Japan Display's research center chief, Akio Takimoto, says that JDI will begin producing OLED panels in 2018. JDI will take advantage of their advanced TFT technology as it aims to catch up with Samsung and LG.
JDI probably aims for 2018 following many reports that Apple aims to start adopting OLEDs in that year's iPhone models. Apple is reportedly already in talks with Samsung and LG as they need to secure a huge amount of production capacity - but it's likely that Apple will prefer teaming up with JDI over its Korean smartphone rivals.
JDI was formed in November 2011 by Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba who combined their small/medium panel production capabilities and received $2 billion from Japan's Innovation Network Corp (INCJ). The company is already supplying LCD panels to Apple.
JDI has always been involved with OLEDs, and has shown several protoypes (including the flexible one you see above, demonstrated in 2015), which they refer to as film-type OLEDs. The specific panel above is 5.2" in size with a Full-HD resolution (423 PPI). The panel use a WRGB (white-OLED with color filters) architecture.
In early 2015 JDI launched a company called JOLED (Japan OLED) in August 2014 together with Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display producer (focusing at first on OLEDs for tables, laptops and signage). JOLED is reportedly in talks with Apple regarding a possible iPad AMOLED supply agreement, and in August 2015 it was reported that JOLED is set to establish a new OLED research facility in Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture in a $161 investment.
The JOLED R&D facility will include a pilot line that will be able to produce samples by the end of 2016, and the facility will also evolve into a mass production fab that will begin production by 2018. It's interesting to see how will JDI and JOLED handle the OLED production ramp planned for 2018.
