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SID and other news ?3

09:45 22-May-17


Display Week has begun, and of course that means a flood of related news.  However, some of the most interesting items come from outside sources, with the greatest of these being an announcement of collaboration between Kyulux (Japan's leader in TADF research) and Nanoco (the cadmium-free quantum dot startup that I've mentioned before).  This is truly surprising, given that JOLED has just demonstrated a printed 21.6" 4K RGB organic monitor.  My best guess at what the agreement points towards is an exploration of relative production economics and failure, or at least delay, in plans to bring emissive quantum dots to market.  The Japanese would then look to use their superior and continually advancing backplane technology to follow LG Display's strategy of using a color filter (where quantum dots are tops) over white organic pixels. 

Nanoco's IP moves lead me to believe that it is moving towards some sort of deal, but I have my doubts about whether or not a product like this can be brought to market before true organic red-green-blue solutions, as both printing solutions and organic blue emitters continue to advance.  Perhaps these advances explain a Korean report that claims LG Display is shifting production in its new plant back towards 75" LCD TVs after all, while it waits for new organic options to sort themselves out.  As always, anything from the Korean press requires even more skepticism than usual, but if true, that would leaves OLEDs still confined mainly to mobile products.

In that realm, Samsung will be showing the world's first stretchable screen, but we're still really waiting for foldable products to hit the market.  I expect these to be a huge hit, but they always seem to be a year off.  Samsung's supply deal with Apple may indicate that the wait is finally coming to an end, though, as the former company prepares to move on to a new technology in order to reverse last year's decline in the end market, where organic displays are still constrained by supply.