FMM - Page 6

According to Digitimes, Samsung's upcoming "next-gen" AMOLED panels will use a new pixel layout. Reportedly, Samsung are developing hexagon and diamond shaped pixels. This means that Samsung will increase the resolution but the picture will suffer due to jagged pixel artifacts and blurring. It's probably that at such high pixel density this won't actually be noticed, but still.

In the Galaxy Note II Samsung introduced a new sub-pixel scheme, an RGB matrix in which the blue subpixel is twice as large as the red and green ones - which achieved 267 PPI. Obviously the new 4.99" Full-HD displays have a much higher PPI (440). I assumed Samsung will use the same PenTile arrangement used in most of their AMOLED displays.

Samsung has officially launched their YOUM flexible OLED technology. While the YOUM brand was shown back in April 2012, it is now officially the name of Samsung's plastic-based flexible OLED panel products. The company didn't reveal any new technical details, nor did they say when they'll start shipping products based on those panels (or ship panels to other customers) - but it seems that they are getting closer and closer to mass production. Personally I think we'll still have to wait a year (at least) for them to overcome all technical issues with production.

While we don't have any interesting facts to tell here, we do have some cool videos - showing a bendable panel and also devices that use curved YOUM displays. One of those devices (shown below) has a 5" curved YOUM panel.

Last week we reported that Samsung decided to use OLED technology in its upcoming Full-HD mobile phone display, and today we hear that Samsung plans to unveil this panel at CES 2013 (January 8-11). The panel's size is 4.99" which means 441 PPI (at 1920x1080). Back in October it was reported that Samsung managed to reach 400 PPI using a modified FMM technology.

A 4.99" display is quite larger than the S3 (4.8") and it's not clear whether this will be used in the upcoming S4 phone (I think there's a limit to the size of Samsung's main flagship smartphone). The Note II has a 5.5" display, so the new panel is somewhat between those two phones. Samsung may be able to put this larger display into a case with the same as as the S3 one, by narrowing the bezel and perhaps removing the home button.

A couple of weeks ago we heard reports that Samsung will abandon AMOLED technology in favor of LCD for their next generation flagship phone because they want to have a Full-HD display and they cannot achieve this resolution with OLEDs. New reports from Korea suggest that Samsung Electronics decided to stick with OLEDs. Samsung Display is apparently certain it will be able to produce such high-resolution OLED displays using a modified FMM process.

This is of course great news for Samsung Display and the OLED industry. Obviously we'll have to wait and see whether Samsung actually managed to mass production displays using the new technology. Otherwise Samsung Electronics will have to delay their new flagship phone and this will be a major setback for the company.

Korean site MK news reports that Samsung have plans to produce Full-HD AMOLED panels in the first half of 2012. These panels will feature a pixel density of 400 ppi or even more. Just to compare, the highest PPI AMOLED ever made is the one used in Samsung's own Galaxy Nexus (316 ppi: 4.65", 1280x720, with PenTile technology). The S3 has 306 ppi( 4.8" 1280x720, PenTile) and the Note II has only 267 ppi, 5.5" 1280x720 - but without PenTile.

Back in July it was reported that Samsung managed to reach 350 ppi using FMM (Fine Metal Mask) technology. Perhaps they are getting close to commercialize this specific technology (and also increase the resolution even further to 400 ppi).

Samsung has been promising flexible OLED displays in 2012, but a new report suggests that the company had to delay mass production of flexible OLEDs due to technical issues. Specifically, it seems that Samsung is struggling with the low yields in their LITI process. According to the report, they are attempting a hybrid patterning process - FMM for blue sub-pixels and LITI for the red and green ones.

On a positive note, the report says that it's possible that Samsung will overcome the technical issues fast enough to introduce a first device (smartphone?) in the first half of 2013. Back in April Samsung announced that it will brand its flexible OLEDs as YOUM displays. As we said before, the plan was to release these OLEDs in 2012.

Update: according to the english version of the article, the 350ppi was achieved "in the lab", so it's not clear how close this is to commercialization. The article also suggests that Samsung is indeed moving away from LITI...

There's a report from Korea suggesting that Samsung managed to reach 350 ppi on an OLED display using FMM (Fine Metal Mask). Up until now Samsung focused on LITI to reach such high resolutions, but if this is true then Samsung can quickly apply this production process to their current AMOLED fabs.

Hopefully we'll hear more of this achievement if true soon. One of the major advantages of current LCDs over OLED panels is the higher possible density (Apple's Retina display for example reaches 326 ppi), so this may be a huge boost for OLEDs.

As I already said before, Ignis Innovation's SID booth was one of the conference highlights for me. Their technology is very impressive and hopefully will enable cheaper non-LTPS AMOLED production.

In their booth, Ignis were showing 3.5" and 20" AMOLED panels that use the company's a-Si backplane compensation technology. The panels were made by RiTdisplay. Ignis and RiTdisplay have been showing these displays back in 2011. Originally they were supposed to be released towards the end of 2011, but this never happened. During SID Ignis announced that now the plan is to release these by the end of 2012. According to Ignis the 3.5" AMOLED will be cheaper than the LTPS-based competition (i.e. Samsung made panels). You can read more about these panels and RiTdisplay's plans at my RiTdisplay-at-SID-2012 post.

There's an interesting article in HDTV Magazine about Samsung's and LG's OLED TV program. The author says that an LG Executive old him that Samsung has given up on direct-emission OLED technology and will instead opt for LG's WOLED (RGBW) in their upcoming OLED TVs. According to the article, this is because of issues with manufacturing and scalability.

I personally find that hard to believe, but of course, like the article's author says, "anything can happen". Months ago, when we learned that LG will use a WOLED design in their TVs, it was assumed that we'll see some ugly marketing battles between those two different OLED architecture. So perhaps this is all there is to this rumor. Hopefully we'll hear something from SMD soon.

Samsung is getting ready to release flexible OLEDs soon, and have announced that these displays will be branded as YOUM displays. Today the OLED association released some interesting information regarding Samsung's flexible OLED manufacturing program. According to this report, products that use these displays will be introduced in Q4 2012, while mass production will begin as early as next month.

Back in May 2011 Samsung announced a joint venture with Japan's Ube Kosan to develop and produce polyimide resin - to be used as substrates for their flexible displays in a $18 million investment. Now we hear that the curing equipment for the hardened polyimide will be provided by Korea's Tera Semicon.