PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED): introduction and basics - Page 17

The nice guys over at APUS have kindly sent me an OLED watch for review. This is their Alpha Dark Force, which uses a blue PMOLED (they have other watches that use red or white PMOLEDs). APUS are selling the phones on-line in their web shop. The watches are also available in Amazon.com. The Alpha Dark Force, shown above costs $129.

First impressions

When you first take it out of the box, you notice something strange - the display is off. Then you realize that that's how it's supposed to be - the watch does not display anything until you press a button. Then it shows you the time for a few seconds, and turns off again. APUS say that this is to preserve the battery, which will drain in a couple of days if the display will be always on. More on this later.

UBi Sanup Research has posted their new OLED quarterly report for 1Q 2010. They say that AMOLED sales reached $183 million - a 11% drop compared to last quarter. Total OLED sales (PMOLED+AMOLED) reached $237 million - a decrease of %14 from last quarter. AMOLED account to 77% of total OLED sales. OLED shipments were 9.1 million units from Korea, 7.4m units Taiwan and 5.8m from Japan.

UBi says that OLED shipments is expected to grow due to increased PMOLED and AMOLED supply.

NeoView Kolon is showing some new transparent OLED prototypes. They say that one of the promising uses of these displays is in the automotive industry (to embed those in the front windshield). They are mostly focusing on PM-OLED displays.

One of the displays on show is a 2.4" QVGA AMOLED panel. It supports 16M colors and has a maximum 62% transmittance. The brightness is 1000cd/m2.

DisplaySearch released a new Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report in which they say that OLED revenue was $826 million in 2009 - a record year. AMOLED revenue was $537 million, and PMOLED revenue was $291 (lower than 2008, mostly because mobile phone design is moving away from clamshell phones).

Samsung Mobile Display is still the biggest OLED maker, with $566 million in revenues. Samsung is followed by RiTdisplay ($106 million), Pioneer ($60 million), TDK and Visionox ($15 million).

OLED-Info readers get a 5% discount on this report, follow this link

Nippon Seiki has developed new technology that enabled 75% reduction in power consumption for PMOLED displays. They have already commercialized this with a 0.8" green monochrome OLED panel that will be shipping in samples this month. The company also plans to develop panels of other colors including white. It's not clear whether this technology can also be used to make AMOLED panels more efficient.

new green PMOLED vs regular PMOLED

Nippon Seiki says taht the new panel is as efficient as a LED-backlit LCD, and has the same visibility as their previous PMOLED panels. The lower power consumption was realized by making improvements to the structure of an organic EL element, production processes and manufacturing management.

Elan has announced its new g! home automation system. There ain't a lot of details, but they say it will use OLED displays. The system has a consistent interface across several devices, and also includes TV, PC and iPhone versions. It's not clear whether all hardware units will have OLED displays...

Elan g! series

Back in 2007, Elan has released their first OLED product, the Ole touchpad in-wall A/V controller. It had a 1" 65K PMOLED display.

So the 2009 holiday season is almost here - and obviously you'd like a new gadget with an OLED display. So what are your options?

OLED TVs

Sadly, there aren't that many OLED TVs around as we'd hope for. Sony is still selling the XEL-1 (at around $2,200) - but you should hurry, as they have stopped the production line, and will soon stop offering this TV. Your other option is LG's 15" OLED TV - but this is currently available in Korea only, for around $2600. It's probably best to wait a few years before actually buying an OLED TV...

Mobile phones

There are many OLED phones you can choose from... it seems that every week Samsung releases yet another smartphone with a large touch OLED. Samsung currently offers dozens of models - including the Impression, the Moment, the Behold II, the Omnia II and the Jet. Nokia is offering the N86 and even HP recently announced an OLED phone - the iPAQ Glisten.

Samsung Moment

Digital Cameras

Compared to mobile phones, there are very little OLED digital cameras around... There's the Samsung TL320 and the NV24HD, and also Nikon's new S70 - with a large touch AMOLED, 12Mp sensor and 5X optical zoo.

Nikon S70

4D Systems have recently released a new and improved range of custom graphics processors and display modules:

• The GOLDELOX-GFX2 (enhanced GOLDELOX-GFX): an embedded 4DGL graphics controller. The chip is designed to interface with many popular OLED and LCD display panels.
• New PMOLED modules: The modules are compact and cost effective, with an embedded GOLDELOX-GFX2 graphics processor that delivers ‘stand-alone’ functionality to any project. Powerful graphics, text, image, animation and countless more features are built inside the GOLDELOX-GFX2 chip.
• The GOLDELOX-SGC(8-bit) and the PICASO-SGC(16-bit): intelligent Serial Graphics Controllers designed to interface with many popular color OLED and LCD display panels.
• Smart Serial Display Modules: from a tiny 0.96" OLED module all the way up to 3.2" TFT to suit most small to medium size graphics user interface applications.

More information can be found over at 4DS' web site

DisplaySearch has released a new version of their quarterly 'OLED Shipment and Forecast report'. They say that world-wide OLED revenue has reached 192M$ in Q2 2009, which is a new record (up 32% from last quarter, and 22% from the same quarter last year).

Other findings and forecasts:

• Samsung Mobile Displays has a 38% market share. Second is RiTDisplay.
• PMOLED shipments were the same as last quarter.
• There will be about 20 new (or upgraded) AMOLED production lines installed (or upgraded) within the next 3 years.
• AMOLED will enter medium and large-size applications soon. Notebooks will start in mid-2010 and netbooks will follow. 20"-29" OLED TVs will enter the market by the end of 2010. 30" TVs are expected in the end of 2011.

OLED-Info readers get a 5% discount on this report, follow this link

OSD displays has released a new 0.96" PM-OLED. The display has 2 areas: a 128x16 yellow section and a 128x48 light-blue section. The overall thickness is just 1.45mm.It's got a fast response time (

The PMOLED features a Solomon Systech driver IC. Typical power consumption: less than 150mW.