OLED display manufacturer Univision Technology Inc. recently revealed that it has received investment worth $40 million from Warbug Pincus LLC, which will be used for its OLED capacity expansion plans.
According to Univision, it plans to increase capacity at its third OLED production line in its facility in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan.
Working together with Univision of Taiwan, one the world's leading OLED manufacturers, Fiducia today announced the availability of a revolutionary long-life ultra-high-efficiency full-colour module, the UG2828. The module incorporates Univision's novel modified colour filter (MCF) technology that promises four times the efficiency compared with other similar technologies. Brightness is doubled using an equal drive voltage.
Displaying a full white screen at 100cd/m2, the MCF OLED only requires a power of 250mW.
In addition to power saving the MCF increases the colour purity to more than 80% of NTSC, allowing near true image reproduction on products using this technology.
Univision Technology plans to expand its monthly capacity for OLED panels from 5,000 substrates at present to 12,000 in July, thanks to rising demand for handset-use sub-displays and MP3 players, according to the company.
Demand for MP3 players is expected to top 50-60 million units this year, and the proportion of MP3 players shipped that feature a full-color OLED display will expand from the current 5% of the total, Univision indicated.
Sources indicated that Univision has secured orders for handset sub-displays from BenQ and South Korean Pantech. The OLED maker declined to comment on the orders, but noted that it is currently in talks with several handset makers for 1.5-inch OLED main displays.
In addition, Univision is currently sampling its OLED panels for car-use monitors.
Univison said the patent technology is common among OLED makers and it demonstrated a grayscale OLED panel in a 2001 exhibition. However, RiTdisplay stated the court has ruled that the case should be investigated and Univision has not received a patent license from Kodak.
RiTdisplay is expected to overtake Samsung Electronics to become the top OLED supplier worldwide this quarter, while another Taiwan-based company, Univision Technology, will also edge up to take the third position, according to DisplaySearch.
In January, surging demand for MP3 players helped RiTdisplay record revenues of NT$161 million, up 16% sequentially. However, despite the company seeing its revenues fall 29% to NT$114 million in February, DisplaySearch still expects RiTdisplay to top all vendors in OLED shipments this quarter.
Univision has also benefited from strong demand in the MP3 player segment. The company had record revenues of NT$74 million in January and posted even better results in February.
With the industry seeing falling shipments on increased revenues, Taiwan OLED makers are looking to work their way up to the higher end of the market by producing larger, higher-end OLED panels, such as the active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) panels produced by their Korean and Japanese rivals.
Digitimes reports that Univision Technology, RiTdisplay and Lightronik Technology all enjoyed growth in OLED sales in January 2005 - due to high demand for MP3 players.
Univision plans to introduce 1- to 1.5-inch full-color PMOLED panels in the second or the third quarter of 2005.
Univision says that their 2005 revenues will reach NT$2.2 billion ($69 million USD) - over five times its 2004 revenues of NT$400 million ($12.5 million). The main demand (70%) for their PMOLED panels are MP3 players. Last year over 80% of their sales went to mobile phones.
Univision added a second production line, and will begin to produce full-color PMOLEDs in Q2 2015. By the end of 2015 they will install a third line.
Univision says they will start mass producing full-color PMOLEDs in 2Q 2005 - for use in MP3 players and mobile phone sub-displays. Univision is already making monochrome and area-color PMOLEDs since October 2003.
According to the company's president, they started to install new equipment for their 2nd production line in December 2004. Univision hopes to sell 12 million PMOLEDs in 2005, up from 3 million in 2004.
There are reports that PMOLED panels used in MP3 players will account to more than 30% of RiTDisplay's shipments in 2005. MP3 players panels will amount to about 50% of Univision's sales. This is a large jump from the situation in 2004 where MP3 players panels represent only 3.8% of the market (and mobile phones accounting to 88%).
Univision also plans to start offering 65K-color PMOLED panels for mobile phone external displays later this month.
Both RiTDisplay and Univision reported their financial results for Q3 2004, and both companies report a drop in PMOLED shipments and sales.
RiTDisplay sales dropped 37% (compared to Q3 2003) to NT$379 million, due to excessive handset inventory in China. Univision's sales dropped 28% to NT$80 million, mainly due to declining shipments caused by a tight supply of OLED driver ICs.
