply Technologies announced a co-development agreement, with an aim to develop new materials and process technologies for display manufacturing.

It turns out that the two companies have been working together for almost 2 years, hoping to bring Omniply's technology into BOE's next-generation flexible OLED fab. BOE hopes that Omniply's technology may enable lower cost production of OLED displays, and the production of more eco-friendly displays. It also has the potential to be used in flexible sensors and microLED products in the future.