Technical / Research - Page 53

Yesterday we reported about Sharp's new IGZO based OLED. Here's a nice video showing the new displays, and also explaining Sharp's new crystal structure innovation that enables those displays. According this video, Sharp is not planning commercialization yet:

In the video you can see Sharp's two OLED prototypes. The first panel is a 13.5" 3840x2160 (QFHD) panel (326 ppi, WOLED/RGBW architecture). The second is a 3.4" flexible OLED (326 ppi as well, 540x960).

Update: Here's a video of the new displays, and more details

Sharp announced it will show two new oxide-TFT (IGZO) based OLED panel prototypes at SID 2012 next week. The first panel is a 13.5" 3840x2160 (QFHD) panel.The panel features 326 ppi and is made using a WOLED (RGBW) architecture - similar to LG's upcoming OLED TVs.

The second panel is a flexible OLED, 3.4" in size. It too features 326 ppi (540x960 resolution). We do not have more technical details, hopefully we'll learn more at SID.

AGC announced that it developed a carrier glass technology that can be used to laminate its 0.1 mm-thick ultra-thin glass on carrier glass. This means that current manufacturing processes can be used with AGC's ultra-thin glass without modification. AGC's ultra-thin glass offers excellent transparency, heat resistance and electrical insulation and is also flexible.

AGC is aiming towards roll-to-roll production methods, which could not use ultra-thin glass until now. The new technology uses a 0.5-mm thick carrier glass laminated on the ultra-thin glass itself. The laminated glass substrate can be handled much the same as an ordinary glass sheet: it protects the glass (from heat, chemical processes and direct contact with processing equipment) and can be easily be removed after processing.

Update: more information on this panel from SID 2012 here

The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU) have manufactured the world's largest (7.4") flexible (bendable) OLED using advanced Mixed-Oxide TFTs. The panel was developed in collaboration with the US Army Research Labs.

The FDC says that Mixed-Oxide TFTs deliver high performance (fast switching speeds and reduced power consumption) and are quite cost-effective and can be produced on existing amorphous silicon production lines.

There's an interesting article in HDTV Magazine about Samsung's and LG's OLED TV program. The author says that an LG Executive old him that Samsung has given up on direct-emission OLED technology and will instead opt for LG's WOLED (RGBW) in their upcoming OLED TVs. According to the article, this is because of issues with manufacturing and scalability.

I personally find that hard to believe, but of course, like the article's author says, "anything can happen". Months ago, when we learned that LG will use a WOLED design in their TVs, it was assumed that we'll see some ugly marketing battles between those two different OLED architecture. So perhaps this is all there is to this rumor. Hopefully we'll hear something from SMD soon.

Update: We discussed this with Nuovoyance's VP, he explains better why PenTile displyas lasts longer...

Some people really dislike Pentile displays, but Samsung keep producing AMOLED with PenTile - even in their flagship devices such as the new Galaxy S3 (which sports a 4.8" 1280x720 HD Super AMOLED). Today we hear that Samsung says that one of the major advantages of PenTile AMOLED displays is increased lifetime.

In PenTile displays, there are twice as many green subpixels as there are blue suxpixels. Blue OLEDs feature the lowest lifetime, and so Pentile displays "tend" to last longer, according to Samsung. In any case, as the resolution gets higher, it's getting harder to actually notice the "fuzziness" caused by the Pentile Matrix...

OLEDNet posted an article with some new details about LG's upcoming 3.5-Gen flexible OLED line in LG's Paju plant (E2), Korea. According to the report, LG contracted Jusung Engineering and Avaco to supply the equipment. Both companies will supply encapsulation equipment. The deals are worth 11.4 billion Won (about $10 million) for Jusung and 7.6 billion Won ($6.7 million) for Avaco.

OLEDNet says that total cost for this new line (which is actually an extension of the existing pilot line) is worth 200 billion Won ($176 million).

Chimei Innolux's chairman Hsing-Chien Tuan says that the company plans to start AMOLED production before year-end 2012. CMI's 3.5-Gen AMOLED fab will produce small-sized panels. The production rate will be about 3,000-5,000 substrates a month.

Back in March 2011 CMI showed two AMOLED panels: 3.2" (320x480) and 3.5" (360x64). CMI were calling those displays TrueOLED, and apparently they use a WOLED-CF (RGBW) design. The panels featured 300cd/m² brightness, 30,000:1 contrast ratio, 160° viewing angles and 100% color gamut for the 3.2" panel (87% for the 3.5" one). We do not know whether the panels CMI plans to produce in 2012 will have the same specifications.

Last month we reported that the Korean police is investigating a case of AMOLED technology leaking from Samsung Mobile Display to a "local rival firm". We suspected the rival firm is LG Display, and today this is confirmed. The Korean police announced that they are questioning 10 LG Display employees, all former SMD employees. LGD's stock fell around 5% on the news.

This technology is Samsung's Small Mask Scanning, used to produce AMOLED on large substrates.

Researchers from the UK's University of Exeter discovered a new graphene based material that can be used as an ITO replacement. The so-called GraphExeter is a lightweight, flexible and transparent conductor which is more flexible than ITO and will hopefully be cheaper.

GraphExeter is made by compressed ferric chloride molecules between two sheets of graphene. The researcher are also working on a spray-on version of the material. This is not the first graphene based ITO replacement material. Back in August Rice University researchers unveiled a hybrid metal-graphene electrode which can also relace ITO.