Glass

The Elec reports that Korea's Chemtronics is constructing a new fab at Sejong City that will be able to etch 8-Gen OLED substrates. This fab is built specifically for Samsung Display's new 8-Gen IT AMOLED line. The Elec said that Chemtronics already spent almost $70 million on this new fab, with Samsung supporting it with an investment as well.

The new fab will receive finished 8-Gen IT TFE rigid AMOLED panels from Samsung Display's upcoming A6 line, on a glass substrate. The new etching fab will reduce the thickness of these OLEDs from 0.5 mm to 0.2 mm, to enable lighter and thinner tablet and laptop OLEDs.

China's Hongqi launched its latest luxury executive sedan, the Guoya (国雅), as part of the Hongqi Golden Sunflower series. The model was previously known as the HongqiL1.

The Hongqi Guoya adopts a 14.2" rollable (sliding) AMOLED display for the center multimedia display. This is the first time such an automotive sliding AMOLED display is produced commercially (and the only second rollable screen following LG's 2020 rollable 65" OLED TV which is now discontinued). The AMOLED display is produced by Visionox, and we know that it adopts an Ultra-Thin-Glass cover. Visionox says that the display weights less than 250 grams, and it has been tested for over 200,000 cycles. 

A report from Korea suggests that Dowoo Insys is planning to IPO in 2025. The company will list on the Korean Exchange, and it plans to file the preliminary information and documents by the end of the summer.

Dowoo Insys was established in 2010, to develop glass products for the display industry. The company's main product is thin flexible glass covers for foldable displays - UTG glass - which it supplies to Samsung Display (its main customer). Dowoo does not produce its own glass - it buys flexible glass from Schott and then treats it in its own facilities. 

China-based Tianma had an impressive booth at Displayweek 2024, showing numerous OLED and microLED displays and prototypes.

For the automotive market, Tianma showed three new display prototypes. First up is a 13" slidable OLED, with an embedded touch panel, aimed towards car dashboards or center controls.

TCL CSOT demonstrated its latest displays, technologies and prototypes at Display Week 2024. The company is focused on inkjet printing technologies, and a lot of the displays on show were indeed printed.

So first up, we TCL demonstrated a 14" 2880x1800 400 nits 30-120Hz ink-jet printed LTPO AMOLED display. The display is produced on a glass substrate, with thin film encapsulation (a 'hybrid OLED').

Omdia says that shipments of OLED displays in tablets are set to grow in the future, rising from around 3.8 million in 2023 to 35 million in 2031. 2024 will see a 315% jump in shipments as Apple starts to adopt OLEDs in its tablets.

Interestingly, Omdia sees an increase in adoption of a 'hybrid OLED' structure (reaching a market share of 85.1% in 2031), which the company defines as a glass-based OLED with a thin-film encapsulation. This hybrid design is lower in cost compared to a flexible OLEDs, while still achieving high performance and a thin design. 

According to reports in China, strong demand for flexible AMOLED panels for high-end smartphones, have resulted in an increase of panel price. This has caused smartphone makers to adopt more rigid AMOLED panels in their budget smartphones.

The report suggests that Samsung Display is especially enjoying an increase in sales of its rigid AMOLED panels to smartphone makers in China - mainly OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi. These smartphone makers are replacing LCD displays with Samsung's rigid AMOLEDs - as the price difference is currently quite small.

LG Display detailed its latest automotive display strategy. The company is now offering three product families. For luxury flagship cars (over $80,000 in cost), the company is offering its P-OLED flexible panels, that offer high performance coupled with design freedom.

For premium cars ($50,000 - $80,000) the company offers rigid OLEDs, that offer high image quality and a tandem OLED architecture for increased efficiency and lifetime. These displays are lower in cost compared to LG's P-OLEDs, and LG brands these as ATO (Advanced Thin OLEDs) as they adopt TFE encapsulation over a glass substrate. For mass market cars ($30,000 - $50,000) LGD offers LTPS LCDs.

UBI Research estimates that the foldable OLED market will reach 22 million units in 2023, and will grow to 61 million units by 2027, a CAGR of 29%.

UBI also published a forecast on cover material market for foldable OLEDs - this market will also expand, and will grow to $840 million n 2027. UBI says that the market share of ultra-thin glass will grow, as Samsung will only produce foldable OLEDs with UTG in the future, and other makers including BOE, CSoT and Visionox are developing UTG panels. 

Universal Display announced that it will detail advances in its latest PHOLED materials at Display Week 2023. The company's latest red, green, and blue PHOLED materials offer a narrow emission spectrum, which increases the efficiency of OLED devices, in addition to enhancing the color gamut.

UDC also unveil a new OVJP system printed on a 200mm x 500mm Corning Astra Glass substrate. UDC will also showcase the first-ever fully printed seven-layer (HIL/HTL/EBL/EML/HBL/ETL/EIL), 80 PPI, green commercial-level PHOLED device fabricated by its R&D OVJP system that has comparable device performance with vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE).