Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 18

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q1 2013. Revenues were $15 million (up 19% compared to Q1 2012) - with a 40% increase in commercial material sales, mostly due to the fact that Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) adopted UDC's green PHOLED (host and emitter) in the 5" Full-HD Super AMOLED dipslay used in the GS4 smartphone (shipments of these new materials started in March). UDC reported a net loss of $4.8 million in the quarter.

Guidance and cash

UDC did not change their revenue guidance for 2013 - it will be in the range of $110 - $125 million (32% to 50% increase over 2012). This includes a $40 million license free from SDC. They assume that the OLED market will grow to over $10 billion in 2013 (they use DisplaySearch estimates). UDC has around $220 million in cash and they used $10.9 million in the first quarter.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) announced four new OLED lighting research grants as part of its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

The first project, granted ($225,000) to Universal Display in collaboration with IDD Aerospace, aims to develop a low-energy shelf phosphorescent OLED light targeted at aircraft interiors. According to the DoE, IDD plans to commercialize this technology in 2015. Back in 2011, UDC showcased an all-phosphorescent, white OLED luminaire designed into an under-cabinet lighting system. This development was also funded by the DOE back in 2009. The warm-white OLED offer a power efficacy of 70 lm/W when operated at 190 lumens.

Update: according to the OLED Association, Samsung in fact does plan to launch the first plastic based OLEDs in 2013, and these will be used in the Note 3 phone/tablet (will ship in Q4 2013).

Samsung officially launched their YOUM flexible OLED displays at CES 2013, and many hoped that they will be able to start producing those displays in 2013. Now it is reported that the company still hasn't managed to overcome the technical issues with their encapsulation technology - and they may have to delay their introduction of the flexible panels.

Samsung's current encapsulation technology is Vitex's multi-layer technology which is very slow (the panel has to enter the evaporation chamber 6 times). Samsung is busy upgrading this technology, and according to the new reports, they managed to shorten the encapsulation process. But apparently this is not enough for mass production yet.

IHS iSuppi posted a "virtual teardown" for the upcoming Galaxy S4, saying that the bill of materials is about $236 (for the HSPA+ S4 with 16 gigabytes of NAND flash). According to iSuppli, the 5" Full-HD Super AMOLED display costs $75. As the 4.8" WXGA AMOLED on the S3 costs $65, this represents the largest cost increase for the S4 compared to its predecessor (The cost of making an S3 is estimated at $208). The cost of the AMOLED display is over 30% of the cost of the entire S4.

Other expensive components on the HSPA+ S4: the Exynos 5 processor at $30, memory (NAND + Flash) at $28, the two cameras at $20, the UI and sensor subsystem at $16 and the HSPA+ chip at $16. You can see the complete list on the table above, which includes also the S4 LTE and S3 Built-Of-Materials (BOM) estimates.

Since Samsung unveiled their 4.99" Full-HD AMOLED panels at CES 2013, we assumed that the Galaxy S4 will use those panels. Some supply-chain analysts from Korea confirmed this. But then, towards the end of February, SamMobile posted that the S4 will in fact not use an OLED at all, but rather a 4.99" Full-HD SoLux LCD display.

Today the same blog posted a new post saying that they received new information about the S4 - and indeed it will use a new kind of AMOLED display - one with green PHOLEDs (instead of the fluorescent green currently used by Samsung) - which will make it 25% more efficient. This isn't really news - it was expected and we reported this back in early February. But it's good to see this new post by SamMobile anyway.

NEC Lighting announced that they developed a new OLED lighting device that has an efficiency of 156 lm/W - that's the world's most efficient OLED to date. This device was co-developed with Yamagata University's research group led by Junji Kido. You can see Professor Kido's work in the video below (from 2011):

The device is 2x2 mm in size and the brightness is 1,000 cd/m2. NEC said that the emitter materials were developed in the Kido Lab of Yamagata University. Unfortunately NEC did not reveal the structure and technologies used to fabricate this OLED.

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q4 2012. Revenues were $28.1 million and net income was $5.4 million. In 2012 the company revenues were $83.2 million, up 36% from 2011.

LG Chem sent us an update on their OLED lighting program, with some very exciting news. Besides planning flexible OLED lighting panels in July 2013 (I already posted about this earlier), LG says they have successfully developed high efficiency OLED lighting panels (80 lm/W, similar to CFLs) that will enter mass production in July 2013 (together with the flexible panels). These will be the world's most efficient OLED panels (beating LG Chem's current 60 lm/W panels).

The upcoming 80 lm/W will feature 20,000 hours lifetime (LT70), 3000K color temperature, brightness of 75 lumens (3000 cd/sqm) and a CRI of 85. The first 80 lm/W panels will be 100x100 mm in size and only 1.1 mm thick (thinner than LG's current panels which are 1.8mm thick). LG says that these panels will have a surface temperature of 26 degrees - roughly around room temperature (this is better than their current panels).

Konica Minolta will unveil new flexible OLED lighting panels at the Lighting Fair 2013 exhibition in Tokyo next month (March 5). Their flexible OLEDs will debut in a "variety of forms", and visitors to KM's booth will be able to experience those new panels. 

We do not have any more information yet - hopefully KM will give technical details soon (or during the exhibition). Back in 2010 KM (together with GE) unveiled flexible OLED panel prototypes, but it seems that now the company is set to actually releasing products. The 2010 prototypes achieved 56 lm/W (and "commercially viable lifetime") using soluble materials in a roll-to-roll process. In 2010 the companies announced plans to produce those panels in 2011, but obviously this never happened. We're not sure if GE is involved in these new panels.

Last month Universal Display gave an update regarding their UniversalBarrier single-layer encapsulation technology. They said that the technology is being evaluation by Samsung, and that UDC has a working 6" R&D deposition machine for the encapsulation layer. UDC said the technology is not ready for Samsung's Gen-5.5 line yet.

UDC posted a new job opening today for a Flexible OLED lighting researcher, to do some "advanced development of UDC’s thin film OLED encapsulation technology". The candidate "may take part in technology transfer of the process technologies from UDC’s Pilot Line into a customer’s mass production environment. This may involve frequent international travel". It seems that the company is indeed adapting its technology for Samsung's flexible OLED line.