WRGB - Page 14

One week after LG Display officially announced their upcoming 55" OLED TV panel, LG Electronics now released their own PR with new details and photos - and some interesting marketing messages. They also revealed the model number: 55EM9600. LGE says that the new panel uses their 4-Color Pixel and Color Refiner features. The four colors (RGBW) are made from white OLED subpixels with color filters (Kodak's technology). The "Color Refiner" is a set of algorithms which improves and refine hues and tones.

LG says that their OLED TV will generate the most natural colors of any TV set - at a much lower price point than could have been achieved using the standard OLED manufacturing process.

Update: LG Electronics revealed the model number (55EL9600) and posted some new photos and more details on the OLED TV...

LG Display announced that they will unveil a new 55" OLED TV panel at CES 2012, and offered some more details and a couple of photos. Last month LG said that their OLED TVs will be available in the middle of 2012. The panel is only 5mm thick, and is also lighter than LCD panels. It features a 100,000:1 contrast ratio, fast refresh rates and a wide color gamut (wider than LCD, according to LG). They also say that the TV is more power efficient than an LCD TV, but they wouldn't give any details yet.

LG Display's panel uses an Oxide-TFT backplane (this was announced before). According to LG this backplane offers an identical image to LTPS panels, while being significantly cheaper. The TV uses a white-OLED with color filter design (this was the technology LGD acquired from Kodak back in 2009).

MicroOLED was founded in 2007 - to develop and produce OLED microdisplays. The company had plans to release their first product towards the end of 2009, but these plans were scrapped. Last month the company announced that they are about the ship their first-gen product in 2 months, and already received orders for over 10,000 microdisplays. MicroOLED's first-gen display is a 9.6mm 800x480 (WVGA) OLED microdisplay that uses white SM-OLEDs and RGBB color filters. Power consumption is 25mW for 60Hz video at 150cd/m².

Eric Marcellin-Dibon, MicroOLED's co-founder, CEO and head of strategy and biz-dev was kind enough to answer a few questions we had. Eric has more than 20 years experience in the field of high technologies and consumer electronics. Previously director of the display strategy and general manager of the strategic sourcing group at Thomson, Eric held several management positions in France, Germany and in the UK.

We haven't heard much from MicroOLED since 2009 (when they planned to release their first product towards the end of the year). Two years later - and it seems that the company is finally ready for mass production. The company reports they received orders for over 10,000 OLED microdisplays - and shipments will begin in a couple of months. The first product will be a 9.6mm 800x480 (WVGA) OLED microdisplay that uses white SM-OLEDs and RGBB color filters. Power consumption is 25mW for 60Hz video at 150cd/m².

MicroOLED OLED microdisplay

MicroOLED says that their first microdisplays will be used in a professional security product and in "sport optics" products (for example electronic binoculars for bird watching). MicroOLED is also developing their second product which will sport SVGA resolution (1280x1024). They say that the current production line has a yearly capacity of 300,000 units.

According to reports both Samsung and LG Display plan to introduce 55" OLED TVs at CES 2012 (January 10). This is not surprising as this was announced before. According to the new reports, both companies want to introduce the products before the 2012 Olympics (which is a big event towards which many consumers buy a new TV) - which means we can expect those OLED TVs shipping at around July 2012.

LG OLED TV prototype

The same reports re-iterates the old rumors regarding an Apple OLED TV. I'm still skeptical on this because in 2012 OLED TV capacity will be low (LG for example says it will be able to produce around 30,000 panels per month) - not enough for Apple. Samsung will also be producing their large panels in a pilot line and will not be able to mass produce these panels.

Update: it turns out that the ECX332A is the same microdisplay used in Sony's HMZ-T1 HMD...

Sony released a new OLED microdisplay today, the 0.7" ECX332A which offers 1280x720 (720p) resolution. This microdisplay is aimed towards electronic viewfinder (EVF) applications and offers 97% NSTC color gamut, 0.01ms response time and 200 cd/m2 brightness. The ECX332A employs the same white OLED and color-filters architecture as Sony's 0.5" XGA ECX331A (the one used in the A77 and A65 DSLRs and the NEX-7 and NEX-5N mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras).

Update: according to new reports, the OLED-A was wrong and Samsung are still using a Shadow-Mask to fabricate Super AMOLED HD displays

The OLED Association published a very interesting paper discussing Samsung's and LG Display's efforts to scale OLED production to large size panels (specifically 55" OLED TVs). In the article, they say that Samsung will use an LTPS substrate with a SMS (Small Mask Scanning) method, while LGD plans to use an Oxide TFT and Kodak's White OLED with color filters architecture. We already reported about Samsung's SMS method a few weeks ago.

The article includes a very interesting comparison of the different deposition methods (FMM, LITI, SMS, Printing and LG's RGBW). They also claim that the new display in the Samsung Galaxy II LTE HD was produced using LITI.

There's an interesting report that both Samsung and LG have recently produced prototype 55" OLED TV panels. These panels will be unveiled in the FPD International 2011 exhibition in Japan next month.

According to the report, Samsung has produced the 55" panel in their 5.5-Gen line using Small Mask Scanning technology (SMS, which replaces Fine Metal Mask, or FMM). As was previously reported, LG is using white OLED with color filters to produce their large panels. Both companies are satisfied with the panels' quality, power consumption and lifetime.

Sony announced their 0.5" XGA (1024x768) OLED microdisplay - as used in four new cameras. It turns out that Sony is producing this OLED display on their own. The cameras that use this displays are the A77 and A65 DSLRs and the NEX-7 and NEX-5N mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras (the NEX-5N doesn't come with the viewfinder, but you'll be able to buy it for $350).

To create those small pixels, Sony used a new design that uses white OLEDs and color filters. Sony also uses in-built D/A converters and driver electronics to create a small footprint.

We've got some interesting updates regarding Chimei Innolux (CMI) OLED program. As a reminder, CMI was born as a merger between Innolux, CMO and TPO. Both CMO (through its CMEL subsidiary) and TPO had active OLED programs, and CMEL were even producing panels up until the merger. CMI's own OLED plans are still unclear.

Back in February 2011 we reported that CMI indeed plans to start producing OLEDs in two plants - a Gen-3.5 (620x750mm) LTPS/OLED Plant in Jhunan, Taiwan and a Gen-5.5 (1,300x1,500) IGZO-TFT plant in Tainan (also in Taiwan). Later on there were reports that CMI actually scrapped all OLED plans for now. But in March the company unveiled a couple of new AMOLED prototypes (3.2" and 3.5", shown above).