Corning - Page 2

Corning and OLEDWorks launched a new OLED lighting design contest - calling designers to integrate thin, lightweight and cool-to-the-touch OLEDWorks lighting panels into functional luminaires that are practical yet creative.

All proposals must be submitted by June 30, 2016. Up to five winners will be announced in September 2016 - and each will be rewarded with $10,000. The contest is open to the public, including students, emerging professional designers, and professionals working at design studios and luminaire companies.

According to reports, Samsung is gearing up to introduce their first foldable OLED smartphone device by the end of 2016, as Samsung's mobile phone unit is under pressure to innovate and recapture its lost market share.

According to an interesting report from Korea, Samsung has been collaborating with a KAIST spin-off called Solip Technology that developed a foldable glass that will be used in Samsung's upcoming foldable OLEDs. Samsung is considering placing a strategic investment in Solip as this material is a key technology for Samsung.

Corning announced that Samsung Display adopted the company's Lotus NXT glass as its OLED panel substrate. The Lotus NXT glass was announced in June 2015, and Corning reveals that that Samsung already adopted those substrates for the Galaxy Note 5's 5.7" Quad-HD (2560x1440, 518PPI) Super AMOLED display. The Note 5 was released in August 2015.

Lotus NXT improves the 2nd-gen XT glass (launched in May 2013) with lower total pitch variations. The new glass has improved stability, and better total pitch variation performance. According to Corning, this enables display makers to produce more efficient displays (up to 15% lower power consumption), or higher resolution displays (by up to 100 additional pixels per inch).

Corning announced an updated version of their high-performance (LCD and OLED) display glass substrate, the Lotus NXT Glass. The new glass improves the 2nd-gen XT glass (launched exactly two years ago in May 2013) with lower total pitch variations.

Corning Lotus XT

The new glass has improved stability, and better total pitch variation performance. According to Corning, this enables display makers to produce more efficient displays (up to 15% lower power consumption), or higher resolution displays (by up to 100 additional pixels per inch). The Lotus NXT can also improve display production yields - by up to 1.5%. It's not quite clear if these numbers refer to the improvement over Lotus XT or other glass substrates on the market

Corning and OLEDWorks signed a collaborative agreement to develop flexible and conformable OLED lighting solutions using Corning's flexible Willow Glass as an integrated substrate and barrier.

Corning's Willow Glass will not just enable the panels to be flexible - the glass also integrates Corning's light extraction technology that will (according to OLEDWorks) enable them to double the light output from the panels.

Two new technologies seem to dominate the LCD TV market in CES 2015. First up are quantum dots TVs - which are LED backlit LCDs that include a QD film that enhances the TV's color gamut, efficiency, brightness and contrast. Sony has been producing QD TVs for almost two years, but this year we have new launches from Samsung, LG, Philips, TCL and others.

Samsung SUHD (credit: Sri Peruvemba, Marketer International)

These new wave of QD TVs are Cadmium-free, which was one of the major stumbling block towards real QD commercialization. The major advantage of QD TVs is the enhanced color gamut, which is even larger than the color gamut currently offered by OLED TVs (although LG promises their OLEDs will catch up soon). LG still considers OLEDs as their future TV technology, and Merck also says that quantum-dots are not a real game changer (unlike OLEDs).

The OLED Lighting Commercialization Alliance (OLCA) was formed a few days ago in Taiwan, with an aim to make Taiwan an important OLED lighting player. The alliance will promote OLED technologies and will include members from materials suppliers to product makers.

The OLCA seems to be led by Taiwan's ITRI. Other members include Merck, RiT Display, WiseChip, Corning, Tongtai Machine & Tool and the TLFEA (Taiwan Lighting Fixture Export Association). ITRI says that more than 60 companies have shown interest in collaborating with OLCA members.

Corning and Samsung announced a complicated deal today - Corning will buy out Samsung Display's stake in their LCD glass joint venture (Samsung Corning Precision Materials, or SCP). In exchange, Samsung will receive convertible preferred shares in Corning that are valued at $1.9 billion and will acquire more shares for $400 million. If Samsung converts all these shares, they will own 7.4% of Corning.

Corning estimates that this move will add about $2 billion in annual sales and about $350 million in profit. As part of the deal, the two companies signed a new 10-year LCD display glass supply agreement. Corning will also buy other minority shareholders in SCP for about $300 million, and will also pay a special $1.4 billion dividend payment to SDC.

Corning recently announced the new second-gen Lotus XT high-performance glass suitable for OLED displays. The company has been supplying glass substrate and cover glass for OLED displays for years now. Now Corning was kind enough to participate in a Q&A session here on OLED-Info to better explain how they see the OLED market and what the future holds for Corning and OLEDs.

We talked to two Corning executives. John Bayne is Corning's High Performance Displays VP and General Manager, while Harrison Smookler is the commercial director and program manager of Willow Glass Substrates (flexible glass).

Tianma selected Corning's Lotus XT Glass for its line of LTPS panels. Tianma is currently producing LCDs but will hopefully start AMOLED production in 2014.

Tianma says they chose Lotus XG Glass because of the advanced properties of the glass. The company’s LTPS line is located in Xiamen, China, and has a capacity of 30,000 TFT modules, and more than 30,000 color-filter modules per month. It is the first Gen 5.5 LTPS line in China.