Flexible OLEDs: introduction and market status - Page 27

A team at Queen's University Human Media Lab in Canada developed a new concept device called MagicScroll that features a rollable display wrapped around a cylinder that can be rolled to scroll the information. The display can also be rolled up to act like a regular tablet.

The display used in this demonstration is a 7.6" 2K rollable OLED. This is actually a tiled display made from two 5.5" FHD OLEDs taken from two LG Flex 2 smartphones (thank you Andrew M. Abrams from SCMR for clarifying this!).

Update: It turns out that the display used by Nubia is produced by Visionox and not BOE as we assumed

China-based Nubia unveiled a new smart wearable device called the Nubia Alpha, which uses an elongated foldable OLED display. Nubia says that this device will ship in China by the end of 2018.

If Nubia actually ships its Alpha device before the end of 2018, it may become the first company to ship a foldable OLED smartphone. Samsung is gearing up to start foldable OLED production in 2018 but its first foldable smartphone is likely to ship in early 2019. Huawei is also said to get ready to release a foldable phone before the end of 2018 - using displays made by BOE. In fact BOE is reportedly developing foldable OLEDs for several smartphone makers - which means that it's likely that the Nubia Alpha is using a BOE display.

China-based Royole demonstrated its latest technologies at IFA 2018 - including the company's flexible AMOLEDs integrated into a top hat and a jacket and the company's Moon OLED HMD and its RoWrite E Ink writing pad.

Royole's flexible OLED displays are produced at the company's "quasi-G6" (5.5-Gen) OLED production fab in Shenzhen which started production in June 2018. In full capacity, Royole's fab will be able to produce over 50 million flexible OLEDs per year (45,000 monthly substrates).

Due to lower demand for flexible (due to several reasons, see here) in late 2017 and early 2018, Samsung's utilization rates at its flexible OLEDs fab were quite low, and its A4 production line was pretty much unused for the time.

But demand for mobile OLED displays is now on the rise, and a report from Korea now suggests that SDC aims to resume flexible OLED production in its A4 line in October 2018 - as the company secured new ordered for smartphone OLEDs from Chinese phone makers.

According to IHS, flexible AMOLED shipments reached 157.6 million units in 2018 - about 38.9% of the total AMOLED market (rigid + flexible). Flexible OLEDs will grow at a much faster rate than rigid OLEDs, and shipments will exceed those of rigid OLEDs by 2020 (335.7 million units). In 2022 over 400 million flexible AMOLED panels will be produced, compared to around 340 million rigid AMOLEDs.

IHS sees demand for flexible OLEDs by smartphone brands that want to diffrentite their products using curved displays and full-screen ones. Foldable displays are also expected to be a key technology for mobile devices in the foreseeable future.

Hong-Kong display driver develop Solomon Systech says that it expects strong growth for its advanced AMOLED touch controller ICs. The company says it has received several design-wins and design-in projects with OLED makers in Taiwan, Japan and China for top global smartphone brands.

Solomon also announced its next-generation flexible/foldable AMOLED touch controller IC. The company says that the new driver will deliver a step change in power and noise immunity which will enable device makers to innovate with ultra-thin displays and new foldable design concepts. The first sample of the new IC is expected to be available by the end of 2018.

Tianma started producing rigid and flexible OLEDS in April 2017 at the company's 6-Gen fab in Wuhan, and on June 27th the company announced that it plans to construct the 2nd phase of the Wuhan AMOLED fab.

Tianma's Wuhan expansion project will cost around 14.5 billion Yuan ($2.12 billion USD) and will take about 25 months - so production at the 2nd phase is scheduled for September 2020. When the 2nd phase is complete' Tianma's flexible AMOLED capacity will be 37,500 monthly 6-Gen substrates.

Futaba launched its flexible (film-type, curvable) 1.8" 160x32 monochrome white PMOLED back in November 2015, and we have now added this interesting panel to our OLED Marketplace.

If you are interested in this display for your device or new project, contact us now, or check out more information over at the OLED Marketplace.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the flexible, transparent, VR/AR, microdisplays, automotive and graphene 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 July 2018.

The OLED for VR/AR Market Report:

• Why OLEDs are adopted in almost all VR HMDs
• What kind of displays are required for VR and AR applications
• What the future holds for the VR and AR markets
• Current and future VR and AR systems

The report package provides a great introduction to the emerging VR and AR market, and details the role that OLED displays will have. Read more here!

In 2016 China-based Everdisplay (EDO) started to construct a 6-Gen flexible AMOLED fab in Shanghai. In August 2017 EDO said that it finished the building's main steel frame roof, and yesterday EDO announced that it has finished constructing the building and the cleanrooms, and it has started to install the production equipment - a month earlier than it originally planned.

EDO's new fab will have a capacity of 30,000 monthly substrates (1500 x 1850 mm) and will be used to produce small and medium sized flexible AMOLEDs (1 to 15 inch). EDO aims to begin trial production in January 2019 and mass production in 2021.