VR - Page 11

Oculus (Facebook) announced its new affordable VR headset, the Oculus Go. This $199 device will launch early next year for $199 and Facebook hopes that this will be a step towards its goal to get one billion people to use its VR products.

One of the ways that Oculus used to lower the cost of to Go headset is to switch from an OLED to an LCD. Oculus says that this is a "fast-switch LCD". It's too early to say how this display will compare to the current OLED used in the Oculus Rift. Looking at the slide above, it seems that the Go uses a single 2560x1440 LCD.

US-based video game developer Valve has announced that it will license more of its VR technology to hardware makers that can develop VR HMDs based on its technology. In addition to the tracking and input tech that was already licensed before, HMD makers can now use Valve's optical system, calibration tools and a supporting software stack.

Currently pretty much all high-end HMD devices adopt OLED displays as these panels offer faster refresh rates compared to LCDs. But Valve says that recent LCD advancements combined with VR specific calibration now make LCD a viable technology choice for high end VR systems.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the flexible, transparent, VR/AR, microdisplays, automotive and graphene OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to October 2017.

The OLED for VR/AR Market Report:

• Why OLEDs are adopted in almost all VR HMDs
• What kind of displays are required for VR and AR applications
• What the future holds for the VR and AR markets
• Current and future VR and AR systems

The report package provides a great introduction to the emerging VR and AR market, and details the role that OLED displays will have. Read more here!

The Fraunhofer FEP institute has successfully integrated its bi-directional OLED microdisplays into an VR / AR HMD (or dataglasses, as the Fraunhofer calls it) for 2D and 3D content.

The new HMD demonstrator uses the Fraunhofer's SVGA (800x600) displays and connects via a USB interface and an HDMI connection. The bi-directional displays can be used for eye tracking to support novel user interfaces.

At the iMID 2017 conference in Korea, AP Systems announced that it realized high density OLED evaporation using new FMM technologies. By adopting ultra-short pulse laser (USPL), AP Systems achieved a 1,000 PPI. Changing the pin-hole shapes, the company says this technology can even reach 1,170 PPI.

High PPI OLEDs are especially important for VR applications, which require much higher pixel densities as the display is used very close to the eye. In May 2016 Samsung demonstrated a 5.5" 3840x2160 - which reaches 806 PPI, and according to reports Samsung were able to produce a 1,200 PPI AMOLED in March 2017.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q2 2017. Revenues in the quarter were $5.3 million (down from $5.5 million in Q2 2016) and the net loss was $2.3 million (up slightly from $2.2 million in Q2 2016).

At the end of the quarter, eMagin had $4.9 million in cash and equivalents. eMagin is focused on expanding its presence in military programs, advancing discussions with major consumer electronics companies for VR/AR products and progressing with finding high-volume production partners.

Business Korea reports that LG Display is in talks with Google regarding a large investment in LGD's OLED facilities towards the development and production of VR displays. BK says the investment will amount of hundreds of billions of Won (equivalent to hundreds of millions USD).

The report is somewhat confusing, though. On the one had it says that Google is interested in OLED microdisplays, and on the other it says that LG will produce the displays in its existing flexible AMOLED lines, which use a different technology than microdisplays (which are produced on Silicon).

DSCC expects the OLED market to rapidly grow in the near future, as AMOLED production capacity will increase at a CAGR of 41% from 2016 (5.3 million square meters) to 2021 (29.4 million square meters). OLED revenues will reach $21 billion in 2017 (a rise of 46% compared to 2016) and will reach $46 billion in 2021.

Smartphones are still the largest OLED application by far - with a 86% market share (revenues) in 2017 and 81% in 2021. The second largest application by revenues are OLED TVs, and other applications follow with a small market share - but one that will increase as supply looses in the future. If we look at shipments, then smartphones acount for 94% of OLED shipments, and the 2nd and 3rd applications are VR headsets and smart watches. OLED TV shipments will reach 6.5 million in 2021 (rising at a CAGR of 49% from 2016 to 2021).

UBI Research estimates that the AR and VR market will grow to 96.4 million units and $58.7 billion in device sales by 2021. In 2017, 17 million units will ship generating $3.9 billion in revenues. From 2017 to 2021 the market will grow with a CARG of 54%.

According to UBI, the VR and AR market was split almost 50% between OLED and other technology displays, with 2.6 million OLEDs shipped in 2017. Most next generation VR headsets will use OLED displays, however, and by 2021 OLEDs will occupy 80% of the market.

A new video shows LG's large SID DisplayWeek 2017 booth. The video begins with some displays we have seen before - LG's latest wallpaper OLED TVs and its Crystal Sound OLED system, but then continues to show some new displays.

LG demonstrated two flexible OLEDs for mobile devices - a 5.5" QHD (1440,2560, 538 PPI) panel and a 5.7" FHD (388 PPI) panel. Both are plastic-based and are conformable (edge-type). The displays offer a brightness of 350 nits. LG says the 5.7" FHD is now in mass production, while the 5.5" QHD will be ready in Q2 2017 (which means it's should already be in production). The video also shows a glimpse of LG's "VR displays" - but no details are given (this was for some reason labeled as confidential).