OLED production

We just got word from LG Chem that the company finished development of their first OLED lighting panel, and have started mass production. The "type 1" panel, or the LG-OLED-041 is a 100x100 mm square panel that features 4,000K, CRI>80, 45 lm/W and 10,000 hours lifetime (LT70) at 3,000 nits. The active emitting panel is 90x90 mm, and the whole panel is 2.44 mm thick (including the optical film and PCB. The OLED itself is 1.84 mm).

LG Chem is already developing the 2nd generation (or "type 2") panel which will up the efficiency to 60 lm/W and the lifetime to 15,000 hours. The size will be the same, but the color will be 3,500K. LG Chem will start mass production of type 2 panels in 2Q 2012. LG Chem further says that it decided to offer these new panels at "lower prices" - although we do not know the actual price yet.

AU Optronics announced their financial results for 4Q 2011, with a record loss of $21 NT billion (almost $700 million USD). AUO is hoping to return to profitability - mostly because of growth in demand for LCD TVs in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Brazil. Regarding AUO's OLED program, the company re-iterated plans to mass produce AMOLED panels for mobile phone in this quarter (a little sooner then expected, actually), and more interestingly they said they plan to unveil OLED TV panel samples by the end of 2012.

AUO already unveiled a 32" OLED TV prototype back in November 2011, but they probably want to unveil larger panels towards the end of the year - and ones that are closer to mass production. The 32" prototype AUO shows had a Oxide-TFT (IGZO) backplane and was fabricated using vapor deposition using a metal mask. The panel featured Full-HD (1920x1080) resolution, 100,000:1 contrast ration, 0.01ms response time and brightness of 200cd/m².

eMagin has been awarded a $1.12 million SBIR seven month project from the US's Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to optimize emagin's WUXGA (1920x1200) full color OLED microdisplay for mass production. There's also a six-month option to extend the project further for $435,000.

An eMagin OLED microdisplay

The microdisplay is already available as an engineering sample, and this project will enable eMagin to mass produce it at an affordable price. It was originally funded by the US Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), and features over 10,000:1 contrast ratio and consumes less than 350 mW.

Canada's Ignis Innovation posted new job openings for their OLED TV development group, and in the job description they mention that the group is "currently working on two AMOLED television designs, targeted for mass production in 2012".

3.5-inch a-Si AMOLED prototype

IGNIS developed a-Si based AMOLEDs and reportedly RiTdisplay is starting to mass produce AMOLEDs based on this design - but these are 3.5" (320x480) panels - it seems unlikely that they'll be able to scale up to OLED TV size in such a short time frame. But it's also unlikely that either Samsung or LG Display are using Ignis technology in their upcoming OLED TVs (which use LTPS and Oxide-TFT, not a-Si).

There are reports that Sony is increasing its LCD panel purchases from LG Display. Sony stopped their partnership with Samsung (Samsung bought Sony's stake in the LCD joint venture). An LGD official is quoted saying that future talks will also cover OLED TV panel outsourcing.

LG 55EM9600

LG Display is currently gearing up to start producing 55" OLED TV panels. Their 8.5-Gen pilot line will produce around 48,000 monthly panels - which probably won't be enough to outsource to Sony. But LGD already decided to increase their OLED TV panel capacity (by building a new fab or perhaps converting an LCD line). This will take at least a year and half.

A couple of days ago MicroOLED announced their next-generation 0.61" OLED microdisplay which features 5.4 million pixels. Today we have some more information and the product's data sheet. The most interesting info is that samples of the new products are already available - with volume production expected in 10 weeks.

It turns out that MicroOLED will offer two version. The MDP02APFC offers full-color (using 4 sub white OLED subpixels and RGBW filters) and 1,300x1,044 resolution (just a little over SXGA which is 1,280x960). The sub-pixel pitch is 4.7x4.7 micrometre, the maximum brightness is 250Cd/m2 (typical brightness: 120 Cd/m2), the maximum contrast is 100,000:1 (typical contrast: 10,000:1) and the power consumption is 200 mW (minimum) in video mode.

There are reports that LG Display decided to built a pilot 3.5-Gen (730 × 460 mm) flexible OLED production line. They have ordered the equipment, which will arrive by 3Q 2012, and the line will become active by the end of 2012. An official from LGD is quoted saying that it will take 1-2 years to develop and verify the process and produce prototypes. The company hasn't decided on a production schedule yet.

LG Display's flexible OLEDs will use the same technology as Samsung's flexible prototypes - a polymide coated substrate and direct-emission RGB sub-pixels (as opposed to LG's OLED TV which use WOLED with color filters).