Competing technologies - Page 21

In August 2015 Polyera, a US-based OTFT backplane developer, announced their first product, the Wove Band flexible E Ink smart band, to be released in the second half of 2016. Our sister-site E-Ink-Info posted an interesting interview with the company's Special Projects VP, Brendan Florez.

Brendan explains the company's OTFT backplane technology and details Polyera's business and goals. Polyera's backplane has been demonstrated to drive an OLED display in the past, so hopefully OTFT OLEDs will be coming from Polyera in the future. Read the full interview here.

According to China Times, Samsung Display aims to bring OLED prices down - so that in 2016 small and medium sized AMOLED panels will cost only about 10% higher than comparable LCDs.

According to Digitimes, currently Samsung's AMOLEDs are 30% more expensive than LCDs. Samsung anticipates increased AMOLED demand (mostly from Chinese mobile phone makers) in 2016, and is increasing it production capacity - which will also result in lower prices.

Researchers from Oxford University developed a new technology based on phase-change materials (similar to ones used in re-writable DVDs) that can be used to create non-volatile highly-efficient displays - similar to E Ink displays. The University established a new company called Bodle Technologies to commercialize this new technology.

The phase-change materials can manipulate light and can be used to filter, steer or dim light using very little power. Bodle already demonstrated a sub-100 nm pixel size and a very rich color gamut - they say it exceeds "other display technologies", although it's not clear what they mean by that...

TV testing website HDTVTest, UK retailer Crampton and Moore and Leeds Trinity University teamed up to do a public TV shootout, pitching two new OLED TVs (Panasonic's upcoming TX-65CZ950 and LG's 65EF9500) against Panasonic's TC-P60ZT60 plasma TV, which is considered the best plasma TV ever made.

Panasonic TX-65CZ950

The three TVs were calibrated and then displayed the same scenes in front of 28 AV enthusiasts - who voted for the TV that delivered the best picture quality. After disqualifying two voting papers, only 3 voted for the plasma TV - the rest of the votes were split almost evenly between the Panasonic and the LG OLEDs. That represented a 88% vote in favor of OLED technology.

Samsung Display decided to shut down its L5 Gen-5 LCD line in Cheonan. The company is now seeking buyers for the LCD production equipment. The L5 line was built in 2002 to make small and medium sized LCDs. Last year SDC closed down a Gen-4 LCD line in the same site (and sold the equipment to china's Truly).

It is becoming more and more difficult to profit from LCD production - especially using outdated production lines. Sources from the industry say that Samsung will convert the L5 production site to OLED production - and some even suggest that the new OLED line at the L5 site will be dedicated to make flexible OLEDs for Apple - to be used in future Watch and iPhone products.

Quantum Dots developer QDVision announced a new $22 million investment round led by Tsing Capital and BASF Venture Capital. QDVision says the funds will be used for further development efforts and to support the company's accelerating growth as QD enhanced LCDs are entering the market.

QDVision also announced a new joint-development agreement with BASF for a QD-enhanced backlight and color filter for LCD displays. For more information on QDVision's technology, hop over to the company's presentation on the OLED Auditorium.

Watch this nice video from LG Display, that features our friend Raymond Soneira from DisplayMate, explaining the superiority of OLEDs over LCDs:

The display measurement experts at DisplayMate posted a very interesting article comparing LG's 65" 4K OLED TV (the 65EG9600, which costs $5,999) and Samsung's top of the line 65" 4K LCD (the UN65JS9500). DisplayMate performed dozens of tests, comparing those two high end TVs in several scenarios.

Black level comparison, OLED (left) vs LCD (right)

DisplayMate finds that the OLED TV outperforms the LCD in all the tests - the only category in which the LCD outperformed the OLED was brightness with average picture level higher than 25%. Specifically the OLED offers a higher contrast, a higher color accuracy, much better viewing angles, faster response time and higher power efficiency.

Yesterday Apple announced their latest smartphone, the iPhone 6s (and its bigger sibling, the 6s plus). Both devices use an IPS LCD display, and also include Force Touch - and of course upgraded hardware.

Before the launch we heard some speculation that the new iPhone will adopt an OLED display - but this was actually quite unlikely, as OLED production it still dominated by Samsung, which means that there is only one supplier (which Apple will not accept for the iPhone) and even Samsung's own capacity will not be enough to satisfy Apple.

Back in May 2014, Apple acquired LuxVue Technology, a private company that develops micro-LED based displays. Very little was known about this company and its technology, but since then interest in micro-LED displays is obviously higher.

Candice Brown-Elliott, the creator of the Pentile Matrix technology (and the CEO of Nuovoyance), says that micro-LED has the potential to be truly disruptive. While it's still in an early stage, and using it to create large display is very challenging, a micro-LED display is attractive as it may be more efficient than an OLED display (as LEDs are currently more efficient than OLEDs). Some speculate that Apple aims to use such displays in future Watch devices as making a smaller display is obviously easier at first.