Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 17

LG Display announced the OLED displays it will demonstrate at CES 2019, starting on Tuesday January 8th. We already know that LG Electronics will launch a 88" 8K OLED TV (the OLED Z9) but now LGD says it will demonstrate a 88" Crystal Sound OLED (CSO) panel - which has a sound system built into the panel (which acts as the membrane).

LGD will also unveil a 65" 8K OLED - which you can see in the image above.

Earlier this month JOLED unveiled new display prototypes at FineTech Japan. Today we have received this interesting new video from JOLED that shows the displays in action:

In the video you can see all of JOLED's new prototypes. First up is the Automotive demo - JOLED demonstrated two panels, a 12.3" 1920x720 (167 PPI) panel and a 12.2" 1920x1280 (180 PPI) panel. Both are printed on LTPS backplanes (as do the rest of the company's small and medium sized panels). JOLED's latest investors, Denso and Toyoto Tsusho, are both helping the company with its entry into the automotive display market.

DSCC estimates that the AMOLED market will grow 19% in 2019 to reach $31 billion, up from $26.5 billion in 2018. OLED revenues will continue to grow and reach $48.8 billion in 2022 (a CAGR of 16%).

Looking at OLED unit shipments and area production, 2019 will see a 22% growth in unit shipments to 610 million panels and a 35% growth in area to 9 million square meters. Area shipments will grow faster than revenues as OLED selling prices will continue to decline - and as OLED TVs take up a larger share of the OLED market.

Japan-based printed OLED developer JOLED demonstrated several new OLED displays at Finetech Japan last week. We already posted on these new OLEDs, and now we have photos of the new panels.

So first up is JOLED's first OLED TV panel. The 55" 4K (3840x2160, 80 PPI) panel offers a 120Hz refresh rate and a color gamut of 100% DCI (135% sRGB) and is printed on JOLED's Transparent Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor (TAOS) backplane.

Last month Japan-based printed OLED developer JOLED announced that it will demonstrate new OLED prototypes (including a 55" printed OLED TV) at Finetech Japan, which starts tomorrow (December 5). Today JOLED detailed the new panels it will have on display at the trade show.

So first we have two automotive displays - a 12.3" HD OLED and a 12.2" flexible (curved ) Full-HD OLED. JOLED's latest investors, Denso and Toyoto Tsusho, are both helping the company with its entry into the automotive display market.

In 2017, Mercedes introduced OLED Taillight in its Mercedes 2018 S-Class Coupe and Convertible cars, and it seems that the German auto maker is now aiming to use OLED taillights in another model - the upcoming C238 E-Class Coupe was spotted in Stuttgart - with a new OLED taillight design.

The 2018 S-Class Coupe and Convertible used OLEDs produced by LG Display, and each taillight module contains 33 individually controlled red OLED panels. In the new C238 E-Class Coupe, it seems that each module uses 16 red OLEDs.

Departures magazine (a premium magazine shipped to around 25,000 American Express Platinum Card members) included an innovative ad for Audi's A8 with flexible OLED lighting panels that are activated when first opened (and also when the reader clicks on a replica Audi key that is included with the magazine).

Personally this seems to be an overly expensive and wasteful way to advertise. We do not know what kind of OLED panels are used in the ads (which was produced by US-based Structural Graphics). In 2017 Konica Minolta Pioneer OLED (KMPO) demonstrated its simple flexible OLED lighting panels integrated into packaging technology - which could be the one adopted here (although other companies have demonstrated similar solutions as well).

Automotive suppliers Continental unveiled a concept technology that could minimize blind-spots in automobiles. The idea is to wrap a flexible OLED around the car's A-pillar, and then use an external camera combined with head-tracking in-car camera to feed the external view on the A-Pillar display.

This seems to be a smart idea if performed well that solves a real issue - Continental says that a typical A-pillar can obscure more than 3 feet's worth of area at a distance of 12 feet from the vehicle - and the blind spot grows as the distance does. CNet notes, however, that Kia, Hyundai, Toyota and Jaguar Land Rover previewed and patented similar technologies in the past.

According to reports from China, Taiwan-based AU Optronics decided to establish an inkjet OLED production line that will be used to produce OLED monitor displays and OLEDs for automotive applications.

The new OLED line will use production equipment made by Japan's JOLED - who started commercial low-volume production of its own 21.6" 4K OLED panels, at the company's pilot 4.5-Gen line. JOLED also announced plans for a mass production 5.5-Gen line that will be established in Nomi City, Ishikawa Prefecture, by 2020, and similarly to AUO, it is focusing on monitors and automotive applications.

Transparent displays are of great interest, and many envision a plethora of possible applications that use transparent screens in the retail, commercial and consumer markets. There are many exciting applications - but none with real and immediate demand.

Many OLED makers are developing transparent OLEDs, and in the past we've seen several producers that introduced such displays to the market - only to halt production a few months later. Device makers are on the lookout for such displays, and are still disappointed even though the technology is ready.