tandem architecture - Page 5

DSCC says that even though the display market is facing difficult market conditions, the automotive displays segment is expected to continue growing, and total shipments (both LCDs and OLEDs) are expected to exceed 200 million panels (an average of over 2 displays per car).

OLEDs are still a small percentage of the market (less than 0.5%, in fact), but OLEDs will gradually penetrate high-end applications for flagship models, as OLED makers adopt flexible and tandem-architecture technologies.

Korea-based ETNews reports that Apple has finally committed to adopt OLED displays in future tablets and laptops, and the company has signed a contact with a "local OLED developer" (which means either Samsung Display or LG Dispaly) to develop four different OLED displays.

According to the report, Apple decided to adopt a 10.86" and 12.9" AMOLED displays for future iPad devices, and 14" and 16" displays for future MacBooks. The first OLED iPad will be released in 2024, while the first OLED MacBook will come later in 2026.

In the past year or so, much have been said about Samsung's plans to build a 8-Gen OLED IT production line, as the company wants to expand its capacity for monitors, laptops and tablet OLED displays.

Samsung plan for a full-cut 8-Gen line

As this is the first such production line, SDC had two ongoing R&D projects: one with Ulvac, that used full-cut vertical OLED deposition, and another with Canon Tokki, that used half-cut horizontal deposition. According to the latest reports from Korea, SDC decided to prioritize the Canon Tokki half-cut project, as the technology is more mature and is more likely to finish as per Apple's roadmap.

KT&T, established in 2020 as a spin-off from INT Tech with an investment of $143 million, has developed an OLED microdisplay that achieved a brightness of 12,000 nits, which is the highest brightness OLED microdisplay ever developed.

The new panel is based on KT&T's own uNEEDXR technology, which is a direct-emission (no color filters) design. The display achieves very high brightness and high efficiency.

According to UBI Research, Samsung Display has decided to produce QD-OLED panels at its upcoming 8.7-Gen A5 production line. The company IT display strategy will be to produce QD-OLED panels for monitor application (27-inch displays, at first) and tandem RGB panels for smaller IT displays (tablets, laptops).

A 34-inch QD-OLED monitor (Dell Alienware)

Samsung is looking for design wins with Apple for both its display architectures - the larger QD-OLED panels for Apple's monitors and the smaller sized panels for its tablets.

Last Month Samsung Display confirmed that Samsung is now building a 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) OLED production line, that will begin production in 2024.

It is expected that the new line will mostly produce panels for IT devices (laptops and tablest) and also for automotive applications. Many believe that these applications will adopt tandem stack structure to increase brightness and lifetime. According to a new report, Samsung's new line will adopt a single-stack structure, and not a dual-stack one.

UBI Research says that OLED emitting material sales amounted to $412 million in the second quarter of 2022, up 7.8% from last year. Sales decreased about 2.1% from Q1 2022.

UBI says that the sales of OLED panels were seasonably low in the second quarter (compared to Q1), but this was somewhat offset due to favorable exchange rates, and supply of new materials with higher prices.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q2 2022, with revenues of $7.2 million (up 14% from Q2 2021). The company's net loss was $1.4 million. At the end of the quarter, eMagin had $4.3 million in cash and equivalents. The company's backlog is $14.3 million.

eMagin says that it achieved increased sales of displays in both the defense sector (mainly the ENVG-B program) and also to the veterinary and surgical markets.

Market research firm Omdia sees higher demand for OLED solutions for the automotive sector. Omdia says shipments of OLED panels will grow from around 500,000 units in 2022 to almost 6 million units by 2028.

Currently most automotive makers that use OLEDs adopt flexible panels, but Omdia actually sees the adoption of rigid glass-based OLEDs (single stack) growing faster than that of flexible OLEDs (tandem stack), and by 2027 the share of rigid automotive OLEDs will be higher than that of flexible ones. This is an interesting forecast.

Idemitsu Kosan announced that it has developed the world's most efficient blue fluorescence OLED emitter system. Idemitsu's new system achieves an EQE of 14% (at current density of 10 mA/cm²), a lifetime of over 400 hours (LT95 @ 50 mA/cm²) and a color point of (0.14,0.08).

The new material system uses a tandem structure of two blue OLED emitter layers. Idemitsu says that by separating the region that causes charge recombination and utilizing TTF (Triplet-Triplet Fusion) it managed to achieve the high light output.