Category Archives: Displays

Intentionally “squashing” colloidal quantum dots during chemical synthesis creates dots capable of stable, “blink-free” light emission that is fully comparable with the light produced by dots made with more complex processes. The squashed dots emit spectrally narrow light with a highly stable intensity and a non-fluctuating emission energy. New research at Los Alamos National Laboratory suggests that the strained colloidal quantum dots represent a viable alternative to presently employed nanoscale light sources, and they deserve exploration as single-particle, nanoscale light sources for optical “quantum” circuits, ultrasensitive sensors, and medical diagnostics.

“In addition to exhibiting greatly improved performance over traditional produced quantum dots, these new strained dots could offer unprecedented flexibility in manipulating their emission color, in combination with the unusually narrow, ‘subthermal’ linewidth,” said Victor Klimov, lead Los Alamos researcher on the project. “The squashed dots also show compatibility with virtually any substrate or embedding medium as well as various chemical and biological environments.”

The new colloidal processing techniques allow for preparation of virtually ideal quantum-dot emitters with nearly 100 percent emission quantum yields shown for a wide range of visible, infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths. These advances have been exploited in a variety of light-emission technologies, resulting in successful commercialization of quantum-dot displays and TV sets.

The next frontier is exploration of colloidal quantum dots as single-particle, nanoscale light sources. Such future “single-dot” technologies would require particles with highly stable, nonfluctuating spectral characteristics. Recently, there has been considerable progress in eliminating random variations in emission intensity by protecting a small emitting core with an especially thick outer layer. However, these thick-shell structures still exhibit strong fluctuations in emission spectra.

In a new publication in the journal Nature Materials, Los Alamos researchers demonstrated that spectral fluctuations in single-dot emission can be nearly completely suppressed by applying a new method of “strain engineering.” The key in this approach is to combine in a core/shell motif two semiconductors with directionally asymmetric lattice mismatch, which results in anisotropic compression of the emitting core.

This modifies the structures of electronic states of a quantum dot and thereby its light emitting properties. One implication of these changes is the realization of the regime of local charge neutrality of the emitting “exciton” state, which greatly reduces its coupling to lattice vibrations and fluctuating electrostatic environment, key to suppressing fluctuations in the emitted spectrum. An additional benefit of the modified electronic structures is dramatic narrowing of the emission linewidth, which becomes smaller than the room-temperature thermal energy.

Flexible and printed electronics innovations and autonomous mobility sensors will take center stage as more than 700 attendees gather for 120 market and technical presentations, 70 exhibits and four short courses at the co-located FLEX 2019 and MEMS & Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) in Monterey, California, February 18-21, 2019. Click here to register for both events.

Themed Electronics Out of the Box, FLEX 2019, the Flexible & Printed Electronics Conference and Exhibition, will highlight new form factors enabled by advances in flexible, printed and hybrid electronics. MSTC, themed Sensor Systems Enabling Autonomous Mobility, will showcase sensor innovations and emerging applications. The events cover a broad span of new applications and innovation drivers in key markets such as SMART Medtech, SMART Transportation and Internet of Things (IoT).

FLEX and MSTC will unite in the exhibition, opening keynotes, panel discussion, networking events and short courses, with the events featuring separate technical sessions. Attendees will connect with a broad group of subject matter experts and industry innovators.

FLEX 2019 and MSTC 2019 at a Glance

FLEX 2019 technical sessions will spotlight innovations in flexible and printed electronics products, equipment and materials as well as unique electronics applications they deliver – from new battery structures and antennas to bio-medical devices. Follow FLEX 2019 on Twitter: #FLEX2019 and @flextechnews

MSTC 2019 sessions will highlight wearables, point-of-care medical devices, food delivery, agriculture platforms, remote monitoring systems and other applications with stringent sensor, data storage, processing and transmission requirements. Follow MSTC on Twitter: #MSTC2019 and @MEMSGroup

“Advances in flexible electronics, MEMS and sensors have immediate, positive impact on the world we live in,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “FLEX 2019 and MSTC 2019 are the ideal platforms to showcase how sensors harness the power of data and improve our lives.”

The special poster session highlighting student projects related to flexible electronics or MEMS and sensors will be back by popular demand. The posters are evaluated for their scientific methods, command of the subject matter and usefulness of the ideas to the industry. Winners receive cash awards, plaques and recognition at the annual FLEXI Awards ceremony.

Keynotes include:

  • Ford Motor Company – The changing automotive sensor landscape
  • John Deere Electronics Solutions – Autonomy in agriculture to solve challenges in space, form factor, power availability and harsh operating conditions
  • Rogers Research, Northwestern University –  The emergence of diverse, novel classes of biocompatible electronic and microfluidic systems with skin-like physical properties to enable innovations in sports and fitness
  • STMicroelectronics – Profiles of new precision sensors for industrial applications, including combination sensors, specialized sensors, and complete inertial modules

Although overall TV shipments in the third quarter of 2018 were flat compared to the previous year, the average TV unit-shipment screen size increased more than any previous quarter in more than a year. While strong seasonality from promotions for the World Cup raised TV unit sales more than 7 percent in the first half of the year, Western Europe, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa all experienced double-digit TV shipment year-over-year declines in the third quarter, according to IHS Markit(Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

Global shipments of 60-inch and larger TV screen sizes increased more than 40 percent, year over year in the third quarter, with even stronger growth in North America and emerging markets, as prices fell to new lows for 65-inch and 75-inch sizes. This growth rate is more than 10 percent higher than in recent quarters.

“Each year during the holiday shopping season, brands and retailers try to push ever larger screen sizes to keep revenues growing and encourage adoption of value-added features like 4K and smart TV,” said Paul Gagnon, research and analysis executive director, IHS Markit. “This year, there’s higher interest in 65-inch 4K TVs for many of the key promotional deals, leading to less focus on smaller screen sizes under 50 inches.”

Growth in larger size TVs leads to a rising share of 4K resolutions since larger sizes have already largely completed the transition from 1080p to 4K. In fact, the share of 4K TV shipments in the third quarter reached a record high of nearly 44 percent. Due to sustained premiums and larger average size, 4K TVs made up more than 71 percent of all TV revenues during the quarter. 8K TV shipments are still very small, with just one brand currently shipping a very small number of units in Japan and China. IHS Markit expects additional brands to start shipping 8K TVs by the end of 2018.

Prices of 65-inch 4K LCD TVs fell to an average of $1,110 in North America during the third quarter, from $1,256 in the previous quarter. In China, the average price of 65-inch TVs was even lower – just $928, after already falling below $1,000 in the second quarter. Xiaomi and other brands have aggressively pushed prices lower as competition intensifies in China. In other regions, prices were considerably higher for 65-inch 4K TVs, due to less intense retail competition and a smaller addressable market.

OLED TV shipments were down slightly in the third quarter compared with the previous quarter, with the anticipated promotional focus shifting to LCD for the holiday season. LCD TV shipments increased by 14 percent, quarter over quarter. Quantum dot LCD TV shipments rose to 663,000 units in the third quarter, with an average size exceeding 60-inches. The average size of OLED TVs increased to more than 59 inches for the first time, as the 65-inch shipments share grew to a new high of more than 38 percent.

MIT researchers have invented a way to fabricate nanoscale 3-D objects of nearly any shape. They can also pattern the objects with a variety of useful materials, including metals, quantum dots, and DNA.

“It’s a way of putting nearly any kind of material into a 3-D pattern with nanoscale precision,” says Edward Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT.

Using the new technique, the researchers can create any shape and structure they want by patterning a polymer scaffold with a laser. After attaching other useful materials to the scaffold, they shrink it, generating structures one thousandth the volume of the original.

These tiny structures could have applications in many fields, from optics to medicine to robotics, the researchers say. The technique uses equipment that many biology and materials science labs already have, making it widely accessible for researchers who want to try it.

Boyden, who is also a member of MIT’s Media Lab, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, is one of the senior authors of the paper, which appears in the Dec. 13 issue of Science. The other senior author is Adam Marblestone, a Media Lab research affiliate, and the paper’s lead authors are graduate students Daniel Oran and Samuel Rodriques.

Implosion fabrication

Existing techniques for creating nanostructures are limited in what they can accomplish. Etching patterns onto a surface with light can produce 2-D nanostructures but doesn’t work for 3-D structures. It is possible to make 3-D nanostructures by gradually adding layers on top of each other, but this process is slow and challenging. And, while methods exist that can directly 3-D print nanoscale objects, they are restricted to specialized materials like polymers and plastics, which lack the functional properties necessary for many applications. Furthermore, they can only generate self-supporting structures. (The technique can yield a solid pyramid, for example, but not a linked chain or a hollow sphere.)

To overcome these limitations, Boyden and his students decided to adapt a technique that his lab developed a few years ago for high-resolution imaging of brain tissue. This technique, known as expansion microscopy, involves embedding tissue into a hydrogel and then expanding it, allowing for high resolution imaging with a regular microscope. Hundreds of research groups in biology and medicine are now using expansion microscopy, since it enables 3-D visualization of cells and tissues with ordinary hardware.

By reversing this process, the researchers found that they could create large-scale objects embedded in expanded hydrogels and then shrink them to the nanoscale, an approach that they call “implosion fabrication.”

As they did for expansion microscopy, the researchers used a very absorbent material made of polyacrylate, commonly found in diapers, as the scaffold for their nanofabrication process. The scaffold is bathed in a solution that contains molecules of fluorescein, which attach to the scaffold when they are activated by laser light.

Using two-photon microscopy, which allows for precise targeting of points deep within a structure, the researchers attach fluorescein molecules to specific locations within the gel. The fluorescein molecules act as anchors that can bind to other types of molecules that the researchers add.

“You attach the anchors where you want with light, and later you can attach whatever you want to the anchors,” Boyden says. “It could be a quantum dot, it could be a piece of DNA, it could be a gold nanoparticle.”

“It’s a bit like film photography — a latent image is formed by exposing a sensitive material in a gel to light. Then, you can develop that latent image into a real image by attaching another material, silver, afterwards. In this way implosion fabrication can create all sorts of structures, including gradients, unconnected structures, and multimaterial patterns,” Oran says.

Once the desired molecules are attached in the right locations, the researchers shrink the entire structure by adding an acid. The acid blocks the negative charges in the polyacrylate gel so that they no longer repel each other, causing the gel to contract. Using this technique, the researchers can shrink the objects 10-fold in each dimension (for an overall 1,000-fold reduction in volume). This ability to shrink not only allows for increased resolution, but also makes it possible to assemble materials in a low-density scaffold. This enables easy access for modification, and later the material becomes a dense solid when it is shrunk.

“People have been trying to invent better equipment to make smaller nanomaterials for years, but we realized that if you just use existing systems and embed your materials in this gel, you can shrink them down to the nanoscale, without distorting the patterns,” Rodriques says.

Currently, the researchers can create objects that are around 1 cubic millimeter, patterned with a resolution of 50 nanometers. There is a tradeoff between size and resolution: If the researchers want to make larger objects, about 1 cubic centimeter, they can achieve a resolution of about 500 nanometers. However, that resolution could be improved with further refinement of the process, the researchers say.

Better optics

The MIT team is now exploring potential applications for this technology, and they anticipate that some of the earliest applications might be in optics — for example, making specialized lenses that could be used to study the fundamental properties of light. This technique might also allow for the fabrication of smaller, better lenses for applications such as cell phone cameras, microscopes, or endoscopes, the researchers say. Farther in the future, the researchers say that this approach could be used to build nanoscale electronics or robots.

“There are all kinds of things you can do with this,” Boyden says. “Democratizing nanofabrication could open up frontiers we can’t yet imagine.”

Many research labs are already stocked with the equipment required for this kind of fabrication. “With a laser you can already find in many biology labs, you can scan a pattern, then deposit metals, semiconductors, or DNA, and then shrink it down,” Boyden says.

After hitting 7.3 percent growth in 2018, global demand for flat panel displays (FPDs) in terms of area is forecast to expand 6.4 percent to 228 million square meters in 2019. It is the first slowdown in year-on-year growth in four years, according to IHS Markit(Nasdaq: INFO).

Although the FPD demand will continue to grow, mainly driven by migration to larger displays for major applications, such as TVs, desktop monitors, mobile PCs and smartphones, the pace is expected to slow through 2021.

“The uncertainty from rising global trade tension may pose a threat to panel demand,” said Ricky Park, director at IHS Markit.  “Huge investment in panel factories in China is also expected to continue to cause oversupply next year.”

According to the world economy and global markets report by IHS Markit, world real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is forecast to grow 3.0 percent in 2019, following 3.2 percent in 2018 and 3.3 percent in 2017. The 2019 world real GDP growth was revised down from a 3.4 percent forecast in April 2018 as trade disputes between the United States and China worsened. This will partially contribute to slower growth in end-market demand and the lower demand for FPDs next year.

Oversupply is also expected to have an impact as China Star initiates mass production of FPDs from its 10.5thgeneration fabrication plant (fab) – the world’s second largest – in Shenzhen, China, in the first quarter of 2019. HKC will also contribute to an increase in the production capacity by mass producing panels at its new 8.6thgeneration fab in the second quarter 2019. As a result, the production capacity of thin-film transistor panels is expected to increase by 11 percent in 2019 compared to 2018, and the supply will surpass demand at a greater magnitude than 2018.

“As the market forecast for both demand and supply does not look favorable, panel suppliers and set makers are trying to develop more advanced products and technologies, such as 8K resolution for TVs, quantum-dot organic light-emitting diode (QD OLED) TVs and foldable displays for smartphones and tablet PCs, to bolster consumer demand,” Park said.

SMiT Holdings Limited, a CAM supplier and a major mPOS supplier in China has announced that on 9 November 2018, SMiT Holdings (HK) Limited (“SMiT HK”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company completed a further USD 5 million investment by way of preferred stock purchase (the “Stock Purchase”) in Sensel, Inc. pursuant to a stock purchase agreement. Upon completion of the Stock Purchase, SMiT HK held approximately 9.22% interest in Sensel on fully diluted basis.

Simultaneously, the USD 2 million convertible promissory note issued by Sensel and previously subscribed by SMiT HK in February 2018 was deemed converted into preferred shares in Sensel at completion of the Stock Purchase, and the entire amount owed to SMiT HK under such convertible promissory note was tendered to Sensel in exchange for preferred stock pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement.

Sensel is a startup company based in the United States that is developing a next-generation touch technology. Their new touch technology, PressureGrid, can sense both high-resolution position and high-resolution force data with a single sensor. This best-in-class technology is positioned to revolutionize interfaces in consumer electronics, robotics, automotive, and medical industries. Sensel is currently working on bringing PressureGrid to market in smartphones and laptops, where they are using this technology to enable new cutting edge user interfaces and experiences.

Mr Shuai Hongyu, President of SMiT, said, “This further investment is expected to consolidate the Group’s leading position in the in the IC-based security industry. We believe that the advanced and innovative technology bought by Sensel is in line with the Group’s development and expansion strategy, and will result in significant benefits in the long term, thereby further strengthening the Group’s competitive position in the market.”

Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890), a global innovator of LED products and technology, announced that it has expanded its patent infringement litigation against Fry’s Electronics, Inc. (“Fry’s”), a big-box consumer electronics retailer, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

In its amended complaint, Seoul asserts that top brand televisions being sold in Fry’s stores infringe 19 patents covering backlight lenses, backlight modules, LED chips, LED packages, and phosphors, as well as WICOP technology that enables LED chips to be directly soldered onto printed circuit boards (PCB). Seoul’s patent infringement lawsuit against Fry’s was originally filed on August 31, 2018.

Seoul’s backlight lens patents relate to a new concept of lens technology for manufacturing thin and light televisions. This patented technology was developed jointly with leading optical expert, Dr. David Pelka, and included substantial research and development investments by Seoul in optical lenses. As a result of its hard work and investments, Seoul has approximately 160 related patents in this area.

Seoul’s backlight module patent enables significant improvement of the color gamut of LCD displays by using KSF phosphors.  The related technology has been co-developed with  Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation for many years. This technology has been widely incorporated in most mobile phones and increasingly applied in LCD TVs as well.

Seoul’s WICOP (Wafer Incorporated Chip on PCB) patents enable LED chips to be soldered to a PCB without an LED package – the world’s first developed revolutionary technology for semiconductor structures. Other companies may be attempting to imitate Seoul’s patented technology, describing it as a CSP (Chip Size Package) requiring a sub-mount between a PCB and an LED. Protecting its patented technology has led Seoul to expand its infringement claims in the Fry’s ligation.

In order to safeguard its LED backlight technology and other protected inventions, Seoul has actively enforced its patent rights and sent cease-and-desist letters against suspected infringers. As a result of such enforcement efforts, the United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision on November 19, 2018 that one of Seoul’s competitors willfully infringed Seoul’s LED lens and backlight module patents. The appellate court also found that that Korean LED package company Lumens Co., Ltd supplied television makers with LED backlight bars incorporating infringing products.

“We hope that our commitment for technology innovation would inspire young entrepreneurs and small businesses,” said Sam Ryu, Seoul’s vice president of IT Business. “Protecting that technology against infringement is a cornerstone of our business and sends an important message to the market and other innovators who would follow in Seoul’s footsteps – that hard work and innovation will be respected.”

The excitement about microLEDs has grown exponentially since Apple acquired technology startup Luxvue in 2014. All major display makers have now invested in the technology and other semiconductor or hardware companies such as Intel, Facebook Oculus or Google have joined the pool. Amidst this flurry of news and activity, a new term emerged in early 2017: miniLED. But more than size, the technology and manufacturing infrastructure requirements and the applications clearly differentiate microLEDs and miniLEDs.

Under this dynamic ecosystem, the market research and strategy consulting company, Yole Développement (Yole), releases a dedicated technology & market analysis focused on miniLEDs for display applications. Entitled, MiniLED for Display Applications: LCD & Digital Signage, this report provides a detailed analysis of miniLED technologies in two major display applications: high performance LCDs and narrow pixel pitch LED direct view display digital signage. Yole’s analysts present a comprehensive understanding of miniLED display technologies and describe their competitive landscapes and supply chains.

MiniLED vs. MicroLED: are they the same technologies? Are the applications identical? Contrary to MicroLEDs, miniLEDs can easily be manufactured in existing fabs, even though they might require new equipment to enable cost-effective assembly. So who is doing what? What are the market drivers? Does a dedicated supply chain already exist? MiniLEDs advantages are two-fold in terms of applications: they bring new strength to LCD players in the battle against OLED, and they enable increased LED adoption for digital signage, announce Yole’s analysts. Discover today a snapshot of the miniLED industry, with insights into technology, current status and prospects, roadblocks and key players.

For smartphone applications, miniLEDs are facing a strong incumbent in OLEDs, as their cost to performance ratio has already gained the technology a strong position in high-end/flagship segments. OLED is expected to further increase its share and become dominant as the number of suppliers and global capacity increase dramatically over the next five years and cost continues to drop.

MiniLEDs, however, have a card to play in various small to mid-size high added-value display segments, where OLEDs have been less efficient at overcoming its weaknesses such as cost, lack of availability and longevity issues such as burn-in or image retention. For example in high-end monitors for gaming applications, miniLEDs could bring excellent contrast, high brightness and thin form factors at lower cost than OLEDs.

“The automotive segment is especially compelling, first because of its strong growth potential in terms of volume and revenue, and also because miniLEDs can deliver on every aspect auto-makers are aspiring to: very high contrast and brightness, lifetime, conformability to curved surfaces and ruggedness,” comments Eric Virey, PhD, Senior Market & Technology Analyst at Yole.

Regarding the last point on ruggedness, miniLED-based LCDs offer significant benefits over OLEDs since they only use proven technologies, LED backlights and liquid crystal cells, not much different from already established LCDs. Automakers therefore don’t have to make a leap of faith and hope the new technology will meet the demanding lifetime, environmental and operating temperature specifications they require.

On the TV side, miniLEDs could help LCDs bridge the gap and regain market share against OLEDs on the highly profitable high-end segments. “This opportunity is all the more enticing to panel and display makers that have not invested in OLED technologies and see the potential to extend the lifetime and profitability of their LCD fabs and technologies,” explains Zine Bouhamri, PhD, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole.

For direct view LED displays, miniLEDs used in conjunction with Chip On Board (COB) architecture could enable higher penetration of narrow pixel pitch LED displays in multiple applications, hence increasing the serviceable market. Die size will evolve continuously toward smaller dimensions, possibly down to 30-50µm in order to reduce cost. Adoption in cinema is still highly uncertain but even modest adoption rates would generate very significant upsides.

The flat panel display (FPD) equipment market is expected to start to decline after an unprecedented build-up in 2017 as panel makers take a more cautious approach as they wait for demand to catch up to rapidly ramping capacity. The FPD equipment market is forecast to fall from $20.2 billion in 2017 to $14.0 billion in 2020, declining at a compound annual rate of 11.6 percent, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

“The expansion of the FPD equipment market that started in 2016 has been driven by the high equipment intensity of new flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display factories and the scale of Gen 10.5/11 LCD factories,” said Chase Li, senior analyst at IHS Markit. “This expansion has been further fueled by Chinese local governments, which have supported panel makers with various mechanisms such as financing, land grants, reduced taxes, infrastructure and direct subsidies.”

Such broad government support of Chinese FPD fabs for all types of display technologies and factory sizes is starting to distort the supply/demand balance as the new capacity begins to ramp. In the case of flexible AMOLED factories targeting smartphones, many multiple billion-dollar investments and even expansion phases have been moving forward before panel makers have proven their ability to produce high quality panels at high yields and competitive costs. The glut level of thin-film transistor (TFT) AMOLED panels for mobile applications is forecast to exceed 40 percent of the demand in terms of area in 2019. This implies that, on average, factories for mobile applications are likely to be underutilized.

This situation has caused both panel makers and China’s local governments to evaluate more critically new flexible AMOLED factory plans. Even South Korean panel makers have pulled back from their previous plans to expand Gen 6 flexible AMOLED capacity continuously due to slower-than-expected panel demand growth. Reduced spending on AMOLED fabs for mobile applications accounts for most of the decline in equipment spending in 2018 and 2019.

Even so, Chinese local governments continue to fund selected projects despite the tightening of credit, particularly for Gen 10.5/11 LCD factories. These projects are predicted to keep equipment spending relatively firm through 2020. However, it threatens to push the large display supply/demand glut level to a record annual high of 18 percent in 2020, unless panel makers reduce excessive LCD TV panel capacity by converting some of it to OLED TV panel production and shutter less productive legacy factories.

High-end OLED TVs are one segment that is still expected to face tight panel supply for the next few years. Although, demand is low compared to standard LCD TVs, OLED TVs are a growing niche, whose panel demand is forecast to rise from 2.9 million units in 2018 to 6.7 million units in 2020. Being the only panel maker to have commercialized OLED TV panels to-date, LG Display is shipping all the panels it fabricates and running its current factories at full utilization.

According to the AMOLED and LCD Supply Demand & Equipment Tracker by IHS Markit, equipment spending in 2019 will be significantly supported by the conversion of legacy LCD fabs to advanced AMOLED factories. JOLED, Samsung Display and others are utilizing previously purchased TFT tools, while adding OLED frontplane, color conversion, cell and module equipment, hoping that they will keep them ahead of rivals and enable them to ride the growth of the AMOLED TV market.

“The FPD equipment market has always been highly volatile depending on market and technology changes. Some slow-down is not surprising following years of record high equipment spending,” Li said. “How all the equipment being installed will affect the future opportunity is a question that equipment makers are now struggling to answer. Based on IHS Markit analysis, the correction will continue beyond 2020. Even so, hope for expanding the new technology investments in AMOLED and quantum-dot (QD) OLED TVs as well as foldable displays, combined with industry restructuring and increased demand as prices fall offers the hope of another positive cycle coming.”

Spurred on by growing demand for innovative user experience in smartphones, shipments of foldable active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panels are expected to reach 50 million units by 2025 for the first time since their launch in 2018, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

The foldable AMOLED panels are expected to account for 6 percent of total AMOLED panel shipments (825 million), or 11 percent of total flexible AMOLED panel shipments (476 million) by 2025.

“As the conventional smartphone market has become saturated, smartphone brands have tried to come up with an innovative form factor for a smartphone,” said Jerry Kang, senior principal analyst of display research at IHS Markit. “A foldable AMOLED panel is considered to be the most attractive and distinguishable form factor at this moment.”

In October 2018, China’s Royole Corporation unveiled the world’s first foldable-screen smartphone with a 7.8-inch AMOLED panel. A few other brands are also expected to launch foldable-screen smartphones in 2019.

“Smartphone brands are cautious about launching foldable smartphones because the phones should be durable enough for repeated folding and thin and light enough even when supporting a larger display and battery,” Kang said. “Unit shipments of foldable AMOLED panels may not grow as fast for the first few years, but area per unit will be expected to be larger than that of conventional displays. Panel makers are forecast to see an increase in fab utilization.”

Due to lower demand for conventional flexible AMOLED panels, suppliers are hoping that smartphone brands release foldable devices as early as possible. With more optimism, some are even considering investing in another fab solely for foldable AMOLED panels.

“Panel suppliers should consider how much demand will increase for the foldable application before investing in additional fabs, because the supply of flexible AMOLED panels is forecast to exceed demand even as we move into 2019,” Kang said.

According to the AMOLED & Flexible Display Intelligence Service by IHS Markit, the supply capacity of flexible AMOLED panels will account for more than half of total AMOLED capacity in the fourth quarter of 2019.