Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 25

Lucid Motors, a new automotive upstart, showed off its upcoming car, a premium electric sedan. The car is about 90% complete, according to Lucid, but following two years of development, the company was ready to show some first photos and provide some information.

The car builds on high-end technologies, including patented lithium-ion battery technology and a dual-motor system. The dashboard and infotainment system is using OLED displays - in fact Lucid's prototype car has four OLED screens. Lucid did not give any details on those OLEDs, unfortunately.

Volkswagen unveiled a new all-electric concept car, the I.D. The car uses Volkswagen's dedicated battery-electric vehicle architecture, called Modular Electric Drive (MEB).

The I.D. uses thin OLED taillights. The reports say that the headlights combine LED and OLED, and indeed from the image above it seems that the headlights are surrounded by thin OLED strips.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the transparent, automotive, microdisplay, VR/AR and flexible OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to September 2016.

The Flexible OLED Market Report:

• Why flexible displays and lighting panels are so exciting
• What kind of flexible displays are currently on the market
• What the future holds for flexible OLEDs
• How to acquire flexible OLEDs for your products

The report package provides a good introduction to the flexible OLED market - present and future. It details both flexible displays and lighting technologies. Read more here!

Last week Innolux demonstrated new rigid and flexible AMOLED prototypes, and the company says it aims to mass produce AMOLEDs. The company's VP Jeffrey Yang says that the company will be able to ship its first AMOLEDs in 2017, and these will be small displays for wearable devices. The company aims to ship automotive OLEDs starting in 2020.

Innolux's CEO says that Taiwanese companies find it hard to compete with Korean and Chinese display makers because the government of Taiwan does not provide enough financial support. Some reports say that Innolux aims to integrate Innolux's and Sharp's OLED units.

LG Display announced its entry to the flexible OLED automotive market back in July 2014, and the company LGD unveiled a 12.3" Full-HD flexible automotive OLED panel in early 2016. LGD is already collaborating with Tesla, Cadillac and Mercedes, but these panels are not in production yet.

During a tradeshow in Korea, LGD’s Automotive Sales and Marketing director Sanghyun Ahn revealed that these 12.3" FHD flexible OLED panels will only enter production in 2018. The company is also developing larger 25" curved and freeform automotive OLEDs, and these are planned for 2019.

After years of OLED R&D but no actual reports, Taiwan's Innolux is finally demonstrating its new OLED prototypes, signalling that the company is finally about to re-enter the OLED market. Innolux says that it has recently "achieved success with AMOLED technology" and now plans to continue development and ultimately mass produce AMOLED panels.

In a trade-show in Taiwan, Innolux is demonstrating several OLED prototypes. First up we have a 5.5" WQHD (2560x1440, 534 PPI) flexible AMOLED built on a plastic substrate and an LTPS backplane. The panel has a "proprietary pixel rendering methods" (perhaps PenTile like?) and uses thin-film encapsulation and is produced using an FMM mask (more on this below).

LG Display collaborated with Korea's car-customizing experts Chang's Custom to create what they say is the world's first concept VIP van with interior OLED lighting. OLED lighting is ideal as an internal automotive lighting technology as it is thin, light, company and efficient.

In the custom van, Chang's Custom used 320x110 mm OLED panels for the ceiling lighting, and 200x50 mm panels for the side lighting. The company says that the warm and soft light emitted by the OLED light panels creates a luxurious state-of-the-art atmosphere in the car interior. This will create "psychological comfort for the driver while giving a luxurious and glamorous feel for passengers.".

Earlier this week Cadillac announced that it is set to unveil a new design concept car that uses curved flexible OLED displays and true to its word, the company launched the Escala concept car, with three flexible OLED panels "co-developed" with LG Display.

Another nice surprise was that the new concept also adopts OLED lighting panels in the rearlight, as can be seen in the image below. Even though the Escala is just a concept, Cadillac says that the new "sinister look" enabled by those OLEDs will also arrive in production cars soon (hopefully with OLED lighting, indeed).

LG Display announced its entry to the flexible OLED automotive market back in July 2014 - and in January 2016 LGD unveiled its 12.3" Full-HD flexible OLED panels for the automotive market. LGD is already reportedly working with Tesla and Mercedes.

Cadillac now announced that it is set to unveil a new design concept, and this car adopts at least three flexible OLED displays - that Cadillac "co-developed" with LG Display. One screen shows the instrument cluster behind the wheel, and it has two curved OLED panels - one on each side that act as "overflow" with information and animations able to transition across all three of the screens.

UBI Research says that the OLED lighting market will grow rapidly in the near future (a CAGR of 66% in 2017-2025) to reach $1.6 billion in sales by 2020. LG Display will lead the market with a market share of 53% (in terms of revenue).

UBI estimates the OLED lighting market in 2016 at $114 million, and LGD's current market share is 15% (or $17 million in sales).