Automotive OLEDs: introduction and industry news - Page 32

Update: Audi sent us some more details on the Prologue's OLED displays...

Audi unveiled a new concept two-door car, the Prologue, which marks a new design language for Audi, which will adopted in the German automaker next-generation cars. The Prologue uses a full-width OLED (made from three panels) dashboard instrument display, and another bendable OLED mounted at the case of the centre console:

Audi says that the bendable OLED is one of only 10 in existence, and the company informed me that Samsung Display is the OLED producer. 

Nanomarkets released a new report that covers the opportunity for OLED lighting in the automotive sector (OLED Automotive Lighting - 2014). Nanomarkets forecasts that this market will be significant for OLED lighting makers, and in 2019 almost a million OLED panels will ship for automobiles (over 150,000 luminaires).

In terms of panel revenue, the market will remain very small - a few million dollars in the next couple of years, $9 million by 2017 and about $68 million in 2021. Luminaries revenue will be higher of course: $20 million by 2017 and $135 million by 2021.

OSRAM announced a new OLED lamp for car interiors - the OLED Reading Light. This is a single OLED lighting panel placed in a high-quality matt aluminum housing that provides a very warm (3300 kelvin) and uniform light. This is an after-market product, with a clip at the back of the panel enables it to be attached to the sun visor. It can be charged via a USB cable.

OSRAM says that OLED lighting is ideal for applications in which the eyes have to focus on one point for a long time thanks to its homogeneous light that does not dazzle or cast shadows. Unfortunately OSRAM did not reveal the OLED panels' spec, but they do provide a 5-year guarantee so it means that the lifetime and stability is probably quite good.

Kia announced a new electric car, the 2015 Soul EV. The vehicle has a 109 bhp engine and a 27 kWh L-ion battery that gives it a range of 93 miles. This environmental friendly car uses 23 kg of plant-based interior plastics (made from cellulose and sugar cane base).

In the instrument cluster, the Soul EV uses a 3.5" OLED display. It provides information on the energy flow, charging time, ECO driving level and energy economy. It also provides a three-stage alert for the Soul EV’s State of Charge (SOC) - so you can quickly determine when it's time for charging.

LG Chem announced it developed new OLED lighting panels that features 100 lm/W and a lifetime of 40,000 hours. The plan is to release these panels towards the end of 2014. It's not clear, but it's likely that LG Chem aims to replace all current 60 lm/W OLED panels with the new 100 lm/W ones.

According to reports from Korea, LG Chem claims that their OLED panels will be available at lower prices compared to LED lighting. I'm guessing this is more of a "forward looking" statement as OLED panels are still very expensive, even after LG's plan to cut OLED prices by about 60% in Q3 2014 (from about $600/Klm to about $200/Klm).

IDTechEx released a new flexible OLED display market report, in which they say that the next evolution of OLED displays is plastic and flexible displays. They see fast growth in such displays, with sales reaching $16 billion by 2017. The first flagship flexible display will ship in 2017.

Not all OLEDs will be plastic-based, and this will especially be true for TV applications. In fact, IDTechEx sees OLED TVs also growing very quickly - with a projected 42% CAGR in the next ten years (this will be the second fastest growing OLED application after automotives).

EverDisplay Optronics was established in October 2012 in Shanghai, China with plans to become China's first AMOLED producer. Everdisplay is constructing a Gen-4.5 AMOLED fab. Those AMOLEDs will be deposited on an LTPS backplane.

The company's marketing team were kind enough to answer a few questions I had. This is a very short interview (they do not seem like the talkative types) - but this is one company that anyone interested in OLEDs should keep an eye on in the near future. They also sent me the photo you see below, showing their latest HD (720p) AMOLED prototypes. From left to right: 5-inch (293 PPI), 5.5-inch (267 PPI), 6-inch (244 PPI).

Philips' OLED lighting division has a new head of Marketing and Business Development - Jay Kim. Before he was responsible for OLED product marketing, business development, MarCom and customer services functions globally, Jay headed Philips' industry segment marketing in Europe involving Philips LED luminaries, lighting controls and services. And he was kind enough to agree to this interview here at OLED-Info.

Q: Jay - thanks for your time. Let's jump, shall we? In March 2014 Philips announced the FL300, your brightest OLED yet at 300 lumens. Any updates on this panel? Is it still on track for Q3?

We are very happy with the performance of the new Brite FL300 and its acceptance in the market. Already before official market introduction at Light+Building we have had three designs where the brightest OLED on the market is used. Italian furniture maker Riva1920 uses our OLED in its K BLADE lamp, an exceptional beautiful wooden desk lamp combining 48,000 years old Kauri wood from New Zealand with the world’s most modern lighting technology OLED. Besides that, German Designer Thomas Emde is using the Brite FL300 in its new series of OLED luminaires sold under the label OMLED. In addition, he is working closely together with Italian luminaire manufacturer Luceplan. Together they bring the OLALAL OLED luminaire to the market. Also, many of our customers with designs based on the Lumiblade GL350 OLED are going to switch to the new OLED as well.

LG Display announced that it signed supply contracts with several car makers in Germany (including Daimler-Benz) to supply with OLED panels. It's not clear, but it seems that the displays will be plastic-based flexible OLEDs. LG said that they expect flexible OLEDs to "fast replace the currently available glass-made LCD panels".

LG Display also plans to start producing transparent displays (probably OLEDs) for this market. In 2013 LGD generated 500 billion Won in sales of automotive displays (probably all LCDs). The company hopes that those flexible and transparent OLEDs will enable them to grow by 30% a year in the next three years - and then LGD will become the leading automotive display company.

Korea's NeoView Kolon has been developing OLED panels for a long time, and while we knew the company is already producing transparent panels, it was a nice surprise to learn that the company is also developing flexible panels. In fact, in this nice video that was sent to us, you can see a prototype flexible transparent OLED:

The video also shows some older transparent OLED prototypes for the automotive market that the company developed for Kia, and the company's TOvi transparent OLED-based HUD that is already shipping in the Korean market.