OLED TVs: Technology Advancements Thread - Page 106

^^ they have no choice if their competitors in Taiwan and Korea are dropping prices. Besides, average price drops of components around 10-25% are expected annually.

The Japanese are certainly not enjoying the price drops. Many of them are suffering or getting out of the business, while Sharp though RELATIVELY better, is also climbing out of a hole.


1. Not sure what you're saying here. You mean the cost of factors of production is higher? Even if so the question to ask is why the price of Sharp branded TV cheaper in US rather than Asia.

BTW housing is expensive is RELATIVE, considering prices are down 70% in 20 years based on some calculation. And like TNG say, expensive is not uniform even in Tokyo metropolitan, just as in NY.

2. Again I'm not sure what you're saying. Are u saying weaker US$ means weaker TV prices?

3. Direct tax as in value added tax? And how does that explain US TV being cheaper than even the MANUFACTURING countries? Are Mexico TV more expensive than US?

4. I think few would argue that Japanese are wealthy too, but that shouldn't make TV prices cheaper. If it is scale then I should expect China TV to be much cheaper than US in 3 year's time since TV are ALSO manufactured there (while most US TV are made in Mexico)

The only thing I agree is efficiency of the logistics in US. There are also multiple versions of Sharp 70" for different stores and neither do I think OSD is a major cost driver.

In short it is baffling for me that manufacturers wants to compete so aggressively in such pyrrhic victory environment. Korea and Japan do subsidise their exports with higher local prices but even so it doesn't explain the price difference in other Asian countries vs US.

I'm surprised Mike is still around Have a blessed Christmas everyone!!

http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/25/l...official-comi/

"it displays screen information through color layers below the TFT base panel"

TFT? Isn't that LCD? I'm confused..

For years, I have complained about people referring to LCDs as "TFTs" or "TFT displays". LCDs use TFT technology, but TFT does not mean LCD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_transistor

It's a TFT backplane, yes. Something needs to drive the individual pixels. In the medium term, IGZO TFT backplanes are likely to be the most common method of driving OLED displays.

Thanks rogo!
So TFT it's a kind of "mesh" that the individual "pixels" are soldered to?

Macroeconomic problem with local markets. Consider the famous hamburger example: why hamburger prices in MacDonalds differ hugely in various places?
This is same company, identical restaurant, same hamburger recipe yet the prices are wildly different. Why? If you go into detailed pricing components you will notice that these differences are due to local taxation, raw material,
land prices etc.


But there is a problem with lack of space. Generally the price levels in Japan
are much higher.


No, since dollar is reserve currency you do not see movement of consumer goods reflecting the exchange rate. Even more importantly you do not see
the dollar value reflecting the state of US economy especially the trade deficit.
This indeed may even go to such an extent that weaker dollar means weaker prices since companies have to struggle to get sales for any price.


I was thinking about developed markets e.g. EUrope. This does not mean that less developed markets are cheaper. But the reason why it is more expensive there are different: luxury (for them) product market there is small and undeveloped, in consequence there have to be much higher overheads. Thoe products there are bought by a class of wealthy people who are not so sensitive to prices.


From the reasons above it is doubtful this will happen. The TVs which might get cheaper in China may be Walmart type and not the high-end type.


Don't forget this is cut throat business so everything counts.


It explains if you take Asian economies as a whole. Take that these places have no space and resources but people have tremendous drive to live decently and in their collective memories there are times of sweating in rice fields to get the daily bowl. They must have sell their goods abroad almost for any price.

A few interesting points from the LG PR....

1) As rogo notes, there is no release date or price attached. It is possible that they will wait until they have a press conference at CES to announce details but the fact that they are only showing it at a "private booth" makes that seem much less likely.

2) I doubt that this unit will be available in 2012, but if/when it does become feasible, the combination of WOLED and Oxide-TFT should make it substantially cheaper than SMD's RGB approach. The quote from LG touting the fact that they have overcome high costs is a pretty decent sign that this wouldnt be a $10000 television. The capex requirements really should be much lower than building an entire new fab from scratch.

3) The key report that I want to hear from CES about this display is the overall quality. Does WOLED and Oxide-TFT really allow for a display quality on par with RGB OLED's? I think that there is probably a reason that SMD is not taking this approach.

Slacker

The fact that they don't even give it a product name or model makes me certain that it isn't really a product. LG has a way of hemming and hawing and doing that cultural thing where they don't want to say no... so someone might get them to vaguely hint at it being a product. But I doubt very strongly they'll announce. By the way, LG has shown other stuff at CES behind closed doors in the past and none of it has ever shipped... They also show stuff on the show floor that doesn't ship.

Honestly, our best hope is that this turns into a product for 2013.

Can you talk about that a bit? I get why it would be cheaper. Obviously, they are experts on color filter patterning for example. But won't they actually build an entire fab to do these displays? Or do you think they can do it inside an LCD fab and make the IGZO backplanes on an existing process, mate them to the OLED layer, use existing color-filter patterning equipment, etc.? It seems like the workflows would be very different such that while a lot of the equipments and processes are similar, the actual line would have to be unique or else things would be a mess.

So I doubt I'll get a look at it. I have no "juice" with LG and unless I can find someone to get me an invite, it may not be able to be seen. But just for what it's worth, you won't get a valid report on whether quality is comparable. At best, you will hear from someone who got a few minutes with canned demos on two early prototypes.

I suppose one of the prototypes could be bad, but assuming both are good, I doubt anyone will be actually able to objectively report back something that addresses your longer term question: Can WOLED really compete? As for why Samsung isn't going down the WOLED path, it could be a number of things besides quality. I could speculate on a couple:

1) An outgrowth of their existing operations in the mobile-display arena.
2) Ego
3) They didn't think of doing WOLED

To be honest, no one on earth can actually know if mass-produced WOLED offers 70% of the picture quality of RGB OLED or 98% since none of either exists for TVs. If it turns out that it's even 85% and the costs are significantly lower, Samsung has a problem. If it turns out that the costs are more similar and the quality is more similar, it's going to look like much ado about nothing.

Presumably LG's demo of a 55" (W)OLED TV will involve at least one 55" (W)OLED TV, and ditto for Samsung with a 55" RGB OLED TV, so at least one of each exists somewhere (although with LG's OLED track record it is fair to wonder if their demo will merely be an artist's rendition of a 55" (W)OLED TV).

You missed the critical words "mass produced". The picture quality of hand-built prototypes is not telling. I've been attending CES since the 1990s and the gap between the hand-built prototype and the end product is often massive -- in either direction.

And, yes, even if LG has a "working prototype", I'd be suspicious that their demo was somehow faked. They continually bring stuff to CES that never sees the light of day. Showing their OLED in a room where they can keep people at arm's length and limit who even gets a look-see is not a good sign to suggest it's actually close to mass production.

I've read back to the begining of December in this thread, and think you've underestimated 1 thing that could make OLED a dominant display tech.

Weight.

Yes, it would be kind of hard to make a large display 60 and above to be light and rigid, but as you point out the real sales are in the sub-50 market right now and for the foreseeable future.

A 50 inch OLED TV on a plastic substrate as light as a picture in a frame would be very very compelling product in a world of 2 person lift glass TVs.

Something like that would completely kill the glass based heavy TV market. I think Samsung understands this and want's to continue to own the lion's share of flat panel, and that's why you won't see them backing down.

That's true that OLEDs will be very light, but that's also a drawback unless wall-mounting is required. Imagine a 20-30 pound 65" OLED TV on a stand, lol. The wind will blow it over.

LED LCDs are very light too. A 55-60" edge-lit LED LCD is around 30-40 pounds.

I'm not going to go into details on econs but as usual you have good info but for some reason end up with weird interpretation because somehow you can't relate to how it works in real world. In short I think you are likely to be an academic for a career in future

The Big Mac index is an anecdotal measure of purchasing power. With a weaker US$ goods in US should be MORE expensive on PPP basis. Being a reserve currency has benefits, including seniorage and debt/trade payment. But higher purchasing power is not one of them. When the Chinese RMB internationalises in few years time, it will have huge impact on US currency, cost of debt and trade, but not on PPP.


On lack of space you should reference to HK, Mexico City or Shanghai city, and explain the price discrepancy with Tokyo. I can tell you TV prices will continue to be higher in Tokyo even as the Japanese population halve in 40 years, and asset prices continue to deflate.

You are missing the point: the TV price in US is cheaper in ALL segments for same brand and model. Maybe you can come back to earth and discuss why Sharp prices in Mexico and Canada is different from US.

Nobody sells their products abroad for ANY price. If true Chinese TVs from Haier and Skyworth would have flooded the overseas market. It is still calculated based on opportunity cost.

The market place is dynamic. It is not true if you sell premium products like Apple or OLED you will not do well, or sell cheap products like netbooks or Geely you will be invincible. It depends on your positioning including size, value proposition and strategic rollouts.

I am looking at this as two separate issues. It is clear that LTPS backplanes are enormously expensive and that is true whether they are used for LCD's or OLED's. Everything I have read indicates that Oxide-TFT backplanes will be cheaper than LTPS. As for whether they can use an existing a-si fab, isnt that precisely what Sharp is doing with their IGZO LCD production? I believe that they are currently in the process of moving an existing Gen 6 a-si fab over to IGZO.

The second issue would be the patterning, color filters, and all of the related OLED equipment. I dont have a clue about the amount of reuse you could get with the existing LCD equipment. OTOH, the move to a WOLED architecture should significantly reduce the number of manufacturing steps in OLED production versus SMD's RGB approach.

Of course, while the above two steps should reduce prices compared to LTPS RGB OLED's, it is still an open question how they would compare to a-si based LCD's.


I dont really expect anything definitive. I would like to get some first-person comparisons between Samsung and LG and whether one or both manages to truly impress the chosen few. You can also sometimes tell as much by what they leave out of a demo as what they show. The first images of the LG television show very bright colorful pics...we'll see whether they show some more challenging images at CES.

FWIW, I agree that 2012 is very doubtful for LG. Way too many new processes and the fact that they are only showing this behind closed doors gives a pretty good indication that they arent close yet. If anybody comes out with a 55" OLED in 2012, it will be Samsung (and even they will have some new processes as well).

Slacker

As usual at AVS, people find some "problem" with the status quo that isn't a problem and determine this will be the key to the future.

How is weight affecting the market for LED-backlit LCDs? It isn't one iota. (It's not hurting heavier plasmas to be honest.)

Consumers will not pay any premium at all for the privilege of having a slightly lighter TV in the living room.

That seems clear. A ton cheaper? Hard to say, but the industry's bean counters seem to know they will be cheaper.

They are using the existing fab, but I think that sounds more impressive than it is. I doubt more of anything that's being used to make the backplanes is the same equipment. They are basically retrofitting that portion of the fab with a new backplane-creation area based on IGZO. Still, some of the equipment might be reusable, I'm not sure. Nevertheless, let's say there are some savings.

Right, so if there are fewer steps and they are well-understood, mature steps, this could be a problem for Samsung. It might not be because maybe they'll get good all their fab processes faster than LG on higher volume... But if LG's designs are cheaper to build at scale, that's an issue for Samsung. The very rationale for OLED is not quality, but ultimately cost. "It's eventually going to be cheaper for us than LCD." Well, if one guy's cheaper is cheaper than the other guy's cheaper....

Yeah, and that's the $10 billion question.

If they both have prototypes, I'll try to see them. I doubt I'll succeed, but I'll try. Either way, I submit anything shown is too early to answer the interesting question: Can the WOLED compete with the RGB OLED? My gut says, "Maybe". And I bet the prototypes will indicate the same thing. But I feel like they aren't giving us the answer we'll get 6-12 months from now.

Samsung doesn't sound like a company intending to ship a 55" OLED in 2012. Maybe they are waiting to make a louder splash, but the lack of ripples doesn't sound like someone building excitement around a real product for 2012.

[quote=rogo;21411476]The very rationale for OLED is not quality, but ultimately cost.
QUOTE]

I actually disagree on this. The difference is perceivable for J6P.

I doubt very much too if OLED can be cost effective over LCD. That would be happening in mobile area already. I think it could be PQ driven: People could accept OLED even if it is slightly pricier but PQ is shocking good.

For anybody who really wants to get into the weeds with regards to IGZO, here is a paper from 2010 that gives some pretty good details on the various backplane technologies.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1468-6996/...1_4_044305.pdf

One thing that I had not read/noticed before is that IGZO is supposed to allow a simpler pixel circuit. Of course, that is the theory and who knows what LG is doing?

Slacker

Just wanted to throw my worthless anectdotal comments into the thread, for kicks, you know?

I'm now a born again OLED believer. My wife gave me a Samsung Galaxy SII for Christmas which has an AMOLED screen. This is my first direct experience with OLED displays.

Holy crap. Every time I pick up my phone, I'm utterly amazed. This screen is just beautiful. Lower resolution than the iPhone 4 'retina display' but still absolutely blows it away. Blows away every display of any type I've ever viewed, including CRT. Makes my plasma look like a bad cheap LCD. The blacks are just... black. Even in a dark room, I can't see the off pixels. Don't know what the constrast specs are, but they have to be through the roof. The colors are saturated and beautiful. And to think that this tech also happens to allow much, much thinner and lower power consumption displays?

OK, so this post is probably not needed in this thread. And everyone already knows OLED has great specs anyway. And my anectdote means... nothing. But seeing this technology first hand is certainly an eye opener. This technology will be a game changer, both because it has stunning picture quality (meaning it will become dominant over time if cost is even remotely comparable for any reasonable quality product) and because it is low power, thin, and light (meaning it will allow applications not previously possible, maybe seen only in scifi movies).

Enough of an eye opener for me that I probably won't buy another flat panel TV for the next few years as I figure it will be a short lived purchase. And enough that I'm already wishing an acoustically transparent version was possible (I know, I know ) because in a future theater build, I'll probably have to spend a fortune on a pj to not be disgusted every time I watch a movie.

Sometimes.


The actual reviews from mobile suggest the PQ is not "shocking good".


And yet, here's a guy who was blown away. So I urge you all to read the Galaxy S II reviews. From pros. A lot of them like the screen. No review that I've read describes it as leaps and bounds ahead of the iPhone 4S screen. Some do like it better. Some are less sure.

Let's just say it's a better display. A lot better on average? That seems like a reach.

Now, I think Slacker and I have talked about this before (someone and I), but the way they make the iPhone screen and the way they make your LCD TV are not the same. And it might not be realistic ever to make 60" LCD TVs with the same technology. By contrast, it might well be realistic to scale up OLED to 60" and get picture quality that meets or exceeds that of the Galaxy S II.

Here's the problem with that. At the end of the day, whatever that quality gap is between the OLED and the best LCD (and plasma) on the market at the time... It's going to be small. You can already achieve reference color on a $2500 Samsung plasma, 15,000:1 ANSI on a Sharp Elite LCD, full-resolution motion, etc. And most people don't give a rat's rear end about these things.

People have traded down in picture quality several times in the HD era for price or the move to flat panels (from big boxy TVs). It defies every trend in consumer electronics, consumerization in general, et al. to believe they are going to trade up in quality if there is any price premium at all. For OLED to reach any kind of mass-market penetration, that problem needs a solution.

Having seen the Galaxy S II and the new iPhone, I have to say that both look similar, although I would give the nod to the Galaxy for picture quality- hence, kind of proving your point, Rogo. I was surprised that the iPhone screen looked as good as it did. I'm guessing they've got an excellent front filter on this thing, because it's an IPS panel, I believe.

The Galaxy, though, in the dark, has just about perfect blacks- although unless there is some major advertising campaign by Samsung and LG teaching J6P(kind of getting sick of that assigned title to the average consumer, haha) about how important black level is, it's a moot point. I kept thinking how my new panny plasma could keep up with the picture on this except for low apl scenes.

I have to believe that there would be a major marketing campaign to get people familiar with OLED. Samsung and LG combined might have to spend an amount into the stratosphere just to get these panels moving through marketing alone. New and improved still sells, that's how they'll achieve the obvious price premium. If they can only make the case for it's importance.

How important is black level on a phone?

OLED still has inferior battery life for "web applications."

Might be great for video but it's still a smaller than 5-inch screen.

Thinking about the marketing/branding side....one of the things that will likely help OLED television sales, once the price gets in the ballpark of high-end LCD's, is precisely the fact that they are not LCD's. Walk into your neighbor's house and you arent going to be able to tell whether the Samsung plasma/LCD has perfect blacks or whether it is a low-end version from Wal-Mart.

OTOH, an OLED television should be recognizable and my guess is that the marketing campaigns will set expectations about the fact that it is superior to LCD's. Now, as rogo notes, it might not be a gigantic leap over various high-end LCD models but it should be much better than your average LCD. I dont think it is going to be tough for LG/Samsung to brand OLED's as the superior technology.

Slacker

So I don't think there will be an issue selling OLED TVs as "better than LCD". I do think two things are critical, however:

1) The margin between an OLED TV and the best LCD will be very small in terms of picture quality. In fact, I believe that a "fixed" Sharp Elite (i.e. the color issue corrected and the pulsing problem solved) would be within 10%-20% of expert reviewers' opinions of whatever OLED comes out. And on some objective measures, it will be equivalent. Keep in mind, that manufacturers have already touted that their displays have 10 million to one contrast for several years...

Also, let's just agree that as a practical matter, the OLEDs we are discussing will ship in 2013. So we are potentially comparing them to TVs that are two generations ahead of where we are now.

2) While you can charge a price premium for quality, there is an inherent tradeoff between how much of a premium and how many you can sell -- irrespective of quality. It's helpful again to look at cars. Simply by moving the prices up to $100,000 from $50,000, there is a dramatic drop off in sales. For the price gap, you get features, performance, snob appeal -- and all are readily apparent every time you drive the car, both inside and out.

The current "bar" for the high end is the $3000 Sony 55HX929, which I believe is the priciest 55" TV you can buy, but at least is more or less. It already probably accounts for something like 2-4% of the 55"+ TVs sold. I don't actually know the real fraction, but what I do know is that there are plenty of 55" TVs for <$2000 from a number of mfrs. as well as 60" TVs (and even 65" plasmas that retail for under $3000).

For argument's sake, very approximately (margin for error is high here), the worldwide TV market is <250 million units. The 55"+ segment is likely less than 15%. Let's say it totaled 40 million units this year. Of that, the "premium segment", where prices are $2500 and up is not more than 10%, so at most 4 million units. (My guess is the reality is more like half this, but I'm rounding up in every case.)

If OLEDs arrive on the scene at $5000, they could reasonably expect to sell at most 400,000 units globally, spread across both LG and Samsung (that's 1/10 of the premium market). Realistically, it's more likely about 100,000 units. Basically, there is no such market today and so the assumptions underlying this is that the OLED makers can invent a market that does not exist and convince hundreds of thousands of people who already own HDTVs -- many with very good ones -- that they need this thing that is marginally better or even "somewhat" better.

Again, by way of perspective, this would be a multiple of the number of luxury automobiles sold each year to those same well-heeled people.

Now, at $3000, the picture is somewhat brighter, because they could crowd out some of the priciest LCDs. There, the market size could be into the seven-figure range. But it gets tricky. Why Because the target keeps moving. So long as the product is premium priced over some reasonable substitute and the premium is meaningful, the substitute will be repriced accordingly to maintain share. It's not like Sharp, Sony, Toshiba (mostly outside the U.S.), Panasonic are going to stand still and watch OLED take share. For that matter, the LCD and plasma divisions of LG and Samsung will keep competing with their OLED divisions.

In essence, to push past something like 5-15% of the segment, OLED will have to reach price parity with a portion of the segment that is at least that big. Today, my guess is that would dictate a price of around $2000-2250. Today. In two years? Who knows.

We can safely conclude "year one" of OLED sales (which we are calling 2013), won't be about the push, so really we should be looking at 3 years. So ask yourself, what would a 55" D7000 Samsung cost in 3 years? That's probably the model that OLEDs have to go up against if they want to push volume. Going up against D8000 and HX929 means semi-permanence in the six-figure volumes, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on permanently high price, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on never actually replacing LCD.

My guess is that the target is for the 55" OLED TV to be $1500 in 2015-2106. By then, a mainstream LCD will certainly be half that. And, again, at more than 2x the mainstream, your volumes are inherently limited as the market itself disappears. There is virtually no $5000 TV market today, even though it was a fairly routine price 5-7 years ago. The $3000 TV market today is already fairly small. It's not going to get bigger.

The key phrase is "perceivable by J6P"

J6P is not bothered by nomenclature like MLL or nits, but they can see a difference under glare, eg under sunlight, or in dark environment. And the eye is most sensitive to contrast. We can argue what does the meter says about the contrast ratio, but proof of the pudding is that J6P can see the difference without a meter.

That's where the value proposition for OLED will be. It will not be price that will kill OLED, that will take care of itself with adoption. It will be that LCD are able to be indistinguishable with OLED in terms of contrast without blooming (which is a big thing if one understand Edge Enhancement technique)

I'm just going to assume you haven't seen a Sharp Elite. I'm also going to assume you haven't spent a ton of time with an iPhone sitting next to an AMOLED Samsung. Because in the latter case, the contrast is barely-to-not-at-all perceivable to J6P. And in the former case, I find it well nigh impossible to believe Joe is going to see the difference without a meter.

Right.

Right, although I think price is a bigger problem because the adoption --> learning curve --> better pricing --> more adoption virtuous cycle is going to be trickier to manage than ever.

I would also add to rogo writings one other aspect of LCD: its flexibility to deal with any competition. Classical illustration of this are discussions from a couple of ys back: LCD will never overtake plasma in the big-size segment. Indeed it was looking so then: LCDs suffered from slow response time and motion trailing. But now we are here and nobody speaks about big size plasmas anymore, those 70 and 80" LCDs are all the rage.

So, if one speaks about OLED PQ beating LCD as an argument for OLED pervailing, one can think LCD can make up for this. There is also possible combination of LCD with OLED locdim backlight which might be ideal solution if one imagines 1000+ OLED zones.

In any case, please note that the 55" OLEDs announced, even if they are real, are at this point TOO SMALL for large segment of connoiseurs and videophiles to be that attractive based on the PQ only. The 65"-90" LCD segment looks much more impressive.

RAGE?? Noooooooooooo (with Vader's voice) Huge size is not going to catch on except for a few moneybags with large house


I'm just going to assume one of us is biased

Sorry Bigus, it's between the 2 of us for now