アーカイブ カテゴリー: フォーカス・オン

In 2013, the flexible AMOLED panel was mass produced in Korea for the first time in the world and the smart phone applying this technology was released. With the announcement of smart phones like Galaxy Gear and G watch R this year, the interest in flexible AMOLED industry is rising, developing actively in Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan.

As a front-runner, LG Display of Korea is mass producing the round type flexible AMOLED panel for G watch R along with the groundwork for the 5.5-inch flexible AMOLED panel to be employed on the G flex 2. In addition, the 18-inch flexible AMOLED panel was developed as a part of the national project. Samsung Display supplied 2-side 5.6-inch flexible AMOLED panel for Galaxy Note Edge and 2-inch flexible AMOLED panel for Gear S, and it is planning to mass produce foldable flexible AMOLED panel upon successful development.

The SEL’s research activities are most active in Japan. SEL drew a huge attention at SID 2014 as introducing the tri-foldable, book type, and 13.5-inch 4K flexible AMOLED panels using CAAS-OS backplane.

The Chinese companies BOE and New Vision Optoelectronics launched the flexible AMOLED panel at SID 2014, and as AUO showing the 5-inch flexible AMOLED panel and ITRI presenting the 6-inch foldable AMOLED panel at Touch Taiwan 2014, the companies of Taiwan also joined the development competition.

Accordingly, key companies are in the course of developing the flexible AMOLED panel but the TFT technology exclusively for the plastic substrate (high-resolution/Bezel, power consumption) must be developed intensively for the fabrication on the flexible device in bendable/foldable/rollable form. Furthermore, the technology to lower curvature and encapsulation technologies must be developed along with the miscellaneous flexible components and equipment design technologies.

< Flexible AMOLED panel unveiled in 2014>

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According to the LG Chemicals, it is about to take over the market as developing the OLED lighting to the level high enough to compete with LED for the first time in the world. In this context, the LG Chemicals announced the release of efficient and durable OLED lighting panel beginning from November.

Having the light efficiency of 100lm/W and long durability of 40,000 hrs., the OLED lighting panel that the LG Chemicals has developed this time is compatible not only with the fluorescent light (100lm/W, 20,000 hrs.) but also with LED light (Above 100lm/W, 50,000 hrs.). In particular, this technological development of the LG Chemicals is evaluated outstanding compared to the OLED lighting panel of major lighting companies with the efficiency of 60lm/W.

OLED lighting is the only light source in the form of plane, taking the center stage as ‘ecofriendly lighting’ which will lead the future lighting market for the features such as no dazzling or heat emission, and heavy metals like led, mercury, etc. While the LED lighting requires additional materials like a light guide panel, a heat sinking plane, and a lampshade when manufacturing a light equipment, the OLED needs no elements, ultimately saving the production cost. In addition, it is easy to install and its application range is divers as the thickness is 1/10 of LED and the weight is only 1/5 which could be another distinguishing property against other light sources.

In an attempt to popularized OLED light which has many merits as mentioned above, the LG Chemicals realized the technology to enhance user convenience and improved cost structure. First, it has completed the development of the ‘OLED lighting engine’ which is a module type product that anyone can use by plugging in and it is expected to be mass produced in the future.

* OLED lighting engine: Modulized product combining the OLED lighting panel with operation driver.

In addition, it is anticipated to be supplied with the price similar to LED when mass produced by applying differentiated OLED materials and improving the yielding rate. LG Chemicals plans to focus its business on the two primary lighting markets of North America and Europe with its distinguishing technologies.

To this end, LG Chemicals is devoted to build main global customers first, currently secured more than 50 companies including the biggest American lighting company like Acuity. Furthermore, it is planning to go into the automobile light markets which takes up to 20% of the entire lighting market for the expansion of OLED lighting application fields.

With a wide range of design applicability of recent OLED, it is favored in the automotive lighting apparatus markets and to go along with this trend, LG Chemicals is developing an automotive taillight applying the OLED lighting panel in cooperation with global automobile corporations in Europe, Japan, etc., intended to mass-produce in 2017.

Park Young-ki, the President of LG Chemicals said that “There is a large market potential for OLED lighting as it has many merits like quality lights, ease of installation, etc. different from the existing lightings” and added “The plan is to promote the lighting through the continuous R&D and mass-production investment equipped with our world class technology.”

According to the UBI Research, the market research company, the OLED lighting panel market is expected to record the drastic average annual growth of more than 100%, opening from the 2015 and reaching about 550 billion won in 2016 and 4.8 trillion won in 2020.

reporter@olednet.co.kr

Touch Taiwan 2014 was held in Taipei, Taiwan from August 27 to 29 with 430 material and equipment businesses including AUO and Innolux which are representative panel makers of Taiwan.

Announcing the company’s UHD curved LCD TV full lineup from 42-inch to 85-inch, public information display, displays of various applications, and high resolution LCD panel and AMOLED panel for mobile, the most crowded booth was obviously AUO.

The AUO released AMOLED panels are the same ones unveiled at the SID 2014 which are 5.5-inch FHD panel, 5.7-inch WQHD panel, 5-inch flexible AMOLED panel, and 1.6-inch AMOLED panel for smart watch.

AUO manufactures the AMOLED panel in RGB (side by side) method. Despite the recent announcement of mass production plan for 5.7-inch WQHD panel, the mass production scheme of AMOLED panel for the use of mobile is delayed due to yielding issues.

The 1.6-inch AMOLED panel of AUO is produced in small quantity, supplied for ASUS’ smart watch. The resolution is 320×320, 227ppi. According to the person in charge of AMOLED, the AUO is capable of producing thin AMOLED panel less than 0.45mm by applying in-cell touch panel with the technology in its possession.

One thing to notice is that the AMOLED TV was not exhibited. AUO demonstrated the AMOLED panel of ink-jet printing method at SID 2014. About 80 engineers are developing the OLED TV in Gen6 R&D line located at Longtan. The investment stagnates as the growth of OLED TV market slows.

Given the latest concentration on flexible AMOLED team from the OLED researchers of AUO, it is expected that the flexible AMOLED is to be included in the AMOLED investment plan for 2015. There is much attention towards the development of AUO that is a relatively newcomer in AMOLED industry.

reporter@olednet.co.kr