RiT Display

UK-based OTFT display backplane developer SmartKem announced that it signed a collaboration agreement with based PMOLED-maker RiTdisplay, for the production of OTFT-based AMOLED displays. SmartKem further said that Innovate UK and the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs will support this project with a grant of around $530,000.

Smartkem will provide its proprietary OTFT materials to RiTdisplay to integrate within its OLED displays. If successful, the project will create the world's first commercially ready AMOLED display made using organic transistors, which will outperform RiT's PMOLEDs with higher brightness, lower power consumption and higher resolutions. Both companies hope that the project will be completed in 2026. 

Japan-based PMOLED maker Futaba announced that it is entering a business partnership agreement with Taiwan-based PMOLED maker RiTDisplay for the production of OLED displays.

Futaba is already collaborating with RiTDisplay for parts of the PMOLED production process, but now it will expand this project and move the entire PMOLED production process to RiT Display. The two companies will also partner to share technical details and co-develop and market automotive PMOLED displays.

UK-based OTFT display backplane developer SmartKem announced that it has signed a joint development agreement with Taiwan-based PMOLED-maker RiTdisplay, for the production of OTFT-based AMOLED display prototypes.

SmartKem's technology could enable RiTDisplay to produce AMOLED displays at a lower cost, and, more significantly, to use its own PMOLED production line without the large investment needed for an LTPS AMOLED Line. The current agreement includes a prototype display development, it will have to be seen whether it will be expanded in the future for actual production.

Taiwan-based PMOLED display maker RiTDisplay's CEO says that the company's PMOLED sales has been affected by e-cigarette bans in the US, and the company is now shifting its focus to develop micro LED displays (and also mini-LED ones). RiTDisplay's revenues in 2019 to date, $47.1 million USD, decreased 32.4% compared to last year.

In May 2019 RiTDisplay announced a strategic partnership and share swap with Taiwan-based MicroLED developer PlayNitride. As part of the partnership, RiTDisplay gained access to PlayNitride's technology and is able to produce and sell micro-LED panel based on this technology and IP.

OLED is an amazing technology for lighting - it creates beautiful, efficient and healthy light sources. OLED lighting has great promise but unfortunately the high price of production is a challenge that no one has managed to overcome and OLED lighting remains a small niche industry as of 2019.

In the early years, several large lighting makers (including GE, Philips, OSRAM, Panasonic, NEC and others) had active OLED lighting programs, but slowly almost all of these companies dropped out of the market - for various reasons - but the main one being that the large investments in large scale production are not certified to lead to market adoption and the competition with LED lighting is extremely difficult.

PlayNitride demonstrated its latest Micro-LED displays at SID DisplayWeek 2019 - a 7.56" 720x480 (114 PPI) transparent MicroLED, a flexible Micro-LED on a polyimide substrate and a high-brightness, high-resolution passive matrix MicroLED aimed towards wearable applications.

PlayNitride aims to release its first Micro-LED display products by the end of 2019. In 2017 the company started to sample micro-LED panels and shipped samples to 10-20 potential customers.

According to Digitimes, PMOLED display maker RiTdisplay has started to produce flexible OLED lighting panels, targeting the automotive, medical and consumer (home) applications.

For the automotive market, the RiTdisplay is apparently collaborating with Luminit, through its Taiwan-subsidiary Luminit Automotive Technology. RiTdisplay is holding 30% at LAT which is already starting to supply OLED lighting panels for automotive brake lights and started low-volume shipments in Q1 2019.

In August 2016 we reported that PMOLED-producer RiTdisplay sees growth ahead in the PMOLED market with plans to increase capacity - and today Digitimes states that RiTdisplay has indeed increased its capacity by 20% in 2016 (to 18,000 monthly substrates, up from 15,000). The company aims to increase production by a further 40% (to 25,200 monthly substrates) by the end of 2017.

Earlier reports suggested that the capacity increase will come from more efficient production ("deleting bottlenecks") - not from new equipment.

RitDisplay's president and CEO, D.C. Wang, sees growth ahead in the PMOLED market. RitDisplay expects revenues to grow more than 20% in the second half of 2016, up from almost $32 in the first half.

In order to meet the expected demand (mostly from wearable devices, it seems), RiTDisplays aims to grow its capacity by 20 to 40 percent in 2017. Earlier reports suggested that the capacity increase will come from more efficient production ("deleting bottlenecks") - not from new equipment.

A few days ago we posted that Taiwan's RiTDisplay, one of the world's leading PMOLED makers, is seeing strong demand for its OLED displays, expanding its production by 20% and filing for an IPO in Taiwan.

Following that story, Digitimes now posts a story on RiTDisplay, quoting its president that says that PMOLED panels are replacing STN-LCD panels in small sizes - even though PMOLEDs are more expensive (by about 50%) than LCDs.