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Samsung Electronics’ Smooth Foldable AMOLED Panel Development

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On January 28, Samsung Electronics, through conference call, analyzed Q4 2015 and announced overall results of 2015. Q4 2015 sales of Samsung Electronics recorded 53,320,000 million KRW, a 3% increase from previous quarter, and 6,140,000 million KRW of business profit, an increase of 1,250,000 million KRW from previous quarter.

 

CE (consumer electronics) department showed highest increase of sales compared to previous quarter. Samsung Electronics revealed that LCD TV is receiving great response in advanced market, and that the sales in North America increased by 94% from previous quarter. They also estimate that the demand will increase in 2016 due to Rio 2016 Olympics

 

However, Samsung Electronics’ IM (IT and Mobile) department mentioned that as the smartphone market growth is expected to remain in single digit and competition between companies will become fierce, estimating that future is not simply bright. As a response to this, Lee emphasized that through strengthening of product and efficient lineup they will maintain the margin of double digits. Additionally, Samsung Electronics’ foldable OLED is rising as the new form factor for product build up. In regards to this, Samsung Electronics revealed that foldable display development is smoothly being carried out and they will deal with mass production and market release timing after discussions with customer companies.

 

With the recent news regarding Samsung Display’s second stage investment for A3 line, there is much interest. Samsung Electronics explained that although A3 related investment is estimated for small to mid-size OLED additional investment, detailed plans have not been confirmed. However, through proactive additional capa. increase, they are planning to strengthen Samsung Display’s competitiveness.

 

Regarding large area display, Samsung Electronics reported that they are the only company that is mass producing by using environmentally friendly quantum dot technology. While revealing pride in SUHD TV’s technology prowess, they also suggested new form factor stating they are looking for the best cost competitive mass production method considering large size OLED marketability through diverse research development.

LG Electronics to Actively Induce OLED TV Demands in 2016

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LG Electronics CFO, Do Hyun Jung announced that they expect this year’s OLED TV’s demand to be approximately 4 times higher than last year’s.

 

With this statement during the LG Electronics earnings announcement (January 26), Jung demonstrated determination in popularization of OLED TV. Regarding the forecast of Q1, he estimated that despite the slow season, profit structure will improve through product mix improvement and production cost structure among others.

 

It was also revealed that the UHD OLED TV and UHD premium TV sales increased in Q4 2015. Particularly, OLED TV products recorded double the amount of previous quarter’s shipment, occupying 10% of the total TV sales.

 

Regarding the total TV market, Jung forecast that the 2016 demand stagnation will continue. Revealing that LG Electronics’ TV market share fell slightly, demand for premium products such as OLED TV and UHD TV is anticipated. He added that LG Electronics will cement the image of world leading premium products through OLED TV and compete through quality and performance.

 

In Q4 2015, LG Electronics Home Entertainment business increased shipment in key markets such as Europe, Russia, and North America, and recorded revenue of 4,740,000 million KRW, a 11% growth compared to previous quarter, and business profit also increased to 2.3% from 0.9%.

 

LG Electronics Earnings Announcement

LG Electronics Earnings Announcement

Quantum Dot, Will it Rise to Become the Answer for Future Display Materials?

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The interest in quantum dot materials is increasing daily. In July 2015, Professor Changhee Lee of Seoul National University received Science Technology Person of the Month prize with technology that greatly improves QLED performance and lifetime. In CES 2016, with cadmium-less quantum dot applied SUHD TV, Samsung Electronics achieved UHD TV’s color standard BT.2020 and received much attention.

 

Regarding this interest, during the Pioneer Technology Seminar to Overcome Display Industry Crisis (January 14) held in South Korea, University of Seoul’s Professor Jeong Hoon Kwak reported that quantum dot technology is a material with plenty of potential from the long-term perspective.

 

Quantum dot materials can be used with blue LED to improve LCD color gamut. Two techniques are generally used; the edge type has quantum dot placed on the sides and for surface type the quantum dot film is attached in front of BLU. Most of TV makers, excluding Sony, are using surface type. Professor Kwak explained that quantum dot can achieve desired color by adjusting the size of the particles without changing the materials. Through this, he estimated that it could replace color filter.

 

As well as increasing the LCD color gamut, as quantum dot materials emit light when connected to electricity, much like organic light emitting materials, it is anticipated that they could be used to replace the emitting materials in OLED panel. Within the industry, this technology is called QLED or QD-LED (Quantum Dot Light Emitting Diode) technology. Professor Kwak emphasized that QLED has better color gamut than OLED and has a merit of good actualization of deep blue. As QLED is basically formed through solution process, he added that solution process pixel patterning technology has to be development and device lifetime also has to increase.

 

Professor Kwak explained that as there are not many places mass producing QLED materials at present, the cost is high. However, he emphasized that because the quantum dot materials have an advantage of being easy to synthesize, from long term perspective, they can be used at lower price than OLED.

 

퀀텀닷

Sumitomo Chem. Aims for General Lighting Market with P-LED

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Sumitomo Chemical’s Decorative P-LED Lighting Panel, Lighting Japan 2016

Sumitomo Chemical’s Decorative P-LED Lighting Panel, Lighting Japan 2016

Sumitomo Chemical revealed that they are planning to enter the general lighting market with solution process applied P-LED (polymer OLED).

 

Sumitomo Chemical is a company developing polymer and solution process applied OLED lighting panel. The company began actively selling decorative OLED lighting panel from H2 2015.

 

In Lighting Japan 2016 exhibition, Sumitomo Chemical announced that through their polymer materials and process technology, 80-90% of evaporation materials efficiency, and lifetime of approximately 20,000 hours at white 60-80 lm/w have been achieved. From 2017, they are planning to commercialize solution process OLED lighting panel as general lighting, as well as for decorative use, and revealed that the biggest issues are cost and improvement of consumers’ OLED awareness.

 

According to these issues, Sumitomo Chemical explained that although the cost of emitting area formed through solution process, cost down of evaporation formed emitting area and electrode part is required further. Although the 20,000 hours of lifetime is satisfactory, as consumers are aware that LED lighting’s lifetime is 40,000 hours or longer, Sumitomo Chemical pointed out it is important to change consumer’s OLED lighting awareness and understanding of lighting products.

 

by Moojong Lim, reporter@olednet.com

[CES 2016] OLED Smartphone Territory Slowly Expands

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OLED panel, mostly used for Samsung Electronics, is expanding its market and slowly entering China. In CES and IFA until now, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics only exhibited OLED panel equipped smartphone. However, this time, China’s dark horse Huawei exhibited Samsung Display’s OLED onto new smartphone model Nexus 6P.

 

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The panel used is 5.7 inch 518 ppi FHD OLED.

 

According to Huawei, although until now LCD has been used as OLED can produce profound black it is estimated OLED will be highly popular in Chinese market.

 

Huawei is already using OLED on smartwatch. Huawei Watch Active that began to be exhibited starting with CES 2015 uses 1.4 inch 286 ppi OLED panel with 400 x 400 resolution supplied by AUO. The thickness of the watch is 4.2 mm and rather thick, but the external design is highly detailed and beautiful much like luxury analog watch.

 

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As Huawei, which has the highest market share out of Chinese set companies, started to actively push for OLED panel use in smartphone following smartwatch, other Chinese companies, including Xiaomi, are expected to rapidly join the OLED sector.

[CES 2016] Skyworth’s 2016 OLED TV Sales Target is 200,000 Units

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Skyworth, the most enthusiastic Chinses TV company, placed OLED TV on the front of the CES 2016 booth, the largest space.

 

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The exhibition concept, same as IFA 2015, was promotion of OLED TV’s superiority over LCD in terms of picture quality and fast response time through car racing game.

 

Furthermore, all OLED TVs exhibited this year are UHD resolution aiming for the premium TV market.

 

According to Skyworth, 2015 OLED TV sales performance is 45,000 units, with the target of 200,000 units in 2016. In 2015, the performance was weak as the OLED panel supply from LG Display was not smooth. However, compared to last year, in 2016 the panel supply from LG Display increased, and as OLED TV is a very popular product in Chinese market due to its superior picture quality compared to LCD the sales target of 2016 became much higher.

 

What is different about this exhibition is the fact that the video clip used in the Skyworth OLED TV booth is the same as the NASA video produced by LG Electronics for promotion. Previously, each companies presenting OLED TV used different contents on the screen. However, in this exhibition, by showing the same video of the sun within the space, they emphasized OLED TV’s superiority in contrast ratio and picture quality of black.

 

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This is considered LG’s ecosystem strategy to secure OLED TV territory by sharing the video contents and increasing the consumers and attendees’ OLED TV awareness.

[CES 2016] Big Changes in LG Display

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On January 6 (local time), LG Display held a press conference with key board members in attendance including CEO Sang-Beom Han, CTO In-Byeong Kang, and head of marketing Young-Kwon Song.

 

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At this conference, unlike previously, Han conveyed strong determination and announced LG Display will invest in future large area display with OLED. This was a conviction never seen before.

 

The evidence of the confidence could be read at the exclusive exhibition. OLED TV achieved 800 nit, 150% higher than UHD Alliance’s standard of 540 nit.

 

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With transparent OLED, LG Display reached leading specs. The WRGB OLED structured transparent OLED has 40% transmittance and 600 nit of brightness through the application of the 800 nit OLED technology.

 

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Flexible OLED also was significantly different from last year. In 2015, the comparison between LG’s OLED and LCD for automotive dashboard display showed OLED to be lacking in brightness. However, this year’s exhibition showed OLED panel to have similar level of brightness as LCD and exceeding LCD’s spec with deeper black.

 

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The exhibition showed rapid development of LG Display’s OLED technology.

OLED Takes Over Monitor and Notebook Markets Too

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Following the mobile and large area panel markets, OLED is now actively entering the monitor market.

 

Until now, the monitor and notebook markets were mostly occupied by LCD. Burn-in effects and power consumption were the biggest reasons that prevented OLED panels from being applied to monitor and notebook. Generally, monitor and notebook are for office use. Within the office environment, window’s task bars and icons on the main screen are fixed. Also, as the average hours of use is much higher than TV or mobile, burn-in effects is an issue. Also as Office programs or internet browsers, which usually have white background, are used heavily, power consumption is high as OLED panel of RGB method has to drive all subpixels in order to actualize white.

 

Starting with the black and white OLED monitor in 2012, Sony steadily developed/mass produced OLED monitor. However, it is analyzed the application was possible as this OLED monitor was mostly used for medical and broadcasting uses and in different settings from the office monitor environment.

 

However, with Lenovo and HP’s announcements of OLED Notebook release, the status is changing.

 

In January 2016, Lenovo announced world’s first OLED notebook ‘X1 Yoga’ with 14 inch AMOLED panel with 2550×1440 resolution. Following this, HP also announced the release of 13.3 inch OLED hybrid laptop/tablet ‘Specter X360’ with 2560×1600 resolution.

 

These OLED panel equipped notebook releases break the existing perception that OLED panel is not suitable for monitor and notebook, and can be considered that OLED panel’s lifetime and power consumption have been achieved to be suitable for monitor and notebook. As such, much attention is on whether the OLED market will be able to greatly expand in the monitor and notebook markets following their success in mobile and TV markets.

 

Lenovo's ‘X1 Yoga’ (left), HP's ‘Specter X360 hybrid laptop/tablet’ (right), Source : Lenovo, HP

Lenovo’s ‘X1 Yoga’ (left), HP’s ‘Specter X360 hybrid laptop/tablet’ (right), Source : Lenovo, HP

Looking Ahead to 2016 OLED Industry through Keywords

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  1. Flexible AMOLED Investment

In 2016, flexible AMOLED mass production line investment is expected to be actively carried out by Samsung Display, LG Display, BOE, and Japan Display. For Samsung Display to apply flexible AMOLED panel to the new Galaxy model, the mass production line investment is necessary. If they supply flexible AMOLED panel to Apple, volume of the flexible AMOLED mass production to be invested in 2016 is estimated to be grow significantly. LG Display also is expected to actively carry out flexible AMOLED line manufacturing equipment order for Gumi’s P6 line, as well as additional flexible AMOLED mass production line investment following Apple’s demand. BOE is estimated to seriously begin orders for Chengdu’s Gen6 45K flexible AMOLED mass production line.

 

  1. P10

With the announcement of new factory establishment and 1.84 billion KRW investment for part of facilities in Q4 2015, as the first step of the investment, LG Display began site construction for P10 line factory that can produce large area panel. However, the investment direction has not yet been decided. P10 could be directed to only producing large area LCD panel, large area OLED panel, small-to-medium size OLED panel, or large area and small-to-medium size OLED panel simultaneously. China’s Gen8 LCD facilities investment is quite advanced and BOE’s Gen10.5 LCD line investment has also been confirmed. As such how much LG Display’s large area LCD can bring profit has to be carefully considered. Additionally, with the increase of OLED TV consumption and the supply of OLED panel to Apple practically confirmed, OLED investment is essential. P10, Gen11 line, is the world’s largest factory site, and depending on the investment direction in 2016, it is estimated to affect OLED market’s opening time.

 

  1. Chinese OLED

Everdisplay is supplying AMOLED panel to some several Chinese set companies, and Visionox is also expected to actively supply AMOLED panel from 2016. As such, most of Chinese OLED panel companies’ OLED mass production preparation is anticipated to conclude in 2016. Accordingly, second investment by companies including Everdisplay, Visionox, and Tianma is analyzed to be possible and serious movement by China’s OLED industry could occur.

 

  1. Evaporation Equipment

Flexible AMOLED mass production line investment by Samsung Display, LG Display, Japan Display, and BOE, and other Chinese OLED panel companies’ additional installation are expected to be actively carried out from 2016. Amidst this, order of evaporation equipment, OLED production’s essential component, is expected to be an issue.

 

Evaporation equipment currently being used in mass production is mostly Japanese Canon Tokki’s. As this evaporation equipment has been verified in mass production, it is estimated that most companies, including Samsung Display, LG Display, BOE, and JDI, will want to order Canon Tokki’s evaporation equipment. However, as the production capa. of Canon Tokki’s evaporation equipment is limited, the issue is expected to be which panel company will be able to order early. At the same time, this could be a new opportunity for Korean evaporation equipment companies.

 

  1. Samsung OLED TV

At present, the TV industry trend is moving to OLED from LCD. Accordingly, Samsung Display is continuing research to resume their large area OLED for TV panel business. It is analyzed that Samsung Display possesses RGB OLED technology that uses SMS evaporation method, white OLED, and solution process OLED technology. However, as each technology has its drawbacks, they are carefully considering future directions. First, RGB OLED technology is estimated to lack Gen8 mother glass substrate evaporation equipment at present. Solution process OLED method has low material performance. For white OLED, as the key patents are owned by LG Display, technology that avoids these has to be first developed. Therefore, much attention is focused on which technology Samsung Display will use and invest in production line to enter the TV market.

Korea’s Last PMOLED Company to Fade into History?

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NeoView Kolon, a subsidiary merged by Kolon Group in order to foster electronics business in 2001, is known within the industry to close down the PMOLED sector on December 31.

 

NeoView Kolon established factory in Hongseong, South Chungcheong Province of South Korea in 2003 and began PMOLED mass production. At this point, Samsung SMD (the current Samsung Display) and LG Electronics were also mass producing PMOLED. Other PMOLED producing companies included Korea’s Orion, Japan’s Futaba, and Tohoku Pioneer, and China’s Visionox. However, Samsung SMD stopped PMOLED business and sold manufacturing equipment to China’s Truly, and Samsung Display began AMOLED business from 2007. Subsequently, LG Electronics also closed down PMOLED sector and merged OLED related personnel to LG Display and launched AMOLED business. Orion was sold to China’s Changhong.

 

With the active application of AMOLED to Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy series, global PMOLED business began to rapidly shrink, and in order to maintain business, PMOLED companies pushed ahead with OLED lighting panel business.

 

NeoView Kolon entered into the automotive instrument panel business with PMOLED transparent display, but this business was also not easy. Furthermore, as the factory location is Hongseong, deep in the countryside, there was high turnover of employees and difficulty in technology development and recruitment. Despite the investment of over 100,000 million KRW, the company showed continued deficit.

 

NeoView Kolon turned into a financial sinkhole for Kolon Group and worsened the Group’s financial structure, leading to persistent discussion of selling or withdrawal of the business. Recently, Samsung Display is actively pushing forward the transparent AMOLED panel business. As such, transparent display business value for Kolon decreased, and it is estimated that this led to the decision of closing down the business.