OLED monitors

Last week LG Electronics officially launched its 2025 OLED TV range, where some of the high-end models reaching 4,000 nits. LG Display today unveiled the technology behind these new OLED displays.

LGD's so-called META 3 WOLED panels (which are the company's 4th-gen WOLEDs) achieve 33% higher brightness to each a maximum of 4,000 nits. The new panels adopt a new stack structure that has two layers of blue emitters and two more layers, one with red emitters and one with green emitters. LGD refers to this architecture as a "Primary RGB Tandem structure". 

DSCC (now part of Counterpoint) says that OLED evaporation material sales will grow 22% in 2024, and will continue to grow at a 6.4% CAGR from 2024 to 2028. Most of the growth will come from IT display panels, for laptops, monitors and tablets.

Interestingly, DSCC estimates that Chinese material developers enjoyed a 58% increase in sales in 2024 to $252 million. The primary reasons for this sharp increase in demand is increased utilization at Chinese AMOLED fabs, increased orders from local companies in China over sourcing these materials from the rest of the world, and new range of materials introduced by materials makers (as Chinese material developers move from intermediates production to emitters and dopants).

Samsung Display is set to show new OLED technologies at CES 2025, including new foldable display, rollable ones, automotive displays, next-gen QD-OLED panels and more.

So first up, Samsung will be showing a 18.1 foldable OLED display (which it says is the world's largest). This panel is suitable for IT devices - to enable devices that combine tablet, laptop and monitor devices into one. When folded, this display is 13.1" in size. 

Omdia estimates that shipments of OLEDs over 9-inch in size (which Omdia defines as large-area OLEDs, although most companies will refer to these sizes as medium-sized OLEDs) will increase 116.5% in 2024, and will rise a further 32.7% in 2025.

This growth is driven by increasing demand for OLED monitors, tablets and laptops.

Applied Materials announced a technology, branded as MAX OLED that enables OLED display production on large glass substrates, aiming to provide a cost-effective solution to produce TV and TV displays. Applied developed and patented a new OLED pixel architecture and a "dramatically different manufacturing approach" that the company says enables brighter, clearer, more energy-efficient and longer-lasting.

Applied's new MAX OLED systems can scale from 6-Gen substrates to 8-Gen substrates, supporting the new wave of IT OLED production lines. Applied says that its new solution has strong customer interest - and already achieved repeat orders from several leading display makers (see below). Specifically, Applied announced that it will supply an R&D system to Samsung Display that will test the new production technology for its AMOLED and QD-OLED production technologies.

TCL CSoT announced several times in the past that it plans to start producing OLED display using an inkjet printing process by the end of 2024, and yesterday it officially announced it has started mass producing printed OLED displays at its 5.5-Gen production line.

The company brands these displays as APEX OLED displays. In fact it seems as if all of TCL displays (OLEDs and LCDs both) will be branded as APEX OLEDs, with the slogan PACE to APEX.

TCL CSoT has announced several times in the past that it plans to start producing OLED display using an inkjet printing process by the end of 2024, and a new report from Korea updates the latest status from the company.

TCL CSoT originally said it will produce OLED TV panels, but later updated its plans to produce IT displays. According to the Elec, the company has decided that its first panel to be produced is a 21.6" monitor displays for medical devices. The company has unveiled this panel in SID 2024 - it has a 4K resolution and a peak brightness of 350 nits. 

Towards the end of 2023, BOE officially announced its plans for a 8.6-Gen flexible LTPO AMOLED line in Chengdu. The agreement with Chengdu's local government was signed in early 2024, and in April BOE announced it is starting to construct the new fab.

Earlier this year LG Display started producing its 30-inch 1366*768 transparent OLED panels. China-based CEOLED are now offering a monitor based on this panel.

The monitor offers a brightness of 600 nits (peak), a 0.1 ms response time, and HDMI, DP, Dc and USB interfaces. The lifetime of LG's 30-inch transparent WOLED is quoted at 30,000 hours. Contact us if you're interested in this monitor, or in other solutions based on LG's range of transparent OLED displays (30-inch, 55-inch and soon 77-inch) or BOE's transparent OLEDs.

In May 2024, Visionox announced its plan to build a new AMOLED production line, targeting the IT display market - laptops, monitors and tablets. The company said that it will best 55 billion Yuan (around $7.6 billion USD) to build a 8.6-Gen production line in Hefei, Anhui province, with a monthly capacity of 32,000 substrates.

Yesterday Visionox shared some more details about its project and plans. The company will build the new fab with support from two local government-owned firms, both of which are partners at Visionox's existing 6-Gen AMOLED line in Hefei. In the first step for this new project, the three partners (Visionox and the new government firms) will invest a total of $282 million USD. Visionox will only hold 20% of the JV.