Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 15

IGNIS Innovation published the following interesting video that shows how its compensation technology can remove the visible signs of pixel aging:

IGNIS tells us that this is a 12" LTPS automotive AMOLED panel. The company tested it for 1,000 hours at 85 degrees Celsius - to make sure the company's compensation technology can remove all signs of burn-in patterns. IGNIS's Max Life technology combines a functional in-pixel compensation pixel circuit with a sensing line and the company's current measurement driver chip that can perform external compensation.

China-based BOE Display has a very ambitious OLED project, and the company unveiled new flexible and automotive OLEDs at SID 2019.

BOE demonstrated several new automotive OLED technologies including a 12.3" flexible OLED display for the main instrument panel which employs a new pixel compensation circuit technology apparently developed by BOE, which can improve the brightness uniformity of the display.

Universal Display announced that next week during SID DisplayWeek it will demonstrate, for the first time, a PHOLED display device that was produced using the company's OVJP process at its recently-installed pilot line system.

The green OVJP device features a lifetime of over 50,000 hours (LT95) at 1,000 nits. At the tradeshow UDC will also show its latest commercial and development red, yellow, green and blue phosphorescent material systems in its "eco-friendly PHOLED Garden".

OLEDWorks announced a "predevelopment collaboration" with Audi to advance OLED lighting technology in automotive applications. Audi and OLEDWorks will work together to use OLED lighting and implement it in Audi's future vehicles.

Audi has been developing and implementing OLED lighting for many years. Back in 2012 Audi partnered with Philips to demonstrate several OLED lighting prototypes. Philips OLED unit was sold to OLEDWorks in 2015. See more about Audi's 2012 and 2013 OLED prototypes here.

Digitimes reports that AU Optronics has setup a 3.5-Gen test ink-jet OLED printing line, and the company now intends to start building a 6-Gen production line. AUO will start constructing the line before the end of 2019.

AUO's Chairman confirmed that the latest advances in printing materials and equipment are starting to make OLED printing viable for commercial use. AUO has not yet decided the schedule for volume production.

According to Digitimes, PMOLED display maker RiTdisplay has started to produce flexible OLED lighting panels, targeting the automotive, medical and consumer (home) applications.

For the automotive market, the RiTdisplay is apparently collaborating with Luminit, through its Taiwan-subsidiary Luminit Automotive Technology. RiTdisplay is holding 30% at LAT which is already starting to supply OLED lighting panels for automotive brake lights and started low-volume shipments in Q1 2019.

Taiwan-based Luminescence Technology (Lumtec) announced that it has started to mass produce OLED lighting panels, targeting mainly the automotive OLED lighting market.

Lumtec has been developing OLED materials and technologies for many years, and the company has now accelerated its market strategy for OLED lighting, and vertically integrated the business under its "LUMLIGHT" business division.

LG Display reported disappointing financial results for Q1 2019 - with an operating loss of $113 million. LG Display warns that the whole of 2019 will fall short of expectations - due to high costs of its new OLED fabs, weak LCD panel prices and low adoption of its smartphone OLEDs.

LGD's smartphone OLED business still suffers from low yields and low fab utilization as the company finds it hard to secure design wins and compete with Samsung Display. Some reports even suggest that LGD is thinking about shutting down its flexible OLED smartphone business.

OLED driver maker MagnaChip launched its latest 28 nm OLED Display Driver IC for smartphone displays. MagnaChip says that it is using the world's most advanced process for OLED drivers, which enables it to achieve a 20% reduction in form factor compared to its previous 40 nm process.

In addition to the size reduction, the new process also enabled MagnaChip to reduce the voltage from 1.1V to 1V, which reduces the power consumption by more than 20%, and it also reduces the EMI levels (again, by 20%) which improves the phone's call quality.

LG Display currently produces flexible OLEDs (branded as pOLEDs), for both wearable devices and smartphones, is the exclusive supplier of AMOLED displays for Apple's Watch smartwatch (although this could change soon) and it also supplies OLED displays for various smartphones, including the company's own flagship phones.

LG Display has been struggling, though - with low yields, poor display quality and securing orders. According to a new report from Business Korea, there is some skepticism regarding the viability of this business - including some inside LG Display's management itself.