PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED): introduction and basics - Page 18

TDK announced that it will establish a new business alliance with Futaba - to develop new OLED products. This is actually a three-way alliance - between TDK, TDK Micro Devices (a wholly-owned TDK subsidiary) and Futaba Corporation. TDK has been working and producing PMOLED displays for quite some time, while Futaba is making vacuum fluorescent displays (VFD) and field emission displays (FED).

The new equity-based business alliance aims to develop new OLED products and open new markets (such as the automobile and consumer equipment industries).

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) has made a new PMOLED panel using gravure printing technology. DNP used P-OLED inks, on a glass substrate. The drive voltage of the OLED panels is 12V, with a luminance as high as 100cd/m².

DNP gravure-printed PMOLED

DNP made two prototypes (shown above) - 192x32mm (32x192 resolution) and 110x37mm (32x96 resolution). Both are 1.4mm thick.

OSD are now shipping samples of their new 5.5" PMOLED display (256x64 pixel), the OSD5664ASGGF01, announced in May 2009.

OSD 5664ASGGF01

This monochrome OLED supports up to 16 levels of grayscale and features the Solomon Systech driver IC that supports 8-bit 6800/8080 Parallel or 3-/4-wire SPI data interface. Overall panel size is 146.0mm(H) x 45.0mm(V) x1.6mm(D). Viewing area is 135.65mm(H) x 33.89mm(V) mm.

Contact us for more details on this new large PMOLED

GPEG (a UK based display reseller) has released a new green-monochrome 5.5" (ultra-wide) PMOLED module, the FD025664. The display features 256x64 resolution, 2000:1 contrast, 160 degrees viewing angle and 120 cd/m2 brightness.

The display is aimed towards DAB radios, and GPEG says they can change the color to yellow or white for high volume applications.

Novaled, Fraunhofer IPMS and Optrex Europe developed a new, unique PMOLED driver. They have implemented an innovative MLA scheme called SELA (Summed Equiline Addressing). Basically, instead of driving using a single-line addressing scheme, the SELA allows parallel driving of multiple rows, thus preventing high current amplitudes.

Basically this means that we get higher lifetime, better resolution and better efficiency in the OLED display. The driver is specified for operations between -40°C and +125°C, exhibits an OLED drive voltage up to 25 V, and a column source current up to 2 mA. In particular the latter can currently not be fulfilled by any commercial available PM OLED driver.

In addition to the innovative addressing concept and the new OLED MLA driver, a high temperature stable and long-living orange emitting PIN OLED layer stack was developed by Novaled AG. In automotive applications high reliability at 85°C
operational temperature and highly stable brightness (often only 20% reduction over lifetime is allowed) is required. The newly developed OLED stack offers an operating lifetime of currently 5.300 hours at 85°C and 20% brightness drop at an initial brightness of 600 cd/m².

OSD is releasing a new 5.5" 256-64 PMOLED display - which is a monochrome green graycale panel (16 levels of grayscale).

OSD 5664ASGGF01

The display features the Solomon Systech driver IC that supports 8-bit 6800/8080 Parallel or 3-/4-wire SPI data interface. Overall panel size is 146.0mm(H) x 45.0mm(V) x1.6mm(D). Viewing area is 135.65mm(H) x 33.89mm(V) mm. The OSD Displays OLED panel offers 120cd/m2 typical brithness, 160 degrees vieweing angle) and high contrast ratio (>2000:1), over a wide temperature range from -30C to +70C with less than 500mW typical power consumption.

Contact us for more details on this new large PMOLED

Irico group has announced that they will build an OLED production plant. The plan is for a 12 million 2.2" OLED panels per year. The plant is a JV by two companies : IRICO Display Devices and Shenzhen Hongyang Industry & Trade. The work on the new plant has already started.

It's not clear whether these will be PMOLED or AMOLEDs yet...

DisplaySearch thinks that AMOLEDs will continue to grow quickly. AMOLEDs revenue increased 110% in 2008, and they project that total OLED display revenue will exceed $6 billion in 2015 (up from $591 million in 2008).

OLED displays accounted for less than 1% of total flat panel display revenue in 2008. DisplaySearch forecasts it will reach 5% in 2015.

DisplaySearch released their "Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report".

OLED-Info readers get a 5% discount.

DisplaySearch reports that the worldwide OLED display revenue in Q3’08 was US$141 million, down 11% Q/Q but up 60% Y/Y.

Chi Mei EL, the #2 supplier of AMOLED displays, posted record high shipments in Q3’08, while the leading AMOLED supplier Samsung SDI—which will merge with Samsung Electronics’ small/medium business to form Samsung Mobile Display in January—experienced lower shipments Q/Q. As a result, AMOLED shipments increased only slightly compared to Q2’08, reaching 1.7 million units.

After a strong Q2, PMOLED shipments were affected by reductions in mobile phone sub-display orders, so shipments fell 22% Q/Q. However, most of the shipment reduction was in monochrome PMOLED, while area color and full color PMOLED gained popularity. This led to an increase in average selling price for OLEDs in Q3’08.

DisplaySearch analyzes the dynamic of OLED display industry: shipments by each supplier; AMOLED vs. PMOLED; small molecule vs. polymer; monochrome vs. area color vs. full color; and shipments by application, such as mobile phone main display, sub-display, MP3, auto console, car audio, digital still camera, near-eye, TV and others.

RiTdisplay passed Samsung SDI to take the lead in total OLED shipments with 36% market share. Samsung SDI is #2 in shipments, but still the leader in total OLED revenues thanks to its AMOLED shipments. TDK passed Pioneer to become #3 in shipments at 17%, while Pioneer fell to the #4 position at 12%; Univision was #5. The top five suppliers accounted for over 95% of total OLED shipments in Q3’08, as shown in the following table:

Table 1: Top Five OLED Suppliers and Share in Q3’08

Samsung says that its PMOLED business is losing its profitability, so they have to consider their option. They think they will change the production from PMOLED panels to OLED lighting panels. Another option is to shut down those lines.

Samsung already began R&D on white-light OLEDs, saying that it won't take a large investment to turn the production lines into white-light panels.