tandem architecture

UBI Research estimates that the volume of OLED emitting materials purchased in Q3 2024 reached 32.7 tons, which is the highest ever, with the previous record in 2021. UBI expects 2024 as a whole to be the record year in OLED emitter material shipments.

In terms of customers, SDC holds the largest share with 41.4% of the total market, followed by LGD (20.5%), BOE (11.6%) and Visionox (8.3%). In terms of architecture, 83.7% of all emitter materials went into RGB OLEDs, 11.3% into WOLED (LG's WRGB) panels and 2.8% into QD-OLED panels.

According to Omdia, Korea regained the top position in the AMOLED market in Q2 2024, after China surpassed Korea in Q1 2024 for the first time.

Omdia says that both Samsung Display and LG Display enjoyed increased sales of high-end AMOLED displays for IT devices (laptops and tablets), and held a market share of 49.9% in Q2 2024, while Chinese OLED makers (Visionox, BOE, Everdisplay, Tianma and CSoT) held a market share of 49%.

Omdia has updated its Apple iPad and Macbook display roadmaps, with new forecasts and information about Apple's OLED adoption plans in its IT product lines. 

According to Omdia, Apple's iPad Mini will get a 8.4-inch LTPS OLED display in 2026. In 2027, Apple will also introduce OLED displays in its iPad Aid models (11-inch and 13-inch). In 2028 Apple will revamp the OLED displays in its iPad Pro models, offering a tandem architecture, polarizer-free OLED design and LTPO backplanes.

Huawei announced several new devices yesterday, all with AMOLED displays. We'll start with the Mate X6, a foldable smartphone that offers a 7.93" 120Hz 2240x2440 foldable LTPO AMOLED display, and a 6.45" 120Hz 1080x2440 LTPO AMOLED cover display.

Second is Huawei's new Mate 70 smartphone family, with 3 models. The basic Mate 70 has a 6.7" 2500 nits 120Hz 1216x2688 LTPO AMOLED display, while the 70 Pro and 70 Pro+ both sport a larger 6.9" 1316x2832 LTPO AMOLED displays. The interesting Mate 70 RS Ultimate edition that has a 6.9" 120Hz 3,500 nits 1316x2832 tandem LTPO AMOLED.

China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay is constructing a new 6-Gen production line in Shanghai, an expansion of its existing fab. The company's original plan was to start mass production in December 2024, but it now announced it will delay this and mass production is now only expected in december 2025. This is the second delay of this project.

Everdisplay says that the reason for the delay is that the company wishes to upgrade the line to the latest OLED technologies, such as LTPO backplanes, Tandem stack architecture and a hybrid platform (which means rigid OLEDs with TFE encapsulation and a glass backplane).

In this article, we examine the theoretical question of whether or not it makes sense for LG Display and Samsung Display to merge, into one company.

Note that we have no indications that such a merger is even considered by the two companies, but we feel this is a fascinating topic that should be explored, and is supported by several strong arguments.

We'll start with a short introduction to the two companies, then see why there are many reasons to pursue a merger, then explain the reasons against a possible merger, and finally detail the current financial situations of both companies.

Samsung Display and LG Display

Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) is a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. SDC is a leader in OLED production, with a market share of over 40% in the small OLED display market (the second largest player, BOE, holds a market share of around 15%). SDC produces over 300 million AMOLED displays per year - supplying them to Apple's iPhones and tablets, Samsung Electronics Galaxy phones, and many more. The Company also produces larger-area QD-OLED panels for TVs and gaming monitors, and has a capacity of producing around a million TV panels per year. SDC no longer produces any LCDs. SDC does produce microLED displays (but on a very small scale, this is currently a strictly next-gen display technology), and the company develops OLED microdisplays (and also holds OLED microdisplay producer eMagin which it acquired in 2023 for $243 million).

During the company's 2024 Innovation Partner Conference, BOE unveiled its latest OLED microdisplay. The display is a 0.9" 4K (6020 PPI) panel, that is based on a tandem OLED architecture. It achieves a maximum brightness of 5,000 nits.

BOE has also unveiled ultra-light (150 grams) VR glasses based on these displays. It is not clear whether this is a product that BOE aims to commercialize, or a reference design, or a product produced by one of its partners.

During the company's Innovation Partner Conference, BOE demonstrated a new 6.55" OLED panel prototype that utilizes TADF-sensitized materials and a tandem stack architecture. The company says that the TADF materials offer significantly improved color gamut, and it achieve 95% BT.2020 coverage, this in addition to the high power efficiency and long lifetime. 

It is our understanding that BOE's TADF-Sensitized material platform combines a deep green Hyperfluorescence emitter and a standard deep-red phosphorescence material. The blue emitter is likely a standard fluorescence bluet emitter.

During iMID 2024, Samsung Display's eVP Yi Chung said that the company plans to reduce the power consumption of its OLED panels by over 50%. SDC is developing several technologies, each contributing to the same efficiency goal.

SDC did not detail its plans exactly, but it did mention some of the new technologies it is working on - polarizer-free OLEDs (these have been commercialized already), multi-frequency driving (demonstrated by other OLED makers), tandem OLED architecture and the adoption of high efficiency blue PHOLED emitters.

A report from Korea says that LG Display has successfully developed an OLED panel that is based on a blue phosphorescence emitter. The blue PHOLED, provided by Universal Display, offers 100% IQE, up from 25% used by current fluorescence emitters. This will result in around 20-30% power saving for the display itself (depending on the images shown).

UDC has been developing blue emitters for many years, and recently the company said that the development will take a few more months and won't be ready in 2024. The main challenge is increasing the lifetime of the materials. However LG Display has adopted a tandem design to enable a commercially ready display, perhaps even sooner than UDC planned.