Competing technologies - Page 20

Researchers from Japan's Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) and Advanced Film Device developed a display that includes an OLED display on top of a reflective LCD. The idea is that such a display have high visibility in both a dark environment (using the emissive OLED) and a bright one (using the reflective LCD).

This is similar somewhat to transflective LCD displays and can prove to be a smart solution. The researchers say that the same FET layer is used to control both display devices and so results in a low-power device. The researchers will present this new development at SID DisplayWeek next month and hopefully we will bring more information.

According to IHS, a 5" Full-HD AMOLED display now costs $14.3 (down from $17.1 in Q4 2015) - and now costs less than a similar LCD display ($14.7, down from $15.7 in Q4 2015). This is the first time an AMOLED costs less than an LCD.

IHS says that to make a 5" FHD LCD, the materials costs are $9.2 and non-material costs (including deprecation) s $5.4. For an AMOLED display, materials cost $7.2 and non material costs amount to $7.2.

Samsung announced plans to launch 14 new SUHD (LCDs enhanced with Quantum-Dots) TV models in 2016. Samsung says they applied a "second-generation quantum dot technology" which will update the overall picture quality, and is also Cadmium-free.

Samsung acknowledges that their 2015 SUHD TV "may have fallen behind" OLED TVs in terms of picture quality - but the new models will have "drastically" improved brightness.

LG's mobile division Chief, Cho Juno, said that LG has big hopes for the new G5 smartphone, and hopes to sell at least 10 million G5 phones by the end of the year - which will be a new record for LG.

The G5 uses an LCD display, but Cho says that LG could start using OLED displays for its flagship phones by the second half of 2017. LG will not purchase panels from Samsung Display, but it is waiting for LG Display to start producing OLEDs for mobile phones.

Sharp announced that it will sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn, in a deal worth $5.8 billion - but since then new material information has emerged and the deal has been put on hold. According to reports, Sharp disclosed new liabilities of around $2.7 billion. Foxconn and Sharp are still negotiating.

Foxconn aims to buy Sharp to boost its product offerings to Apple - and will make Foxconn Apple's main contract manufacturer and component supplier. Sharp is a leader in IGZO-based LCD production, and is also developing OLED technologies, although the display maker has no immediate plans to start producing AMOLED panels.

When LG Electronics announced that their 2016 flagship phone, the G5 will have an "always on" display, this spurred speculation that it uses an OLED display (which makes sense as an LCD will require much more power in such a mode) - but here at OLED-Info we estimated that LGD will not be able to produce enough OLED panels for a new LGE flagship.

LG unveiled the G5 today, and indeed it uses an LCD - a 5.3" 1440x2560 one, in fact. This new smartphone is exciting early reviewers with it good looks, high-end specs, removable battery and plug-in modules.

Sony canceled their OLED TV JV with Panasonic back in 2013, and since then the company is still developing OLED technologies, and is reportedly in talks with LGD to supply OLED panels - but currently the company is focused on LCD TVs. Sony says that they "haven't reached the full potential of LCDs".

At CES, Sony introduced a new technology that they call Backlight Master Drive (BMD) - which is a new backlighting system that improves the color and brightness of LCDs - and also enables LCDs to better support HDR content. BMD TVs can go up to 4,000 nits (!) - and special "software algorithms and intelligent local dimming" help improve contrast. Sony is specifically trying to compete with the image quality of LG's new OLED TVs.

So we might as well get used to this - OLEDs have arrived at the laptop market. Dell's Alienware announced their latest gaming laptop, the Alienware OLED 13 R2 - and it uses a 13" 2560x1440 AMOLED display.

The Alienware OLED 13 laptop will ship in April 2015 starting at $1,499. It's quite similar to the LCD Alienware 13 R2, just with an OLED instead of the LCD (which has a higher 3200x1800 resolution). The LCD model currently starts at $1,068 - this means that the OLED premium is about $450 - but then again it may also have higher specs, so it is difficult to compare. Alienware themselves says that the OLED model will cost exactly the same as the LCD model.

Researchers at Korea's Pohang University developed a perovskite LED (PeLED) - that could be used to create displays and lighting panels, one day. PeLEDs have been shown before - but with very limited luminous efficiency. Now the researchers claim that the efficiency of their PeLEDs compete with phosphorescent OLEDs.

The main problem in PeLEDs has been the significant exciton dissociation in perovskite layers. The researchers managed to overcome this by fine stoichiometric tuning that prevents exciton dissociation, and also by nanograin engineering that reduces perovskite grain size, and concomitantly decreases exciton diffusion length.

A Lux Research analyst posted an article on Printed Electronics Now with the company's latest emerging display market forecasts. Lux sees three display technologies as emerging ones in the next 5 years: OLEDs, Quantum Dots and reflective displays. The whole group will grow at a 24% CAGR to reach $21 billion in 2020 - most of the growth will come from OLEDs, with QDs growing faster but from a smaller market in 2015.

Specifically regarding OLEDs, Lux sees the market growing from $6.2 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2020 - a CAGR of 19%. In 2020 smartphones will still be the leading market as OLEDs will not be able to capture a large portion of the TV market (due to high cost and differential aging issues). The OLED TV market will only reach $480 million in 2020.