LTPS - Page 8

China's BOE Display announced plans to raise 4.6 billion yuan (about $7.5 billion US) to build three new panel production lines two LCD lines and the AMOLED line in Ordos. BOE will issue new shares and hopes to attract local government owned companies as investors.

BOE Ordos 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab

BOE plans to inaugurate the 5.5-Gen LTPS fab in Ordos by the end of 2013. This fab will first produce LTPS LCDs, but BOE wants to switch it to AMOLED production. Perhaps this new investment will go towards the AMOLED conversion. According to earlier reports, the fab cost is estimated at $3.44 billion.

LG Electronics announced today that their curved 55" OLED TV is now available in the US, exclusively through Magnolia stores inside Best Buy. The 55EA9800 costs $14,999 (in South Korea it costs around $13,500) and it is currently on display in Best Buy's store in Richfeld, Minnesota.

In the following weeks more stores will display and sell the OLED TV (in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and San Antonio) and later on more stores will offer it. According to Pocket Lint, LG's TV is "jaw-droppingly stunning". LG's curved OLED TV features an Oxide-TFT WRGB Full-HD OLED panel (like LG's 55EM9700 'flat' OLED TV). The TV features "infinite" contrast ratio, passive 3D, Smart Touch Controls and a "paper-slim" design (it's only 4.3 mm thick and weighs just 17Kg). It is made from Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (CFRP).

LG Display reported their financial results for Q2 2013. Revenues decreased slightly to $5.8 billion and the net income was $93 million. Overall this was a good report as the company turned profitable and their outlook for Q3 was strong.

Regarding OLEDs, Hee Yeon Kim, LGD's Head of Investor Relations said that the company still sees OLED as their ultimate differentiated products and they will continue to focus on obtaining on OLED business space that would generate profit from this business as early as possible. About 80% of LGD's CapEx in 2013 will go towards OLED and LTPS and other "advanced display effects".

Update: It turns out that these displays aren't made by RitDisplay at all. Hopefully I'll be able to provide more information soon...

Since CMEL stopped producing AMOLEDs in 2009, it was impossible to get low-volume AMOLED as Samsung and LG will only ship to large-volume applications (mobile phones, cameras, etc). But today Densitron informed us that they started shipping new HVGA (320x480) 3.5" a-Si AMOLEDs panels.

Densitron says that the DLA320480AB035F module features 10,000:1 contrast ratio, near 180-degree viewing angle and a brightness of over 200 Candela. It uses Himax's HX5227-A AMOLED driver and includes a MIPI-DBI 8/16/24 bit MPU parallel interface. For applications where high quality video streaming is required, the 8/16/24 data line parallel video (RGB) interface option is available.

Back in February we heard reports that Samsung Display is considering to construct a 6.5-Gen (1500x1800 mm) LTPS AMOLED fab. Now new reports from Korea say that Samsung indeed decided to go ahead with this new line, which is scheduled to begin operation towards the end of 2013. The monthly production capacity will be somewhere between 20,000 to 40,000 substrates.

Samsung's investment in the new line will be around 1.7 trillion Won ($1.5 billion USD), and they will begin ordering equipment in Q3 2013. The new line will produce panels for OLED TVs and mobile devices - we assume not just for mobile phones but also for tablets and perhaps even laptops. This will be the world's largest LTPS line - and an interesting and adventurous undertaking by Samsung.

During SID 2013 AUO unveiled a new 4.4" AMOLED panel prototype. The panel is 4.4" in size and features a PPI of 413 (1600x900 resolution). The brightness is 250 nits and the color gamut is 105% NTSC. This panel uses the WRGB structure and an LTPS backplane.

Last month AUO unveiled an AMOLED with an even higher PPI (5" Full-HD, 443 PPI). It's nice to see AUO unveil new prototypes, but what we really want to see is for them to start actual mass production. Some reports suggest that AUO's yields are still very low (around 40%) and the company won't stat mass production until 2014.

Corning announced their new, second-generation Lotus XT glass for high performance displays (LCDs and OLEDs). The Lotus XT offers better dimensional stability and can withstand higher temperatures compared to the previous version.

The new glass features better total-pitch variation (the distance features move during panel processing). All this means that using the new glass shall increase production yields and result in more precise manufacturing. The new glass can be used as substrate for LTPS and Oxide-TFT backplanes.

The OLED Association posted an interesting article today in which they say that Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 3 phone (phablet?) will use a YOUM display (a plastic-based unbreakable flexible OLED). Samsung will unveil the new phone at IFA 2013 (September) and will launch it in Q4 2013.

Galaxy Note II

Samsung YOUM displays use a plastic (Polyimide) substrate, an LTPS backplane, direct-emission RGB patterned OLED sub pixels and thin-film encapsulation (using Vitex's multi-layer technology). It's not known yet what the size and resolution of this particular display, but the OLED-A estimates it will be at least 5.9" in size, but probably will not achieve Full-HD resolution. The Note 3 will also not use a curved display.

DisplaySearch expects the AMOLED market to reach $11.3 billion in 2013, up 60% from 2012 ($6.9 billion). The market is still dominate by a single supplier (Samsung Display) and a single customer (Samsung), and it's still too early to tell whether OLEDs can really become a mainstream market.

DisplaySearch also released the interesting chart above that shows price comparison between AMOLED and LCD (a-Si and LTPS) panels. Most of the growth in 2013 will come from the 4.99" Full-HD (441 PPI) panel used by the GS4, and DisplaySearch estimates that 52 million of these panels will be produced in 2013 (over $3.2 billion in revenues).

Japan Display developed a new 5.2" Full-HD (423 ppi) OLED panel, using an WRGB structure and an LTPS backplane. It seems that JDI is advancing quickly in their OLED program, this comes just four months after JDI announced a 4.5" 1280x720 (326 ppi) panel. Back then JDI said they plan to start producing AMOLEDs by 2014.

This is quite an achievement by JDI. Just to compare, Samsung's highest resolution OLED panel, the 4.99" FHD one used in the GS4 has a ppi of 441, but it uses a Pentile matrix.