Samsung Display - Page 28

Samsung Display announced its latest OLED panel, the Eco²OLED, which increase light output by 33% compared to SDC's previous OLED panels. The increase light translates into a power consumption reduction of up to 25%.

For the Eco²OLED panel, Samsung finally managed to commercialize a polarizer-free OLED, after many years of R&D. The first phone to adopt this display will be Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Fold 3. Interestingly Samsung says that the new design also enabled it to incorporate a high-quality under-the-display camera as more light is entered through the OLED.

Samsung announced several new OLED devices, including its two new foldable smartphones. First up is the Galaxy Z Fold3, which features a 7.6-inch 1768x2208 120Hz 1200 nits foldable Dynamic AMOLED X2 display, and a 6.2-inch 120Hz 832x2268 external AMOLED display. The foldable phone sports Samsung's first under-the-display selfie camera.

Samsung says that the new Galaxy Fold has an improved hinge design and is more durable compared to previous generation devices. The second phone is the Galaxy Flip3, which features a 6.7-inch 120Hz 1200 nits 1080x2640 foldable Dynamic AMOLED display, and an external 1.9" 260x512 Super AMOLED display.

In the last couple of years, we have seen increased adoption of AMOLED displays in laptops. Earlier this year Samsung stated that it will release 10 new OLED displays for laptops in 2021, and reports suggested that the company is looking into building a dedicated 6-Gen production line for laptop AMOLEDs.

According to a new report from Korea, Samsung is considering building a 8.5-Gen (2200x2500 mm) production line for IT AMOLED displays. This will be the first time such a fab is used to create OLED displays. LG Display has 8.5-Gen lines, but these are used to deposit WOLED panels, and not side-by-side RGB OLEDs.

According to reports, Vivo will soon release its latest IQOO smartphone (IQOO 8 Pro). The phone will use an AMOLED display produced by Samsung Display. This panel, in fact, will be the first one to adopt Samsung's latest E5 OLED stack.

We do not have any information on this new stack, but OLED companies keep improving the material stack to enable higher efficiency - and sometimes to increase the color gamut, reduce costs or improve other performance points. Hopefully Samsung will announce the E5 stack officially soon.

Samsung Electronics posted its financial results for Q2 2021, with record sales of $55.2 billion and a net profit of $10.9 billion. Samsung saw higher earnings at its memory and display businesses, offset by a decline in smartphone sales.

Samsung Display says that OLED sales and profits increased because of wider adoption of OLED displays. SDC is worried that supply issues of display drivers may disrupt shipments in Q3, but demand for OLEDs in IT devices and gaming products are expected to see significant growth.

In 2019 Samsung Display formally announced its decision to invest $10.85 billion in QD-OLED TV R&D and production lines. It was reported before that SDC is started to produce panel prototypes, and is on track to start mass production in Q3 2021.

In the past it was suggested that Samsung Electronics does not want to adopt QD-OLED in its TV line, but this SE finally made that decision to commit to QD-OLEDs. A new report in Korea now says that Samsung Electronics plans to release the first QD-OLED TVs in the first half of 2022.

DSCC says that smartphone OLED shipments have increased around 50% in Q1 2021 compared to last year, and the growth will continue - around 30% in Q2 2021 and over 40% in Q3.

The market share of flexible AMOLEDs out of all OLEDs (rigid + flexible) continues to rise, and in Q1 2021 77% of all smartphone OLED displays were flexible ones. Samsung is still the largest producer by far, holding a 75% market share in Q1 2021. LG Display holds a 8% share and BOE 6%.

DSCC posted an interesting blog post in which the company shares its information on Samsung's upcoming foldable smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

First up is the Galaxy Z Flip 3 (which is a bit strange as there's no Galaxy Z Flip 2). This new phone will feature an Ultra Thin Glass cover - which for the first time will not be exclusively produced by SCHOTT. This time Corning will supply some of the UTG for Samsung. According to DSCC, Corning’s UTG will be processed by Korean supplier eCONY. This is interesting - a while back it was reported that Samsung Electronics halted its UTG project with Corning.

Researchers from Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) developed a new stretchable OLED display, that features stable performance and high elongation possibility. Samsung says that this research is the first one to prove the commercialization potential of stretchable devices.

The new stretchable OLED was integrated with a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor in a single device. The PPG sensor is used to measure the user’s heart rate in real-time - which can be displayed on the OLED display.

According to reports from Korea, Samsung Display plans to build a new 6-Gen flexible OLED line. The new line will replace a current LCD line that is used to produce TVs at SDC's Asan plant (the LCD 7-2).

The new fab, which will cost around 3 trillion Won ($2.7 billion USD) will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 monthly substrates. This will increase SDC's AMOLED production capacity to 195,000 monthly substrates, not counting its upcoming QD-OLED production line.