OLED-Info - Page 23

In 2016 the EU launched the PI-SCALE project, which established a European-wide roll-to-roll flexible OLED lighting pilot production line, with an aim to enable companies of all sizes to quickly and cost effectively test and scale up their flexible OLED lighting concepts.

Now the EU has launched a €14 million initiative within PI-SCALE called LYTEUS, which provides the expertise and capability required to progress an OLED lighting concept from an idea and into a commercialized product. Lyteus helps companies with sheet-to-sheet and roll-to-roll prototyping of flexible OLEDs, technology transfer, device encapsulation and more. At launch Lyteus serves four customers: Audi, Rehau, Emde and Pilkington, to develop flexible OLED lighting products in the automotive, aeronautics and designer luminaires sectors.

Japan-based Futaba demonstrated its latest automotive, flexible and transparent PMOLEDs at SID 2018.

We did not see any new displays, but it was great to get an overview of the possible PMOLED solutions that Futaba offers to its target markets (mostly automotive and wearables).

China-based OLED producer Visionox had a very impressive booth at SID 2018, demonstrating the company's latest AMOLED and PMOLED displays and prototypes.

Visionox is now producing AMOLED displays for smartphones and wearables and the company showcased a wide range of AMOLED panels and also commercial phones that use these panels. Visionox also demonstrated many new display prototypes.

China-based BOE Display had an impressive booth at SID, where it displayed the company's latest displays. The company's flexible and foldable OLED prototypes and panels took center stage, as BOE is ramping up its flexible OLED production and is also developing its next generation technologies.

BOE's foldable prototype was a 6.2" WQHD (1440x3008, 538 PPI) panel that features a fold-radius of 1R and include a touch layer. The display has a super narrow border, and is 0.21 mm thick. BOE says that it can withstand over 100,000 bending cycles.

In March 2017 OLED maker BOE Technology and OLED Microdisplay maker OLiGHTEK announced a new $170 million joint-venture to produce OLED microdisplays for the consumer VR and AR markets. This will be the world's largest OLED-on-silicon production line that will have an annual production capacity of a million OLED microdisplays, although we have no details on to when it will begin operation.

At SID 2018, BOE quietly demonstrated a new OLED microdisplay - a 0.39" FHD (1920x1080, 5644 PPI) OLED on silicon, that supports a brightness of 3,500 nits and a refresh rate of 90 Hz. It's not clear how close is this display to commercialization, and whether it is part of the JV with OLiGHTEK.

China's largest display maker BOE Display has an active OLED ink-jet printing project, and according to reports the company is establishing an R&D production line (in Hefei) that uses Kateeva's inkjet deposition equipment.

At SID 2018, BOE demonstrated a printed OLED panel for the first time. Surprisingly this is a small mobile OLED display - a 5.5" FHD (400 PPI) flexible AMOLED. It is usually assumed that inkjet printing is limited to around 200 PPI, and so only useful to large area panels (such as TVs or monitors). JOLED's 21.6" 4K printed OLEDs have a PPI of 204, for example. In 2017 Korea-based Unijet's president said that Inkjet printing could reach up to 550 PPI in 2020 by using next-generation laser-droplet technologies.

China PMOLED and AMOLED producer Visionox demonstrated its first transparent OLED at SID Displayweek, a small transparent blue panel (60% transmittance).

The tag next to the display said this was a transparent AMOLED, but it is more likely that it was a PMOLED display - after all it was a simple monochrome blue one. In any case it is great to see Visionox developing transparent displays, in addition to the other next generation technologies it demonstrated at DisplayWeek.

Thermal activation sensitized fluorescence, or TASF, is a new type of TADF OLED emitter material developed at China's Tsinghua University. During SID Displayweek, Visionox demonstrated the first TASF prototype display.

We do not have a lot of information on this new emitter technology, except what Visionox provided at the conference: a sky-blue color (468 nm, CIE: 0.153, 0.201), a luminous efficiency of 26.6 cd/A and an external quantum efficiency of over 17%. The brightness of this OLED PMOLED display was 800 nits.

Samsung Display had a large booth at SID DisplayWeek, showcasing its latest OLED technologies (and also its QD-enhanced LCD TVs).

A large part of SDC's booth was dedicated to the company's automotive OLED technologies which included a wide range of flexible and rollable OLED displays - including flexible, transparent, rollable and a lightfield display.

Samsung Display unveiled new OLED technologies and displays at SID 2018 - including some new and enhanced VR AMOLED prototype panels.

The first panel on display was a 3.5" 1440x1600 (616 PPI) 90Hz display, and the second was a 3.2" 1824x1824 (806 PPI) 90Hz display.