Samsung Display - Page 32

Last month Samsung Display announced that it has designed a new OLED stack (its M11 stack) that is 16% more efficient compared to its currently OLED stack. The first phone to adopt the new OLED materials will be the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Anandtech posted an interesting and what seems to be comprehensive review of the Galaxy S21 Ultra display, comparing it to Samsung's previous generation panels. As you can see in the chart above, the results show that the new OLED stack is actually 26% to 31% more efficient when showing a full white screen. The brighter the display, the more efficient the new stack is compared to SDC's previous M10 OLED stack.

Samsung Display confirmed that the company is developing rollable OLED displays, and that it will start mass producing such displays later in 2021. It is likely that the first customer for these displays will be Samsung Electronics.

Samsung has been developing rollable OLED technologies for many years, the demonstration above is from 2016. And of course it makes sense for Samsung to release these displays this year as other companies are already ahead of it - LG Electronics is set to release its first rollable smartphone in 2021 using BOE panels, and TCL/CSoT also recently demonstrated rollable OLEDs.

Samsung Electronics reported its Q4 2020 financial results, with revenues of $55 billion and net income of $5.84 billion (less than expected by analysts). The company says that the lower revenues were due to a weakness in the memory and consumer devices businesses, offset by the best quarter ever for Samsung Display.

Samsung expects its OLED business to improve in the next quarter as major customers increase adoption of OLED displays. Looking ahead to 2021, Samsung sees increased demand for OLEDs for high-end and mid-range smartphones. The company aims to diversify into markets such as laptops, tablets and automotive applications.

Business Korea reports that Hyundai will adopt SDC's AMOLEDs in its upcoming EV, the Ioniq 5 (which will Hyundai's first car based on its Electric-Global Modular Platform, or E-GMP).

The Ioniq 5 will offer optional rear view cameras (similar to the system used by Audi in its e-tron EV) which will use SDC's AMOLED displays.

Towards the end of 2020, Ireland-based OLED IP company Solas OLED filed a complaint to the US International Trade Commission against Samsung Electronics and BOE, saying that the two companies infringe upon some of its AMOLED patents.

The US ITC apparently decided to launch a section 337 investigation aginst both BOE and Samsung. Solas OLED requested that the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order and cease orders.

The Elec reports that Samsung Display is planning to build a production line for notebook OLEDs, at its A4 factory in Asan, Korea. The Gen-6 production line will have a capacity of 30,000 monthly substrates.

SDC plans to start ordering production equipment in the summer of 2021, which means that the equipment will be installed within the year, or in early 2022. SDC is already producing laptop displays, so it expects the ramp up to be relatively quick.

Samsung Display announced that it has employed new materials in its latest OLED stack that enables the display to be 16% more efficient compared to its currently OLEDs. The first phone to adopt the new OLED materials will be the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

SDC did not reveal much about the new materials beyond saying that the new architecture "speeds up electron flows in the display’s organic layers". SDC says it uses a new OLED material, which seems to have been developed in-house (although SDC also says it has been 'closely collaborating with global material companies' to increase its competitive edge). SDC holds over 5,000 OLED material patents.

Samsung Display announced it will start to produce 90Hz OLED laptop displays by the end of the first quarter of 2021. The first display panel to support this new refresh rate will be 14-inch in size

SDC hopes that its new AMOLED display panels will introduce a 'major shift' in the laptop market. It believes that even though a 90Hz display will require a high-end graphics card, consumers will demand the new display as the experience benefits will be impressive. Samsung says that its 90Hz OLEDs will be on par with 120Hz LCDs in terms of moving images blur.

Samsung Display is introducing a new OLED display technology, called "Samsung Blade Bezel" - which includes an under-the-display camera embedded within a laptop display. This enables reducing the bezels:

We have already seen similar technology from Visionox adopted in smartphones - but the performance is disappointing. A few months ago ZTE announced the first smartphone with an under-the-OLED camera - the The Axon 20 5G.

Samsung Display filed a complaint in the US that JOLED and Asustek infringe upon one of the company's patents, filed in 2017. The patent (USPTO # 9,768,240) details a TFT transistor array, and SDC says that both companies make use of the patent in the ProArt PQ22UC monitor.

In June 2020 JOLED announced that it has filed lawsuits in the US and Germany against Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display. JOLED says that Samsung infringed on its OLED patents without a license.