Universal Display announced today that Royole has signed an OLED evaluation agreement. UDC will collaborate with Royole and supply its proprietary UniversalPHOLED phosphorescent OLED materials and technology for Royole’s display applications.
UDC did not disclose any more details or the financial terms of the agreement. Royole is constructing a 5.5-Gen (Royole calls it a Quasi-6-Gen) flexible OLED production facility in Shenzhen, China. The new fab is scheduled to begin operation in 2018 and will have a monthly capacity of 45,000 substrates.
In addition to flexible OLED production and R&D, Royole also develops VR headsets, and in 2016 Royole launched its first product, the Royole Moon foldable VR headset - that uses OLED microdisplays to achieve a PPI of over 3,000. In September 2017 Royole raised $800 million in its fourth financing round, from Bank of China, ICBC, Citiy Bank and others. Part of that round ($560 million) was in debt while the rest was in equity.
A few days ago we reported that Royole is set to launch an OLED tablet, the Royole RoWrite. Royole indeed released the new device, but it does not use an OLED - in fact it does not have a display at all, it includes Royole's own flexible sensor that can accept pen-input, onto which you place a regular (A5) paper to write on. The RoWrite will ship next week in China for $120.
