PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED): introduction and basics - Page 13

It was a pleasant surprise to see Hyundai LCD (or HYeLCD as they like to be called now) at SID 2012. I thought the company is no longer in business (mainly due to the fact that their web site appears to be down for months now). Anyway they did have a booth, showing several LCD and PMOLED panels.

The PMOLED panels on show included a monochrome (16 gray levels) 1.46" 128x128 panel, a full-color 1.12" 96x96 panel and a small monochrome 0.91" 128x32 panel.

Futaba says they have developed a new thin PMOLED display - in fact it's one seventh as thin as their existing PMOLEDs at 0.29 mm (Futaba's regular PMOLEDs are 2 mm thick). The new display is also much lighter: a 2.7" panel weights 1.3 grams. In order to make these new displays Futaba developed new materials and eliminated the hollow structure used to protect the OLED materials.

Futaba will begin mass producing the new displays towards the end of 2012. The new displays will cost about 50% more than Futaba's thicker panels.

RiTdisplay is a PMOLED producer based in Taiwan that has several production lines making PMOLED panels. A few years ago it was considered the world's largest PMOLED maker, although I now hear that due to financial problems the company shut down some of their PMOLED lines (this isn't confirmed though).

At SID 2012, RiTdisplay showed several PMOLED panels, and some 3.5" AMOLED panels. RiTdisplay is Ignis' production partner for its a-Si compensation technology, which basically enables a-Si to be used as a backplane for AMOLED panels (instead of LTPS or Oxide-TFT). This should enable cheaper AMOLEDs. You can read more about this technology at my Ignis-at-SID post.

Update: Here's the complete list of OLED related posts and notes from SID 2012

So, SID 2012 is now over. Personally it was a very good show, even though I hear from many exhibitors that it was slow compared to past years. There were a lot of companies showing OLED displays, lighting panels and related products, and it seems that OLEDs are starting to become mainstream. I do plan to post in-depth posts with interesting details of my talks with various OLED companies, but in the meantime, here's my own "best of SID" list.

Nippon Seiki has entered the OLED lighting market, and is already producing and offering "low-priced" panels. Low cost is relative of course - the 90x90 mm panel costs ¥8,000 ($100). The company is now offering samples because they want to get user feedback to improve the technology and products.

NS are currently offering three kinds of panels: a 90x90 mm square, a 280x38 rectangle and a 140x38 mm rectangle. All the panels are 1.9mm thick and feature 30,000 hours lifetime (LT70). The brightness is 1,000 cd/m² (maximum 3,000 cd/m²) with color temperatures of either 3,000K or 5,000K.

MIT's Media Lab unveiled a new project called the OLED Display Blocks that uses a six-sided "cube" to provide a 360-degree perspective. The current prototype uses six 1.25" 128x128 PMOLED panels, but in the future larger cubes can be made. MIT's envisions all sorts of applications for such cubes: visualizing data with different parameters shown in each side, collaborating, showing movies with interweaving stories simultaneously and more:

Winstar (a Taiwan-based LCD, e-paper and PMOLED producer) released their OLED technology roadmap for 2012-2013:

It seems that Winstar is developing transparent OLEDs, apparently the technology will be ready in Q2 2013. They are most likely working on transparent PMOLED panels (just like Futaba is). Winstar is also developing OLED lighting panels - the technology will be ready towards the end of 2013.

Market report company UBI Research says that OLED shipments in 2011 reached 130 million units. AMOLED shipments were 89.3 million (up 109% from 2010) and PMOLED shipments reached 41.1 million units. The company forecasts that the AMOLED market will grow by 70% in 2012 to reach 155 million units.

In terms of revenues, AMOLEDs in 2011 generated $2.8 billion (up 108% over 2010). In 2012 AMOLED revenues will reach $4.4 billion (60% growth). Total OLED (PMOLED+AMOLED) shipments in 2012 will pass 200 million units. The market will continue its fast growth and will reach 500 million units in 2015 (25% of the total mobile display market).

Update: Futaba asked me to remove the roadmap from my site...

Back in October 2011 Futaba bought out TDK's part in their joint OLED company, which is now a subsidiary of Futaba. Today we got hold of Futaba's OLED roadmap for 2011-2015. For the consumer market, Futaba is currently offering small (around 2") PMOLED displays. They are also offering 2.4" transparent panels, but it seems to be made in small quantities.

Futaba is also planning to start using OLEDs in printer heads. They currently use VFD technology and will adopt OLEDs in 2012-2013. For the automotive market, Futaba currently offers 0.9", 2.0", 3.4" and 3.5" monochrome panels,The company is also interested in round shaped OLEDs.

DisplaySearch says that OLED displays are estimated to take around 4% of the total flat panel display (FPD) industry in 2011, and this will grow to around 16% in 2018. Revenue wise, OLEDs will grow from over $4 billion in 2011 to over $20 billion in 2018. A few weeks ago DisplaySearch said that AMOLED display revenue will reach $3.36 billion in 2011 - which means that they forecast around $700 million in PMOLED revenue.

The company also says that OLED lighting is gaining momentum, and will reach $6 billion in revenue by 2018.