LG Electronics plans to sell 55-inch AM-OLED TVs later this year while no official prices has been announced there are plenty of rumours that is will be about US$ 9,500 similarly priced to the company’s rival Samsung’s 55-inch AM-OLED TV. An AM-OLED TV can be thinner than an iPad.

According to Paul Semenza, senior vice president of analyst services NPD DisplaySearch shipments of AM-OLED TVs may hit 50,000 unit by the end of 2012, and perhaps grow to 5 million units by 2015.

Chief Financial Officer James Jeong is reported to have stated recently that LG Display has a capacity to produce 48,000 OLED TV panels a month.

www.lg.com www.lgdisplay.com

This means that the company will close it mobile organic light-emitting diode (OLED) division, established in June 2008, and at the same time move LCDs for mobiles and OLEDs into two existing business units.

The company's LCD business has been given to the IT Division which is also in charge of panels for monitors on laptop and tablets. While the rest of the OLED business has been given to newly promoted CTO Yeo Sang-duk, who formerly headed the mobile OLED.

LG said many of the moves it is making is to "boost tension across the firm", which it hopes will add "competitiveness" amongst its key workers.

www.lg.com www.lgdisplay.com

Coordinated by Holst Centre/TNO, the three-year project brings together commercial and research partners from Europe and Israel to tackle one of the most pressing issues in organic electronics – ensuring high enough yields for cost-effective manufacturing.

The Clean4Yield consortium partners will work to develop new technologies capable of inspecting moving foils for micro- and nanoscale dust particles and defects, and for cleaning / repairing layers as necessary in large-scale roll-to-roll production of OLEDs and OPVs.

In order to produce OLEDs and OPVs devices are low costs requires high-volume roll-to-roll processes. This means device manufacturers will be looking to achieve production yields above 95% to minimise the wastage of expensive production materials.

According to reports from OLEDnet LG is believed to be spending as much as US$ 17.6 million on encapsulation equipment from Jusung Engineering and Avaco for the company’s Gen 3.5 (730mm x 460mm) flexible AM-OLED pilot line at LG’s Paju production facility. LG is reported to have spent about US$ 176 million to complete line when it is finished.

Earlier reports suggest that LG will start construction by 3Q 2012, and the new line should be commissioned by end of 2012. An LGD official said that it will take a further one to two year to complete the development and verification the process and to produce early prototypes.

Source said that LG Display the architecture for the flexible OLED uses a polyimide coated substrate and RGB sub-pixels – this is a different architecture that LG has adopted for their OLED TV which to is to use all white pixels and a colour filter.

www.lgdisplay.com www.lg.com www.olednet.com

Researchers from Exeter University have successfully developed a graphene based replacement for ITO (indium tin oxide). According to published results this is the most transparent, lightweight and flexible material ever for conducting electricity.

Called GraphExeter, the material could be used in place of ITO and other carbon based transparent conductors in applications that required electrodes such as - touch screen, displays, and photovoltaics. The material is also transparent over a wide light spectrum, it holds to promise of enhancing the efficiency of solar panels by 30%.

Adapted from graphene, GraphExeter is much more flexible than indium tin oxide (ITO), the main conductive material currently used in electronics. ITO is becoming increasingly expensive and is a finite resource, expected to run out in 2017.

To create GraphExeter, the Exeter team sandwiched molecules of ferric chloride between two layers of graphene. Ferric chloride enhances the electrical conductivity of graphene, without affecting the material’s transparency.

According to the report South Korean prosecutors checked LG Display’s Seoul headquarters on April 26 to probe whether the company illegally obtained organic light-emitting-diode technologies from Samsung Mobile Display. Claire Ohm, an LG Display spokeswoman, declined to comment, and a spokesman at the prosecutors’ office wasn’t immediately available to comment.

Other reports suggest that police are questioning current and former employees of both companies over allegations that Samsung Mobile workers leaked OLED technologies to LG Display.

Both LG Display and Samsung are fiercely competing for leadership in OLED panels for televisions.

LG Electronics, the parent of LG Display, and Samsung Electronics both plan to start selling OLED TVs this year, these ultra-thin produce sharper images than liquid-crystal-display sets.

Heliatek commissioned SGS, an accredited and independent test house to undertake a measurement campaign of its latest organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. The result of this campaign has enabled Heliatek to announce a new world record for OPV with 10.7% cell efficiency on 1.1 cm².

The measurement campaign of SGS included efficiency measurements under standard testing conditions (STC) of the solar industry as well as performance measurements at low light and high temperatures of up to 80°C.

Further measurements highlight the performance of Heliatek’s OPV cells under real life conditions:-

Efficiency at low light efficiency increases:

• at an irradiation of 100 W/m² the efficiency is 15% higher compared to the standard efficiency measured at 1,000 W/m²

Efficiency at high temperature remains constant:

• this behaviour is unique for OPV technology in contrast to traditional solar technology which efficiency drops 15% to 20% at elevated temperatures

These technology advantages translate into a higher harvesting factor under real life conditions.

• First outdoor tests have shown that the harvesting factor of Heliatek’s organic solar cells is 15% to 25% higher than crystalline and thin film solar

Fraunhofer IPMS – COMEDD (Center for Organic Materials and Electronic Devices Dresden), a unit of Europe’s largest application-oriented research and development organization, and Universal Display Corp. have announced an agreement for Universal Display to provide its proprietary phosphorescent OLED materials as a key ingredient for driving energy efficiency in COMEDD’s white OLED lighting panels.

In this new two-year agreement, COMEDD will develop and fabricate energy-efficient, white OLED panels for market development.

Prof. Karl Leo, director of the Fraunhofer IPMS – COMEDD, said, “The contract with Universal Display allows us to realize OLED lighting devices using the leading phosphorescent emitter technology. This is a key step toward increasing the efficiency of white OLED to levels where broad market acceptance can be reached.”

Steven V. Abramson, President and CEO of Universal Display, said, “We are delighted to work with Fraunhofer IPMS - COMEDD, a leading European research institution in white OLED panel development. The work that Fraunhofer is performing at their Center for Organic Materials and Electronic Devices may help accelerate the commercialization of energy-efficient white OLED lighting products.” Steven added, “We look forward to supporting COMEDD with our ‘all-phosphorescent’ solution for its development and demonstration of OLED lighting panels with enhanced energy efficiency. Through programs like this, we believe that we can contribute to forging a more energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable future for Europe, the U.S., and the world at large.”

www.universaldisplay.com ipms.fraunhofer.de

According to a report by Digitimes AU Optronics (AUO) started volume production of 4.3-inch AM-OLED panels in the first half of of 2012. Now company president Paul Peng has announced that the company has also set up a Gen 6 research line for further development of AM-OLED panels with plans to roll out sample models at 32-inch and larger by the end year.

Funding for the Gen 6 pilot line came from company reserves, in addition AUO has also established a dedicated R&D group staffed with hundreds of engineers for the development of AM-OLED products.

Peng is reported to have said that the cost for setting up an AMOLED line is twice as much as for a TFT LCD line, and the organic materials needed for the production of AM-OLED products are expensive, and at present the company has not made any formal decisions with regards to timing or technology to adopt for mass production of AM-OLED panels.

The Digitimes reports states that AUO is currently producing small-size AM-OLED panels at its Gen 3.5 lines at a rate of 8,000 substrates a month. Whereas the company's Gen 4.5 LTPS (low temperature poly-silicon) line in Singapore, AFPD is believed to begin volume production of AM-OLED products by the end of end 2012 with a capacity of 15,000 substrates a month.

www.auo.com www.digitimes.com

MicroOLED, a maker of highly power-efficient superior image quality microdisplays for near-to-eye applications, announces that the company will demonstrate, at SPIE DSS in Baltimore, two prototype 5.4M pixel 0.61-inch diagonal OLED microdisplays in bi-colour and tri-colour.

The microdisplays are designed to enhance image resolution and lower the power consumption of digital image fusion used in defence, security and medical applications.

Digital image fusion, a process of combining video streams from multiple sensors into a single composite image, has important applications in thermal weapon sights, aviator night vision imaging systems and other emerging night sight and situational awareness equipment.

Also, surgeons use image fusion systems to integrate and analyse preoperative images to plan and perform brain, spinal and other complex surgeries.

The bi-colour OLED microdisplays can merge a 4.0M pixel image from a night vision sensor with a 1.3M pixel image from a thermal sensor, and its 0.61 inch diagonal is directly compatible with existing systems.

The tri-colour version can merge up to three high resolution images or two images and a graphical overlay, with the following resolutions: a 2.6M pixel black and white image with a 1.3M pixel red image and a 1.3M pixel cyan image. They will provide system integrators and end-users all of the strengths of optical and digital image fusion systems with none of the trade-offs.

At the recently held Light & Building 2012 there where many OLED panel manufacturers and luminaire manufacturers using OLED panels than seen at Light & Building 2010. While a number of device manufacturers chose the exhibition to launch new OLED lighting panels and it was the growth in the number of luminaires manufacturers who also announced that was the real indicator of commercial progress at the show.

It is clear that the major lighting companies Osram and Philips are making substantial efforts to push OLED panels on to the market. Each company dedicated a significant section of their stand to OLED lighting. Both companies chose to show “art” based OLED luminaires along with the standard product lines. Philips took the opportunity to announce the latest addition GL350 while Osram introduced the Orbeos SDW-058. It is interesting to note that Philips has moved to using the company’s naming convention rather than use the Lumiblade name.

Luminaire manufacturers such as Tridonic devoted substantial amounts of stand space for the OLED lighting. In previous shows LEDON OLED was used for branding the OLED lighting – however it would now appear that all lighting, OLEDs included, are being marketed under the Tridonic brand name for the foreseeable future. Their influence spread further as they promoted six of their customers who where using OLED panels supplied by Tridonic. These where luminaire manufacturers - Selux, Ridi, Ludwig, Spittler, Hatec and IDL and these all used square panels with the exception of Ludwig who presented a circular luminaire that used round panels. Selux in association with ART+COM presented the beautiful and almost magical Manta Rei – a kinetic luminaire based on the use of 140 OLED panels. This animated luminaire appeared to glide effortlessly and majestically through the air, although it was securely attached to the ceiling. Although the Manta Rei maybe considered as art it can be purchased in one of several different configurations.

European luminaire are beginning to show first OLED products and while many are destined for commercial sale it is nonetheless a strong indicator that OLED lighting is becoming an important addition to their product range. Several of the luminaire companies I spoke with said they needed to demonstrate they where working with OLEDs for next generation products.

The increasing umber of luminaire manufacturers using OLED – even for one off products can be seen as an indicator that OLED lighting is gaining attention and worth spending significant sums of money to construct luminaires that demonstrate the attributes of OLED.

Unlike other OLED technology providers and device manufacturers Novaled chose to present themselves as a luminaire manufacturer – operating under the Liternity brand name. The stand showed the Victory table lamp, the company is focused at the luxury end of the market as each lamp is hand-made and therefore unique. There other products on show where branded Linfinity, Trinity and Lucentury. All three luminaires used OLED panel where transparent when switched-off. Giving an interest visual appearance in their off-state, as the lamps almost disappeared as they blended into their surroundings.

No pictures: Unfortunately I left my camera behind at the hire car rental desk with all my pictures from the show. I have been informed by the hire car company the camera has been posted back to me. So I’ll compile a follow-up show report focusing more on the technical details for next weeks’ newsletter and hopefully be able to include pictures.

www.cintelliq.com www.osa-direct.com

LG Display has announced that the company has officially opened a research and development centre that will focus on developing next-generation display panels, including the OLED based displays, in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. About 2,500 workers are expected to complete their relocation to Paju by May.

According to an LG Display executive previously the company’s R&D workforce where based across several different research facilities spread across the country. By bringing together everyone into one single location it is hoped that LG Display will reap the benefits of co-located research as they focus on accelerating the development of next-generation displays.

Han Sang-beom, CEO, said, “It’s a pleasure to open up a new R&D space for the talented workers of the display industry, where they could work on projects with their passion.” Han Sang-beom, added, “We’re planning to lead the next-generation display market by transforming our Paju R&D plant into a mecca of high-tech display technologies such as OLED, e-paper and ultra-high resolution AH-IPS displays.”

www.lgdisplay.com

Rusnano has invested 25 million euros in Beneq – a producer of industrial production and laboratory equipment for nano-scale thin films and functional coatings. The investment is a combination of capital injection and share purchase.

Beneq is a global supplier of industrial production and research equipment for thin film coatings used in solar photovoltaics, flexible electronics, strengthened glass and many emerging applications. Industry-proven Beneq equipment and thin film experience is used for increasing the efficiency of crystalline silicon and thin film solar cells, producing transparent conductive oxide (TCO) coated glass and making touch screen glass more durable. Beneq has introduced what the company believes is revolutionary innovations within its coating technologies, including true roll-to-roll atomic layer deposition (ALD) and high-yield atmospheric aerosol coating (nAERO®).

Beneq commonly establishes close collaborative activities with research centers, universities and similar centres of excellence in regions where demand for its solutions is high and growing. In the short term, Beneq plans to initiate more activity centres, including one in Russia, where Beneq will further develop specific applications and equipment for the needs of customers in Russia and the CIS.

Beneq has sales offices in Germany, China, and the United States. Its 36 representative sales offices worldwide bring the company’s products to businesses across the globe. Over the past three years, Beneq has exhibited an annual growth of more than 60 percent. In 2011, Beneq posted sales exceeding 18 million euros.