Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 19

Audi introduced a new e-tron EV crossover concept car, which includes 7" OLED virtual side mirrors (coupled with external cameras) instead of the normal mirrors.

This is not a new concept - but it seems that Audi is progressing towards bringing this design idea to commercial cars. In 2012 Audi equipped its R18 sports prototype with a 7.7" virtual rear mirror, and later announced it will bring such mirrors to future e-tron cars.

Towards the end of 2017, JOLED started commercial production of its 21.6" 4K OLED panels. But this is very low volume production (at JOLED's pilot 4.5-Gen line) as the company said it is seeking to raise $900 million to support its plan to start mass producing OLEDs in 2019.

Today JOLED announced official plans for its first mass production printed OLED fab. JOLED will establish the production site in Nomi City, Ishikawa Prefecture. The capacity of the new fab will be 20,000 monthly 5.5-Gen (1300x1500 mm) substrates and the plan is to begin mass production in 2020. JOLED will produce 10- to 32-inch OLED displays for automotive displays, high-end monitors and more.

DSCC updated its forecast for display equipment spending, saying that in 2018 OLED spending is expected to fall 28% compared to 2017 to $10.8 billion (while LCD spending will grow 22% to $11.4 billion). China-based display makers will account for 90% of all display related equipment spending in 2018.

2019 will see another down year for OLED spending that will drop 31% to $7.4 billion (LCD spending is also expected to fall by 32%). Chinese display makers will again lead in spending (77% of the market).

Tianme had an large booth in SID, showcasing many display technologies and demonstrating its latest LCD and OLED panels. Tianma started producing rigid and flexible OLEDS in April 2017 at the company's 6-Gen fab in Wuhan, and at SID the company demonstrated its 5.5" on-cell rigid AMOLEDs now in production. Tianma told us that this display was adopted in smartphones by Lenovo and Asus.

Tianma also demonstrated several flexible OLEDs in many configurations which we will list below. Almost all of the panels were based on the same basic display - a flexible 5.99" WQHD 1440x2280 (537.5 PPI) AMOLED produced on a polyimide substrate. Tianma showed this panel in a regular design, and also in a notch-type design.

During its 2018 Investors Forum in Singapore, Samsung Electronics said that it expects the automotive display market to grow at a 9% CAGR from 2018 to 2022 - but automotive OLEDs will grow at a much faster rate - from 100,000 units in 2018 to 3 million in 2022.

At SID Displayweek Samsung indeed demonstrated many automotive OLED displays - including curved, rolllabe, unbreakable, transparent and lightfield AMOLED displays.

In 2016 the EU launched the PI-SCALE project, which established a European-wide roll-to-roll flexible OLED lighting pilot production line, with an aim to enable companies of all sizes to quickly and cost effectively test and scale up their flexible OLED lighting concepts.

Now the EU has launched a €14 million initiative within PI-SCALE called LYTEUS, which provides the expertise and capability required to progress an OLED lighting concept from an idea and into a commercialized product. Lyteus helps companies with sheet-to-sheet and roll-to-roll prototyping of flexible OLEDs, technology transfer, device encapsulation and more. At launch Lyteus serves four customers: Audi, Rehau, Emde and Pilkington, to develop flexible OLED lighting products in the automotive, aeronautics and designer luminaires sectors.

Japan-based Futaba demonstrated its latest automotive, flexible and transparent PMOLEDs at SID 2018.

We did not see any new displays, but it was great to get an overview of the possible PMOLED solutions that Futaba offers to its target markets (mostly automotive and wearables).

China-based BOE Display had an impressive booth at SID, where it displayed the company's latest displays. The company's flexible and foldable OLED prototypes and panels took center stage, as BOE is ramping up its flexible OLED production and is also developing its next generation technologies.

BOE's foldable prototype was a 6.2" WQHD (1440x3008, 538 PPI) panel that features a fold-radius of 1R and include a touch layer. The display has a super narrow border, and is 0.21 mm thick. BOE says that it can withstand over 100,000 bending cycles.

Samsung Display had a large booth at SID DisplayWeek, showcasing its latest OLED technologies (and also its QD-enhanced LCD TVs).

A large part of SDC's booth was dedicated to the company's automotive OLED technologies which included a wide range of flexible and rollable OLED displays - including flexible, transparent, rollable and a lightfield display.

FlexEnable announced that Novares, a plastic automotive solutions provider, invested €5 million in the company. This is a strategic investment by Novares that aims to bring FlexEnable's flexible organic LCD (OLCD) to automotive interiors.

Interestingly the press release does not discuss OLEDs at all, only OLCDs which is described as a low-cost, high-reliability, conformable and shapeable display technology. FlexEnable started commercializing its OLCD technology together with Truly Semiconductors in 2017. OLCD production is expected to begin by the end of 2018, and Novares already demonstrated a demo Car that features OLCD displays