PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED): introduction and basics - Page 9

Taiwan's National Tsing-Hua University has been pursuing blue-light free OLED panels for a long time, developing orange-colored (1,914K) OLED panels which they claim is much healthier than regular OLEDs or LED devices.

In November 2014, we reported that Taiwan's PMOLED maker WiseChip Semiconductors licensed technology Tsing-Hua's technology, with an aim to produce such panels by early 2015. This did not happen, but today we hear that the Taiwanese government decided to fund WiseChip development - awarding the company with 10 million NTD (about $300,000 USD) each year for two years - and the Wisechip will be able to start mass producing those 1900K OLEDs.

Futaba started shipping flexible PMOLED panels, which they call film-type formable OLEDs, back in 2013 - with the first panel on production being a 1.4" 128x16 white PMOLED (which was adopted in Huawei's Talkband and Garmin's Vivosmart fitness trackers).

Now Futaba expanded their and the company currently has 3 flexible OLED products - adding a new 1.8" white 160x32 panel that is now in mass production and a full-color 1.4" 128x16 PMOLED that will enter mass production soon.

It turns out that two months ago RiT Display demonstrated two new flexible PMOLED prototypes - one "fixed curved" and one bendable. You can see the bendable panel below:

According to Touch Display Research, RiT Display aims to start mass producing flexible PMOLEDs by the end of 2015.

Taiwan-based PMOLED maker Wisechip says that the company is the world's second largest PMOLED maker, and is now enjoying the surge in the PMOLED wearable market - due to its three-year long focus on that market.

Wisechip quotes IHS DisplaySearch that sees the PMOLED market growing from 53.5 million units ($368 million in sales) to over 70 million units (and almost $450 million in sales) in 2015. The volume growth will continue until 2018, while revenues will reach a peak in 2016 and then decline (due to lower average panel costs, evidently). Most of the growth will come from wearable devices and smart home applications.

DisplaySearch says that they see an increase in high-end small/medium displays shipments in 2015. AMOLED displays, in particular, will grow 44% to reach 260 million units (up from around 200 million in both 2013 and 2014). The growth trend is expected to accelerate starting in 2016.

DisplaySearch says that this is mostly dues to increased high-end smartphone shipments - but AMOLED displays for the wearable market will also see increased shipments. Apple alone will probably buy over 10 million flexible AMOLED panels (produced by LG Display).

A few weeks ago I had the good chance of visiting OTMTech, an Israeli company that developed a very interesting and promising new product - the world's first unrestricted, high resolution, write-virtually anywhere mobile input device. Which basically means a small pen you can use to write on any surface and transmit the information to your mobile device.

I tried a prototype myself, and this pen actually works very well. The company is now attempting to raise $100,000 on Kickstarter, and today they launched their campaign. Good luck guys!

Three new wearable devices with OLED displays were unveiled at the MWC tradeshow today. The most interesting one is Huawei's Watch - an Android Wear device that sports a 1.4" 400x400 (286 PPI) circular AMOLED display. It features a heart rate monitor and fitness tracking, six-axis motion sensor and a barometric sensor. Huawei's Watch will ship "in the middle of 2015".

Another interesting device is HTC's Grip - a fitness tracker that was developed together with Under Armour. The wearable device sports a curved monochrome (white) PMOLED display, which seems to be Futaba's 1.4" 128x16 film OLED (similar to the one used in Garmin's Vivosmart). The Grip includes the usual range of sensors in addition to an internal GPS chip.The Grip will ship in the US in the spring for $199.

According to ETNews, AP Systems won a contract to supply two Excimer Laser Annealing (ELA) systems to China's Truly Semiconductors for its OLED fab. While ETNews does not mention it, this is likely to be used in Truly's upcoming 4.5-Gen AMOLED fab in Huizhou, China.

The contact is worth 18 billion Korean Won (about $16.6 million). AP Systems already provided similar systems to China's CSOT, GVO and EverDisplay. AP Systems hopes to also supply encapsulation systems to Truly in April 2015. The company is concentrating all of its efforts to develop OLED production equipment.

Garmin's Vivosmart is the second device (after Huawai's TalkBand) to use Futaba's flexible (conformable) PMOLED displays. We're happy to post this hands-on review of one of the first flexible OLED devices on the market...

The Garmin Vivosmart

Garmin defines the Vivosmart as an "activity tracker plus smart notifications", which is really to say "an almost-smartwatch fitness band". Which it is. The Vivosmart is indeed a fitness band that can display steps, calories, distance and all the other fitness staples. On top of that, it can also perform basic smartwatch tasks like receive vibration alerts for phone calls, text messages and emails. How well does it do all those things? We'll get to that.

Taiwan's PMOLED maker WiseChip Semiconductors is entering the OLED lighting market. The company licensed technology developed at Taiwan's National Tsing-Hua University. WiseChip's new technology enables OLED lighting panels that emit light akin to candle light - with a high CRI (93) and a vision-friendly 1,914K.

WiseChip aims to start OLED lighting mass production towards the end of 2014 or in early 2015. They say that these OLEDs do not emit high Kelvin blue light which is hazardous to eyes and also carcinogenic.