OLED Tablets - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 15

DisplayMate posted a new review of the display in Apple's new iPads - both the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3. DisplayMate says that Apple used a major innovation in the iPad Air 2, a new anti-reflective layer coating that is scratch- and fingerprint- resistant. This results in a display that reduces ambient light reflection and performs better in that regard than any smartphone or tablet ever tested at DisplayMate.

Besides the anti-reflectance coating and the bonded cover glass (which has been used in many competing tablets and smartphones for years, according to DisplayMate) the iPad Air 2 display is essentially unchanged and identical in performance to the iPad 4 introduced in 2012 (and actually slightly lower in performance than the original iPad Air).

UBI Research estimates that the flexible OLED market will generate $1.8 billion in revenues in 2015, and will grow quickly at a 60% annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach $17.6 billion by 2020. The primary application driving this grwoth will be tablet pcs.

UBI also says that Samsung decided to change the encapsulation technology used in their upcoming A3 production line. In their current flexible OLED production, Samsung uses the old Vitex technology which is slow and expensive.

As expected, Samsung announced the Galaxy Note 4, and the display is indeed a QHD (2560x1440) Super AMOLED panel. The exciting news (which I did not expect) is the Galaxy Note 4 Edge - the curved edge variant!

So first of all - you can see the Galaxy Note 4 Edge above. It sports a 5.6" QHD (2560x1440) display, with an extra 160-pixels on the right edge (Samsung calls this QHD+). The bent edge (besides being unique and probably very cool) can show notifications, application icons or simply controls when you want the full screen to show a video for example.

Last month Sony, Japan Display, Panasonic and the INCJ formed a new OLED company called JOLED to focus on medium sized OLEDs. JOLED will be launched in January 2015 and has the potential to become a large OLED player.

A few days later, OLEDNet reported that JOLED is likely to choose small-molecules OLEDs, Oxide-TFT backplanes, Sony's Super Top Emission technology and an WRGB pixel architecture. Today I found Sony's original press release (a month late, actually), and there's some interesting information in there.

Last month Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic announced the formation of a new OLED company. JOLED, funded by the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, will be established formally in January 2015, and will focus mainly on medium sized OLEDs for tablet applications.

JDI 5.2-inch FHD OLED prototype

One of the key questions surrounding JOLED is the technology choice. While Sony (and JDI, which is basing its OLED program on Sony's tech) is using small-molecule OLEDs and an evaporation process, Panasonic based its OLED development on Sumitomo's PLED materials and printing technologies.

In May 2014 it was reported that Japan Display may setup an OLED joint venture together with Sony and Panasonic. Today Kyodo news confirms this report, and says that the three companies will indeed form a new company (which will be called JOLED) that will develop small and medium OLED displays - mostly for tablet devices. The official announcement is expected soon.

JDI 5.2-inch FHD OLED prototype

JOLED will receive and investment from the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, a public-private investment fund. Similarly to JDI itself, the INCJ will hold 70% in the new company. JDI will hold 20% and Sony and Panasonic will each own 5%.

OLEDNet posted an article stating that major equipment companies in Korea reported orders from Samsung Display (SDC). The manufacturing process equipment suggest that SDC is finally moving forward with its Gen-6 (1850x1500) AMOLED fab.

According to the report, SDC plans to complete the orders soon and wants to get it all by December 2014 and start mass producing in Q1 2015. The only major equipment orders left are for the encapsulation equipment. These may go to Veeco for their FAST-ALD systems, but we know that SDC is also looking at alternative approaches.

DisplayMate posted yet another interesting display shoot-out, this one testing Samsung's new QHD (2560x1600) Super AMOLED displays used in the upcoming Galaxy Tab S (8.4 and 10.5) tablets. As these displays are very similar to the GS5 display, it's not surprising that DisplayMate found those tablets to offer the best performing displays ever. This is yet another testimony to how great OLED displays are - and the rate of improvement in OLEDs is very rapid.

As DisplayMate found out, the Galaxy Tab S establishes new records for best Tablet display performance in: Highest Color Accuracy, Infinite Contrast Ratio, Lowest Screen Reflectance, and smallest Brightness Variation with Viewing Angle. These are also the highest resolution tablets at QHD.

Last week Samsung launched their new AMOLED tablets (the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and Galaxy Tab S 10.5) - and today it turns out that you can already pre-order the tablets on Amazon.com. Both tablets will ship on June 26, sooner than expected. The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 costs $399.99 while the larger Tab S 10.5 costs $499.99.

Those two tablets have pretty much the same technical specifications: a WQXGA (2560x1600) Super AMOLED display (359 PPI on the 8.4", 287 PPI on the 10.5"), Android 4.4, a 1.9 Ghz Octa-Core CPU (2.3Ghz quad-core in some markets), 8MP camera, 3GB of RAM and 16/32 GB storage and a micro SD slot. Both tablets are only 6.6 mm thick, and the 8.4 has a 4,900 mAh battery while the 10.5 one has a larger 7,900 mAh battery.

So there we have it - Samsung is finally putting AMOLEDs back in tablets. The Korean giant unveiled their two new tablets yesterday, both called Samsung Galaxy Tab S - one with a 8.4" display and the second with a larger 10.5" display. Both Super AMOLED displays offer the same resolution - WQXGA (2560x1600), which means 359 PPI for the 8.4" tablet and 287 for the 10.5" one.

Both the Tab S 8.4 and the Tab S 10.5 have the same hardware and software specification: Android 4.4, a 1.9 Ghz Octa-Core CPU (2.3Ghz quad-core in some markets), 8MP camera, 3GB of RAM and 16/32 GB storage and a micro SD slot. Both tablets are only 6.6 mm thick, and the 8.4 has a 4,900 mAh battery while the 10.5 one has a larger 7,900 mAh battery.