OLED TV

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.

Tokyo Electron (TEL) performed a re-organization, and as part of that they established a new OLED department (called the "organic EL division"), to be managed by Takeshi Okubo. This is good news and probably means that the company is putting a greater emphasis on OLED manufacturing equipment development.

TEL is developing OLED TV printing equipment together with Seiko Epson. In September 2011 it was reported that the two companies will launch an inkjet-printed OLED TV production plant in 2012 or 2013.

Corning and Samsung Mobile Display are going to establish a new equity venture for the manufacture of specialty OLED glass substrates in Korea. The new venture will combine Corning's Lotus Glass substrate technology with SMD's OLED display expertise - and will provide product solutions for current and future OLED technologies.

The new venture will produce glasses for all OLED sizes: for small mobile panels to large OLED TV panels. It'll be interested to hear whether this new venture will also develop transparent and flexible glass displays, as envisioned in Corning's"Day made of glass" concept video:

AU Optronics (AUO) and Idemitsu Kosan announced that they will form an OLED strategic alliance - and will collaborate to develop high-performance OLED displays and OLED-related patents. Idemitsu will supply OLED materials to AUO including device structure proposal. AUO committed to reinforce the development of OLED products - both small sized OLED displays for phones and tablets and large sized OLED panels for TVs. The two companies will also study the possibility of collaboration in other fields beside OLEDs.

AUO 32-inch OLED TV prototype

AUO is gearing up towards mass production of 4" - 5" OLED panels in Q2 2012, targeting smartphones. AUO is using LTPS substrates and vapor deposition for the direct-emission RGB OLED sub pixels. AUO will produce these panels in their 3.5-Gen line in Hsinchu, Taiwan. In the second half of 2013, AUO's 4.5-Gen AMOLED Line in Singapore (at AFPD) will start producing panels as well. Towards the end of 2011 AUO unveiled prototypes of Oxide-TFT based 32" OLED TVs, 4" flexible OLEDs and 6" transparent ones.

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.

When LG Display announced their 55" OLED TVs, they said they will first gauge market reaction - before deciding whether to expand capacity (beyond their 8.5-Gen pilot line capable of 48,000 monthly units scheduled for July 2012). After the great reception at CES, it seems that LG Display already made the decision to invest in expansion, and are now considering whether to build a new line or to convert an existing LCD line to OLED.

The company says that building a new 8.5-Gen OLED fab will cost about 2.5 times the cost of a similar capacity LCD plant. Converting an existing LCD line to OLED will be cheaper, although they wouldn't say by how much. It will take LG around 18 months to fully convert an LCD line to OLED. So even if they decide on that route soon, we cannot expect increased capacity before the end of 2013.