Toshiba - Page 4

TMDisplay (JV between Matsushita and Toshiba) says it developed an OLED panel with the world's longest lifetime and best efficiency. The 2.2-inch OLED panel has a lifetime of 60,000 hours and power consumption of 100 mW.

TMDisplay has developed the new panel in cooperation with Idemitsu Kosan, a Japanese oil refiner active in OLED materials development. They say they aim to start commercial production of the advanced OLED panels by March 2009 for cellphones and other mobile devices. It has yet to decide the size of production. Previous reports say that TMDisplay will invest 140M$ on OLED production, and that they set their monthly output of 1.5M units a month (at 2.5").

A week ago we reported that TMDisplay is to spend 140M$ on new production lines, setting the output at 1M units per month.

The last news from the company says that the output will be 1.5M units per month, and production will begin at October.

TMDisplay, the joint venture between Toshiba (60%) and Matsushita (40%) will setup production lines for 2.5" AMOLED by fall 2009. They aim to make 1M panels a month, of the 'high-quality-panels'. The total cost for those production lines will be 140M$.

Interestingly Toshiba is also working with Canon and Hitachi on AMOLEDs.

The Japanese government will team up with several Japanese companies to develop key-technologies for producing large-size OLED panels. The aim is to cut the development cost for the Japanese companies, to be better able to compete against Samsung and LG, and the Japanese government will pitch in around 32$M.

The project will also try to make the displays more efficient and have longer lifetime.

One report says the project will run till 2013, another that it will run until 2015, and the aim is to produce 40" OLED TVs by then. We'll have to wait and see...

The companies include -

• Sony
• Toshiba
• Matsushita
• Sharp
• Idemitsu Kosan
• Sumitomo chemical
• Dainippon Screen Mfg
• Shimadzu
• Hitachi

Interesting to see Sharp in there, after having stated that "OLEDs will not threat LCD for at least a decade".

There are reports that Matsushita has plans to mass produce 37" OLED TVs in 3 years. They want to be the first company to make OLED panels over 30". They also have a suggested selling price - 150,000 yen (~1400$).

The TV will be made by Panasonic in the plant owns by the joint-venture between Matsushita, Hitachi and Canon.

Update: Later on Panasonic denied those plans, saying these are only rumors. 

Smarthouse claims that Toshiba delayed their OLED TV because of their high power consumption. If you check Sony's XEL-1 you see that the power consumption is higher than LCD or plasma. Sony admits that it will take time for them to lower the consumption - and that's only one of the tasks before their engineers before we get a commercial large sized OLED TV.

Toshiba says they want to produce only efficient TVs - in any technology, so OLEDs had to be delayed.

TMDisplay has succeeded in doubling their OLED efficiency using a metal membrance. The new design allows them to run the OLEDs at half the brightness, and thus gain twice the lifetime. TMDisplay did not disclose when they will start making OLED TVs, although the new design should not delay the TVs.

They have also showed a 20.8" prototype.

In November 2007 Sony has started to sell their 11" OLED TV (the XEL-1). This is an exciting move by Sony, but this cannot be considered a real commercial OLED TV. They are only producing 2,000 of those units monthly, the price is extremely high - around 1,800$ for a 11" TV (and Sony admits they are losing money on each unit). Even the power consumption of those TVs is rather high - higher than compatible LCDs.

But still Sony is clearly committed to OLEDs - and it seems like they are betting the future of their TV business on OLEDs. Sony were late to the Flat-Panel TV "party" and are no longer considered innovators. Now they are trying to be in the forefront of the technology again, and OLEDs is their technology of choice.

DisplaySearch of the United States forecast shipments of organic EL TV panels would reach around 3 million units in 2011 at the 13th DisplaySearch Japan Forum July 24, 2007. 

The company assumed entry to the market from a number of manufacturers including Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. of Korea in 2008 and Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co. Ltd. (TMD) in 2009, following Sony Corp. launching an organic EL TV onto the market in late 2007.