Competing technologies - Page 27

Samsung Display (SDC) was established in 2012 as a merger a merger between Samsung Mobile Display and S-LCD. SDC is the world's largest display maker that produces both LCD and OLED panels for mobile devices and TVs. The company announced a couple of days ago that it integrated its OLED division with the LCD division.

SDC now wants to realize "organic integration" between OLED and LCD divisions. They also integreated their sales and marketing divisions in an effort to simplify display marketing. We know that SDC sees OLED as the leading future display technology (with a great emphasis on flexible displays) so this move may be yet another step towards SDC's transition to OLED technologies.

Reports from Korea say that Samsung is talking about using an LCD display in the upcoming Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 mobile phones - mostly in an attempt to reduce costs. Samsung is facing competition from lower-cost Android phones and need to lower the cost of their phones.

Samsung Galaxy S4

Samsung started adopting AMOLED displays in their high-end mobile phones years ago, but whenever people start discussing the next one, there are always rumors that they will switch back to LCD. It happened with the Note 3 and with the GS4. As we know, both phones use Super AMOLED panels.

Dolby is getting ready to launch a new technology that will enable much brighter LED LCDs. The company demonstrated a 4,000 nits LCD - much brighter than normal TVs (which usually offer only 100 nits). A much brighter display will, according to Dolby, enable higher dynamic range and contrast sensitivity.

Dolby didn't reveal many technical details about this new tech, but we do know that Dolby's current prototype, nicknamed Dolby Pulsar, requires more LEDs than a regular TV (four times as much) and also liquid cooling. Dolby hopes that prototypes will be shown at CES 2014 and then it is up to OEMs to actually release commercial TVs using this technology.

OLED is a unique lighting technology - it enables flat, diffused planar lighting panels. These panels are different to the point (or line) sources we're used to - incandescent, fluorescent, CFLs and LEDs. But you can also use LEDs to build planar lighting panels. Several companies are offering such solutions called edge-lit panels.

Israel's OREE developed proprietary technology that enables them to offer panels which are so thin that they are quite similar to OLED panels in form (almost... more on this below), yet are efficient, very bright and a lot cheaper than current OLEDs. They were kind enough to invite me to their offices for a visit and also sent me a couple of samples for a review.

A few days ago Samsung held their Analyst Day 2013 with a lot of fascinating information regarding the company's present business and its future plans. It was clear from Samsung Display's presentation that the company sees OLED as the leading future display technology and puts a great emphasis on flexible displays. They see flexible OLED penetration into the mobile display market reaching 40% by 2018 (up from 0.2% in 2013) - this is based on research by DisplaySearch.

In fact Samsung Electronics's CEO announced that the company aims to bring fully-foldable screens sometimes in 2015. In the same statement he mentioned that there is still plenty of room for improvement for the Galaxy Gear and it's likely that the company is already developing a wearable device with a flexible AMOLED display.

In December 2012 reports suggested that Panasonic may stop plasma R&D by March 2013. Now the company officially announced that it will cease Plasma panel (PDP) production by the end of 2013. They will put all their resources and development into UHD (4K) and OLED TV technologies. This move probably means the end of Plasma TV technology, but is good news for OLED TVs!

In January 2013 Panasonic unveiled a 56" 4K2K OLED TV panel prototype that was produced using an all-printing method. Panasonic is using Sumitomo's PLED materials and is collaborating with Sony on production technology. Panasonic aims to release the first OLED TVs in 2015, but according to some reports they are progressing fast and may be ready with a product by the end of 2013.

StoreDot is an Israeli startup company that was established in 2011 to develop and commercialize new peptide-based technology originally discovered in Tel Aviv University. Storedot's technology allows them to synthesize new nano materials ("inspired by nature") that can be used in a wide variety of application - displays, batteries, memory and more.

StoreDot invited me for a visit in their offices (thanks guys!) to learn more about the company and the technology. The company's display technologies may compete and complement OLED panels, so this should be an interesting company to watch.

OLED lighting based emergency lighting has been suggested back in 2009 by Kenwood, and later in 2010 by Novaled and Willing. But now we finally have the first commercial product, the ETAP K4, in which the pictogram is the actual illuminating OLED surface. ETAP collaborated with Philips to enable this product and are using Lumiblades panels. The K4 is now available and it's about 40% more expensive then ETAP's high-end LED luminaire.

The size of the emergency panel is 227x134 mm, and it is 4 mm thick. The lit area is 210x105 mm. The panel should last for 10 years (the lifetime is 35,000 hours, LT70), and ETAP provides a 5 year warranty. The efficiency is 40 lm/W (this is based on Philips' Lumiblade Plus, developed by Konica Minolta).

Corning and Samsung announced a complicated deal today - Corning will buy out Samsung Display's stake in their LCD glass joint venture (Samsung Corning Precision Materials, or SCP). In exchange, Samsung will receive convertible preferred shares in Corning that are valued at $1.9 billion and will acquire more shares for $400 million. If Samsung converts all these shares, they will own 7.4% of Corning.

Corning estimates that this move will add about $2 billion in annual sales and about $350 million in profit. As part of the deal, the two companies signed a new 10-year LCD display glass supply agreement. Corning will also buy other minority shareholders in SCP for about $300 million, and will also pay a special $1.4 billion dividend payment to SDC.

CNet is reviewing Apple's iPhone 5s against Motorola's Moto X smartphone. This week they are comparing the display. The reviewer says that the Moto X display (a 4.7" 720p AMOLED, 316 ppi, non PenTile) is excellent and it may be time for Apple to consider using AMOLEDs in their products.

CNet correctly explains why Apple cannot yet use OLEDs though: there's a single supplier (SDC) with limited capacity, OLEDs still cost more than LCDs and they are more power hungry. These things will improve in the future, and the reviewer concludes that "Apple would be stupid not to use the display technology down the road".