Wearable OLEDs - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 19

OLED Microdisplay maker eMagin recently announced a new VR head mounted display (HMD) that use the company's latest high resolution (2K by 2K) OLED microdisplays and patented optics. Last week eMagin announced it completed development of the new HMD, and here's how it looks like:

As you can see, this is a much more elegant solution compared to most VR headsets on the market which use cellphone-sized OLED displays. The display can be flipped to an up-position (shown in the image above).

eMagin, the OLED microdisplay maker, reported their financial results for Q1 2015 - the company generated $6 million in revenue (down from $6.3 from last year) and with higher gross margin and lower expenses, they managed to turn a profit of $300K - after seven quarters of operating losses.

eMagin XGA096 OLED-XL

eMagin started to ship their ultra high brightness WUXGA displays, and also started to ship VGA displays globally (these are eMagin's lowest cost displays ever). eMagin also reports advances in direct-patterned OLEDs, and they completed development of its recently announced microdisplay-based HMD and demonstrated it to potential customers.

DisplaySearch estimates the worldwide smartwatch display market at $204 million in Q1 2015. The leading provider was LG Display - with over 90% of the market ($186 million). Other leading players are SDC (3.1%), Japan Display (2.4%) and Futaba (2.4%).

LG Display's lead is not surprising - the company is providing the flexible plastic-based OLED displays used in Apple's watch - and reportedly produced over 6 million panels for Apple, at $20 each. LG is also providing panels for LG Electronic's smart watches (including the G Watch R and the Watch Urbane). In Q4 2014, by the way, LGD only produced 1.1 million displays - impressive growth in just one quarter, attributed mostly to the Apple supply deal.

LG's premium Watch Urbane smartwatch is now shipping in the US for $350. LG's watch is a luxury-version of its Android Wear smartwatch, that comes in a metal body in gold or silver finishes and a leather strap. It uses the same 1.3" 320x320 plastic-based flexible OLED display used in the G Watch R, and the same hardware (1.2 Ghz Snapdragon 400 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 410mAh battery and 4GB of storage).

IHS estimates the cost of materials in the Apple Watch (sports edition) to be $81.2 ($83.7 including the cost of the watch production itself). The most expensive component is the flexible OLED display which costs $20.5 - this is the glass covered display. Other components include the CPU ($10.2), the memory ($7.2) and the power management unit ($5.5).

The display is reportedly made by LG Display, and is a 1.34" diagonal panel with a resolution of 272x340 (290 PPI). The display cost includes TPK's ForceTouch layer. In 2014 DisplaySearch estimated the display would cost $27 to produce (assuming 60% yields).

Taiwan's AU Optronics reported their financial results for Q2 2014, and during the company's conference call they discussed the AMOLED program. AUO seems to be shifting its OLED focus from smartphone displays to wearables.

The company updated that the new 1.4" circular AMOLED display will ship in Q2 2015. They say it was qualified by a Tier-1 Chinese customer. This could mean Huawei - which launched a circular 1.4" AMOLED smartwatch that will indeed ship in Q2 (although the display at Huawei's Watch could also be made by EDO, we're not sure yet).

My friend Raymond from DisplayMate posted the first review of Apple's Watch display. It's a great article and well worth a read. His main conclusion is that the Flexible OLED display is excellent, and Apple did a very good job in its implementation. In fact Raymond says that "there is absolutely no question that for smart watches, OLED is the only way to go for a great display".

The OLED provides very nice and accurate colors and a pleasing picture quality. It compares very good to the iPhone 6's LCD display. DisplayMate tested a single edition, one with a Sapphire display (more about this below). This is a 42 mm panel (312x390, 302 PPI) - most likely made by LG Display.

Towards the end of 2014 we reported that China's Everdisplay (EDO) started mass producing 5" 720p AMOLED displays with a capacity of 600,000 panels per month. EDO has since discussed its roadmap several times, and today they updated it again with some new information.

We already know that EDO is developing new 5.5" and 6" AMOLEDs. While we knew the company is developing a circular display, EDO now reveals they plan to release a 1.4" panel - and not a 1.35" as previously reported - which probably means that EDO is the producer of the 1.4" 400x400 panel used in Huawei's upcoming Watch.

While we confirmed Apple's Watch uses a flexible AMOLED display back in September 2014, now we are set to get some more confirmations as Apple starts shipping their first wearable device. iFixit posted a tear-down of the Watch, in which they confirm it is an AMOLED panel.

iFixit also finally details the Watch display resolution: the small editions use a 38mm display (272x340, 290 PPI) while the larger Watches use a 42 mm panel (312x390, 302 PPI). Those are flexible OLED panels produced by LG Display.

Samsung just posted a new flyer calling the global developer community to get an early access to the software development kit of the company's next-gen Gear device. From the invitation, it's pretty clear the new device will be round:

Samsung's upcoming Gear device will be a smart watch - and will be Samsung's 6th generation Gear (which is pretty amazing considering that the company's first-gen Gear was released less than two years ago).