Competing technologies - Page 22

AU Optronics says that their 1.4" circular AMOLED display is now in mass production. The company already said before it was qualified by a Tier-1 Chinese customer - which could mean Huawei with their circular 1.4" AMOLED smartwatch. AUO also demonstrated a new 1.3" circular flexible AMOLED on a plastic substrate that is only 0.25 mm thick.

Interestingly, AUO is also developing flexible LCDs. The company demonstrated a 3.5" flexible LCD (shown below) that is based on a plastic substrate - and has a curvature of 44 mm.

According to a report from Korea, Samsung is considering developing Quantum-Dot displays (QLEDs) for TV panels that will compete with OLED TVs. Samsung has failed to commercialize large-sized OLEDs using its direct-emission architecture, and reportedly believes it will fair better with quantum-dot displays.

Samsung is already producing LCD TVs enhanced with quantum-dots films that enhance the color gamut - but these aren't QLED TVs. A QLED is similar to an OLED - an emissive display that uses the QDs as light emitting materials.

DisplaySearch says that the falling prices of LCD TVs make it very difficult for OLED TVs to penetrate the market. According to DisplaySearch, OLED TVs will not become profitable for LG Display before 2019.

DisplaySearch estimates that LGD currently loses $581.8 on each OLED TV sold. The OLED Business unit lost 535 billion Won ($491 million) in 2014. In 2019, they will still lose money - $159.9 on each TV sold. In 2019, OLED TVs will still be more expensive than LCDs. Quantum Dot TVs will also hurt OLED TV sales.

UBI Research says that while LEDs are currently the most prominent next-gen lighting devices, OLED panel shipments will grow quickly in coming years, and they see the market growing from around $100 million in 2016 to over $2.7 billion in 2020. By 2025, OLED lighting will grab about 10% of the total lighting market.

UBI says that by increasing production capacity and using a Gen-5 fab (they actually say 1270x1270 mm substrates) a 100x100 mm OLED panel can be produced for $5 or lower. In about 10 years, this will drop to $2.5 per panel - which is in line with current costs of incandescent and fluorescent lights ($1 to $3). It is actually cheaper than current LED prices (which are around $10 for a comparable device). Of course LED prices will also drop in 10 years, but UBI still sees the market expanding very quickly.

Acuity Brands announced new luminaries that use both LED and OLED light sources. Acuity Brands calls this new technology "Duet SSL", saying that "the interplay of the two solid-state technologies effectively combines the focused and directed light benefits of LEDs with the soft, uniform glow of OLEDs, offering specifiers new and more dynamic ways for lighting a space".

Acuity Brands announced two new concept Duet SSL families, the Imoni and Olessence, which you can see above. Each product family features several form factors and applications. We assume these new lamps adopt LG Chem's OLED panels, as in most of Acuity Brand's OLED luminaires.

Yesterday we quoted a report from Korea Times claiming that LG Electronics' OLED TV sales are lower than expected. Today another Korean publication (ETNews) runs the same story with some more details.

According to ETNews, LG Display reduced its OLED TV panel 2015 production projection to 500,000 units (down from 600,000). The main reason is that LG is seeing sluggish sales of Full-HD OLED TVs, as it faces a tough battle from Quantum-Dots enhanced LCDs.

Taiwan's National Tsing-Hua University is continuing its fight against the hazards of LEDs and white light - a research team from NTHU published a call to the public to think carefully about television, computer, phone, tablet and other LED-based display usage as the white light produced by LEDs can be hazardous.

The researchers say that people should consider new candle-light style lighting sources for reading, residence and street light. They also urge governments and legislators to enact new rules that will force light-based products to show the light spectrum emitted by the product.

Sharp announced a new 5.5" 4K IGZO LCD display (2160x3840) - that is the world's highest density display at 806 PPI (!). This takes the crowd from the previous record setting display - SDC's 5.1" QHD (577 PPI) Super AMOLED.

While it's a bit debatable whether we need such high-density displays in our mobile phones, it seems this race won't stop soon. Samsung is also reportedly working on a 4K panel for the Galaxy Note 5, for example (rumors suggest this will be a 5.9" 4K panel). Some other reports say that Samsung is also developing a 5" 4K panel (which will reach 860PPI).

OLED lighting seems to be getting a lot of attention lately, with designers interested in flexible and soft area lighting and car makers that see the potential for light weight, beautiful and durable lighting solutions. OLED makers increase performance rapidly, we see more and more commercial installations and mass production is approaching.

But the biggest challenge still remains the cost of the panels. LG Chem recently published pricing for their new OLED panels, and this sparked a short debate which drove me to write this post. At first we'll discuss the price of OLEDs vs LED lighting in terms of dollar per kilo-lumens. Then we'll see why this isn't really a good comparison.

Merck and FlexEnable (which was spun-off from Plastic Logic just last week to take over all OTFT development) announced a new partnership to develop plastic-based LCD technology. The two companies say that plastic-based LCDs enables conformal (maybe bendable), light and unbreakable LCDs. Those new displays will be based on FlexEnable's OTFT backplanes.

The two companies report that they are in fact already collaborating and have reached an important milestone towards plastic LCDs and have developed a prototype in a very short timeframe. The IPS demonstrate combines the OFTF array with Merck's LC and organic semiconductor materials.