OLED TVs: Technology Advancements Thread - Page 161

It's true that viewing distance matters, but it still doesn't change the fact that an iPhone has higher resolution. I can still see aliasing on the iPhone display around text and in games, and people sit pretty close to their monitors. When you start looking at HT-sized displays, pixel density starts dropping off considerably. There are definitely applications for 8K.
I think they will survive, but I am skeptical of Crystal LED making it to the market, or of Sony still being in the TV business in five years time. It's more difficult now, it may not be in the future. I think people are getting far too excited over IGZO. The main thing it improves is efficiency, and it allows for better touch accuracy on phone and tablet devices. There has been some mention of faster switching times, but I haven't seen any kind of detail on that. 3-5 years? Isn't the target to begin 8K production in 2020?
The biggest problem with 3D today, in my opinion, is that we still don't have any TVs with support for 1080p60 3D, and that passive 3D loses so much resolution. With those two issues taken care of, 3D gaming becomes a much more attractive proposition.

But I still don't think 3D will ever have mainstream adoption, at least not in its current form. Part of the problem is that we have Toshiba shipping glasses-free 3D sets in Japan at ridiculous prices, and others showing off prototypes at CES. This has a lot of people holding off on buying a 3DTV until they don't need glasses, when realistically that tech is still years away, if they can ever get past the resolution and limited viewing position issues.

Aliaising is the result of improper antialiasing. Without proper antialiasing no increase in resolution helps.

IGZO has better transparency which means not only lower power, smaller pixels but more vivid pictures. IGZO is seriously potential way for LCD to match OLED.

2020 is when full broadcast chain is ready, displays should be coming earlier (like 4K is now).

(???)Of course an increase in resolution reduces the aliasing you can perceive. Careful here: are you referring to an increase in image size at the same DPI, or increases in apparent DPI (size&distance taken into account). Essentially the FOV per pixel.

IGZO allows for smaller backlights and/or more aggressive cycling which has the potential to lower the black floor and raise contrast.

As for 3D, I think you miss the primary problem. Most people don't give a hoot about resolution or frame rate or gaming. They aren't going to put on glasses to watch TV, however.That's why they are holding out. And that's why Toshiba, et al. is trying to make them happy with glasses-free solution. That makes the whole idea that the future is VR headsets all the more laughable to me.

You have limited notion of aliasing and this is why you think resolution itself can deal with it. It is not so, aliasing understood precisely can be only eliminated by proper antialiasing. Increased resolution allows to preserve more detail when antialiasing is applied.

Please don't tell me what my notions are of something. I'm well aware of various applicative uses of the term aliasing.

But the term as applied by chronoptimist was resolution specific, no? Here: I haven't done the angular math yet to see if he's right, but his argument (in red) is specific to resolution. Or did I read him wrong?
Edited by tgm1024 - 1/5/13 at 12:07pm

Anti-aliasing only works to a point. You can't do anything about aliasing when the cause of aliasing is the size of the pixels themselves.

4K LCD TVs Expected to Outpace OLED TV Shipments, NPD DisplaySearch Reports

NPD Displaysearch is usually considered quite reliable. Article is here.


4K LCD TVs Expected to Outpace OLED TV Shipments, NPD DisplaySearch Reports
Overall TV Market Continues to Slow Growth in the Near Term

SANTA CLARA, Calif., January 4, 2013—With the annual Consumer Electronics Show just around the corner, speculation about what TV technologies will be highlighted by manufacturers has been growing. In recent years, highlights have included 3D, Smart TV, and OLED, as TV makers promoted technologies to excite consumer interest. This year it’s 4K×2K.

According to the latest TV market forecast published in the NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Advanced Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, 4K LCD TV shipments are projected to exceed OLED TV shipments through 2015. This is a result both of the delay in commercialization by OLED TV makers, as well as increased promotion of 4K LCD TVs by several brands. In addition, many Chinese TV brands are currently in the process of launching 4K LCD TVs in the domestic China market. OLED TVs are still expected to launch in 2013, but volumes are expected to be low and prices expected to be very high. 4Kx2K resolution is not exclusive to LCD TV and 4K OLED TVs are also expected to be introduced at some point in premium TV segments.

[more not included here]

http://www.displaysearch.com/cps/rde/xchg/displaysearch/hs.xsl/130104_4k_lcd_tvs_expected_to_outpace_oled_tv_shipments.asp

And here comes the @#$%-storm of "I told you so"s. LOL....

Displaysearch is usually considered reliable but no one has mentioned their blog post from a few days ago where they admitted their "shockingly bad" OLED piece from less than 3 weeks earlier was wrong.

"Why did LGE decide to announce their OLED TV on the first working day of 2013? First, we might surmise that LG Display has significantly rasied its production yield rate, thought to be in the single-digit percentage range."


Why is this news? OLED TVs aren't going to be in large quantities until they have more than pilot lines. That's was never ever planned to happen until 2014. The same report shows OLED shipments more than tripling every year from 2013 through the end of the chart in 2016 and leaving 4K LCD behind.

4K, with less than 1% market share in 2014, is still just as much a niche product at the moment as OLED. Why would one pay $20K for an 84" 4K LCD when they can get a 70" Sharp LCD for $2K?

Thanks for posting this. Like a number of people on this forum, I didn't buy into this whole OLED is dead idea.
Besides the retraction of the piece, and LG's forward movement, improvements in OLED technology are occurring
from other quarters. There are simply too many advantages to emissive displays for everyone to give up on them.

Thanks for the dose of sanity.

I'm sorry, do you see that as a retraction? I sure don't. It's very believable that they now have production up to the 20% range from the single digits and that will allow them to fill the absolutely minimal demand for $10,000 55" TVs.
Actually, the expansion of production was originally slated for 2012, not 2014. Then no one spent any money to do it. Then it was slated for next year, except no one has announced any spending to do that. The idea that these schedules haven't slipped massively is a lie.

At current projected forecasts, OLED is unlikely to reach 1% market penetration until 2014. You'll see from looking back through here that many felt it would be much sooner than that.

If you double 1% in 2014, you get 2% in 2015, 4% in 2016, 8% in 2017, 16% in 2018, 32% in 2019... Assuming you can double for 5 straight years, which is unlikely for any number of reasons....

I have better things to do than argue with you Rogo but I take offense to the lying statement which you also made in reference to an earlier post of mine, so I'll make this one reply.

So your position is they went from "shockingly bad" single digit yields to "significantly better" 20% and decided to release them in less than 3 weeks? Ok.


I'll agree with you that "many [here] felt it would be much sooner", probably in part due to your statements. The actual plans from Samsung and LG, however, were to build the pilot lines in 2012 and have real production lines in early 2014. It's also true that date has likely slipped to late 2014, still depending on market reaction to these TVs. You can choose your own definition of "massively" however the definition of lying is pretty clear and my statement regarding the plans outlined by Samsung and LG are not one. I'll refer you to some LG conference calls which clearly imply a decision to build a pilot line in 2012 with a "promotional focus" and then to make a decision on a full 8g line following the release of the initial TVs. Both calls imply a mid 2012 release of the initial TV, which had a "massive?" 6 month delay, an OLED capex decision at the end of 2012, and an 18 month process to convert an 8g fab which gets you to an early/mid 2014 date for real production. Spin that however you want. And have a nice day.

From the Q2 2011 call on July 21, 2011

Andrew Abrams - Avian Securities LLC
Got you. Okay. And there were a couple of comments made on your previous call last night about OLEDs, and maybe you could talk a little bit about that? And it kind of said that you were shying away from small panels, but you were moving to large panel in terms of how you’re perceiving of the OLED space going forward?

Hee Yeon Kim - Head-Investor Relations
... in the TV side we will continue to invest OLED TV. We try to release cost-efficient and high-quality OLED TV in the middle of next year as a promotional focus, after checking out the market response for our OLED TV. And then we will decide our CapEx plan at the end of next year.

Andrew Abrams - Avian Securities LLC
Okay. And so where would you be producing the OLED TV in 2012? Is that going to be in an existing facility, or can you give us a little color there?

Hee Yeon Kim - Head-Investor Relations
Yes, the volume should be very limited, as it’s just for checking out the market response. So we already have the R&D and high-light reps in our existing 8th generation, but that’s not the commercial production base. If the market responds for our new OLED TV next year, we will decide material CapEx next year.


From Q4 2011 call on Jan 27, 2012.

Colin Sebastian - JPMorgan
Okay. And just going back to OLED really quickly in terms of taking existing LCD line from when you decide to convert that to OLED. What do you think the timing is from that first consideration to being able to ramp up OLED production on that line, is it six months or would it be 12 months or would it be 18 months, can you give the general timeframe there?

Hee Yeon Kim - Head, Investor Relations
It should be 18 months that’s the usual pattern.

Colin Sebastian - JPMorgan
Okay. So that’s from taking an existing LCD offline and then starting the process and 18 months later you’re in full production on OLED.

Hee Yeon Kim - Head, Investor Relations
Yes, we have to procure the [deposition] version as well although we have to convert our existing Amorphous silicon-based to Oxide.

Oh, I smell another bet. I am going to parlay my winnings on the no 55" LG OLED in 2012 and bet that LG ships less than 25,000 OLED units in 2013.

I don't know who would take the other side of that bet.

Think you'll have to give some hefty odds...

Similar question is why would one pay $10K for 55" OLED. But there is big difference here. Retinal and mobile displays show that pixel density may have little impact on the LCD price. There is no reason why big displays should be different in this respect so the prices we see now may go down fast. On the other hand the difference between the 2K and 4K OLED is huge since OLED pixels are inherently more complex to make and thus overall reliability is lower. Besides, the 4K LCD tech will be pushed by China, adding to the cost decline. Strategically OLED has thus no chance with the exception that seeing writings on the wall Samsung and LG will make some extraordinary advances in the OLED manuf. Sounds impossible but there where many impossibilities which were broken before.

Dude, get a grip. There is nothing directed at you in any post that accuses you of lying.

ROFLMAO.

Hmm, now I'll just stay you are wrong. Lying? No. But definitely 100% wrong. What do you think they were going to do in 2013? They were supposed to build 8G production last year. It was telegraphed over and over. It just was never funded.

I have no idea where you get 2014 or "market reaction". There is no market reaction. They have not shipped one TV. Not one.

Again, you need some serious grippage. The statement in my post above is generic. It is not an accusation that anyone is lying, least of all you.

First of all, I love the way you ignore Samsung and pretend LG is the only company we're talking about.

Second of all, they have shipped zero TVs. It's not out yet. It's not a "6 month delay", and the February ship date for Korea is arguably not a real ship date. They convinced DisplaySearch last year that they'd deliver about 100,000 by the end of 2012. Samsung did the same. At this point, if each of those companies deliver that many in 2013, it'll be an achievement. I'd call that a good year delay. But really it's worse because the way they were talking at CES last year, you'd believe these products were going to impact the TV market sometime soon. And, my God, Samsung has hyped their 8G OLED plans since early last year (if not before). Have they committed any of that money yet? I'm not sure, to be honest, but I don't think so.

Third of all, LG has suggested production was planned for 2013 numerous times, like here: http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php?subaction=showfull&id=1296654131

Fourth of all, here's a reference to the existing 8G "pilot" production: http://consumerelectronicsdaily.com/Content/LG-Display-starts-pilot-production-on-8G-OLED-TV-panel-line.aspx referencing 4000 substrates per month. That's 24,000 TVs per month with 100% yield or 300K just from that one pilot line. That was as of August of last year.

Fifth of all, here's a reference from last January http://www.semi.org/en/node/40381. "LG OLED panel production capacity is currently at 24K substrates per month at 4.5G and 8K per month at 8G". The forecast in that article was for more than 1 million views in 2013. Where was that capacity coming from? Thin air? Obviously, everyone was led to believe the capacity would exist. The 2014 forecast was for 5 million TVs. That means the capacity needed to exist before 2014. That's 400,000 TVs per month. Again, thin air won't make that.

Sixth of all, the price to sell even 1 million TVs globally is well below the original guess of $8000. Surely everyone understands that right? There is no way to move -- even globally -- 1 million 55" TVs at $8000-10,000. The most expensive 55" TV for sale at Best Buy (conventional TVs, not outdoor sets) is $3200. Most are much less. The global market for TVs as big as 55" is currently on the order of 25 million units total. (It's less, but I'm giving some slack to the equation). We can try to guess what price it would take to move 1 million "BMW" TVs, but one thing you can know is that at $10,000, there is simply not any chance in hell of this happening.

In addition to pricing the TV such that they don't have to produce many to satisfy demand, LG is alone in the market right now. Samsung -- it should be noted -- has obviously not solved their production problems at all. Further, the idea that the $10,000 price is some temporary aberration that will be "corrected" in a few months is something we can dismiss out of hand. That's the price for the better part (if not the entirety of) 2013. While, again, it's a ridiculous game to guess what the next price will be, we know they've been talking about price parity with LCD as "coming soon". Dating back to 2009, we've heard this promise from LG, that OLED will be cheaper by 2016. "OLED panels will cost less than LCD panels in 2016." That literally means OLED will cost less than the cheapest LCD. So we have to more or less get from $10,000 to $1,000 in 4 years. Do you think anyone really believes that's happening? What's the 2014 price on the path to that?

The idea that these TV have not slipped massively is patent absurd.

I originally posted this news item back on 9/1/2012. It might have contributed to LG not having been able to ship any units by the end of the year.

............................................................................................................................................................


Not sure if this might affect the production of the displays or not. It happed in late August and they say that the have stopped production of those components to conduct an investigation of the accident.

"Explosion at LG Chem's OLED factory kills one employee, injures 14 others"

http://www.oled-info.com/explosion-lg-chems-oled-factory-kills-one-employee-injures-14-others

"LG Chem said that a large explosion broke out at their OLED production factory in Heungdeok District in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, Korea on August 24. One 26-years old employee was killed and 14 others were injured. This tragic accident happened when a large 200-liter drum that contained dioxane (a volatile substrate used in the manufacturing process) exploded due to unknown reasons.

The police are now investigating whether this is a case of poor equipment management and improper maintenance by LG Chem. This may also be due to negligence of workers at the factory. LG Chem said that while there's no problem to continue produce OLEDs in the factory, they have decided to stop operation until the investigation is over.


LG Chem is producing electron transport and hole injection materials used in OLED panels, and is also producing OLED lighting panels. The explosion probably took place in the material factory, not in the OLED lighting factory."

The 1 million units in 2013 was all supposed to be from the "trial" production capacity that both Samsung and LG were developing. They were both projected to have the capability of producing 8,000 Gen 8 substrates a month. Each substrate is capable of producing 6 55" televisions...multiply it out and you get over a million units for 2013.

If, and I personally think this is doubtful, LG or Samsung were to announce that they were going to begin building a commercial Gen 8 fab immediately, then ynot will be right. The delay was basically immaterial. Unfortunately, I doubt that we are going to get that announcement anytime soon.

Should this turn out to be true, it would really put pressure on Samsung and LG to offer their own Ultra OLED products.


RUMOR: SONY TO UNVEIL 4K OLED-TV AT CES

http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1357428158


"We will know for sure on Monday but The Verge says that Sony plans to unveil a 4K – or Ultra HD – OLED-TV at CES 2013 in Las Vegas.

4K OLED-TV AT CES?

Sources tell The Verge that Sony plans to unveil a spectacular OLED-TV at this year’s CES show. If true it will be the first OLED-TV with the extremely high 4K resolution – or Ultra HD as the industry prefers to call it."

Slacker, that's my point about the "trial" capacity. Between the two of them, they are 80,000 units below the 80,000 per month capacity they have. They won't be there soon, either. Nor has either company announced plans to expand production.

We can continue to quibble over whether the delay is material or not, but we know for a fact that by mid-year they had convinced the people that publish the reports that they were on their way to shipping 1+ million units this year. That seems impossible for any number of reasons. And as for shipping many, many more in 2014 (i.e. millions, not a million), they'd need to construct a fab before 2014. So it has to start this year.

Every bit of the timetable is backwards a year, except perhaps first shipment, which has been scaled back still from the original first shipment plans that called for an $8000 price and, therefore, more volume.

Sony has absolutely no ability to produce a large-size OLED TV in production quantities. I'd love for them to announce some plans otherwise, but until you hear words like "hundreds of millions" or "billions", there's a problem. Sony has a larger problem than Samsung and LG, by the way. they don't have any 8G production of any kind. They don't have, therefore, the ability to convert an existing fab in part to make backplanes, they have no experience making 55" (or larger) TVs, etc. etc.

While I am delighted and excited that Sony will show off something like this, the idea that it puts pressure on Sasmung and LG implies they intend to build it sometime soon or at a competitive price. That seems unlikely at best.

You will probably see the 4K sony OLED in action and tell us all about it, right?

As usual, the key is yields. We dont know much about Samsung, but I believe that LG actually does have 8K Gen 8 substrates. That gives you a theoretical capacity of 50,000 units a month and a real world capacity way way below that.

Let me put it this way, LG doesnt need to build anything to sell 500,000 OLED TV's in a year. They need to figure out how to use the capacity that they actually have. We'll know that they have hit that point when they announce that announce expenditures for a commercial Gen 8 fab with capacity of many multiples of the initial fab.

Assuming it's available for viewing, of course.

Yes, yes, violent agreement.

The thing about 500K units is that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. It's about 1/4 of 1% of the TV market. They can price to sell to the wealthy and ignorant, but even that isn't a sustainable place to be. This has to move forward or die. It doesn't have to do that overnight, but it has to happen at some point soon. Either this production technique is proved and yields reach into the upper double digits and they come to the recognition they can max out that capacity or they don't. If they do, they announce a new fab well ahead of reaching max capacity. That has to be at least 6 months, but I imagine it's longer. Running the business at 500K units annualized is probably a goal for year end or thereabouts. It's clearly not achieved now nor is it likely to be achieved by mid-year. Generally, this is a story of continuous improvement, not discontinuous improvement.

Basically, without understanding the intracacies of capital spending, I'd guess LG has to announce plans by summer at the latest if we are to believe they will produce more than 1 million units next year. If they don't, we can rule out meaningful OLED growth before 2015. If they do, we can figure OLED will reach exceed 1% of the market by 2015 and might even get close next year. Again, all of this is well behind even last year's forecasts.

Are we in for Oled /4K $$$$ delight this year from Sony?

There is no way 4K OLED will be sold this year. Sony is just showing its another pie-in-the-sky prototype.

While that's certainly true, I do admire the way that they're establishing that they're pursuing BOTH OLED and Crystal LED to enough of a degree to make each a focal point. I for one, am dying to see how Sony positions themselves verbally. If the 4K OLED announcement rumors are true for all of them (Sony/LG/......and didn't Samsung recently hint too(?)) will the best-in-show go to the dog that is .01" larger than the others?

I've been hearing from people online that Sony will be utilizing AUO for TV OLED panels, along with LCD... does AUO have hte ability to produce panels anywhere that size? How about the joint venture with Panasonic? Does Panasonic have any abilities along those lines?

So let's clarify a couple of things:

1) AUO has perfectly acceptable 8G LCD production. They have zero OLED production. They have not shown any evidence of being close to OLED production. To make OLEDs you either need to (a) license LG's technology that they have yet to perfect or (b) duplicate Samsung's technology that they have yet to perfect despite huge investments that virtually no one else can match. AUO has yet to show any viable IGZO backplanes, either, which are considered integral to OLED mass production.

2) Sony and Panasonic do not have a joint venture to produce OLED TVs. I know people think they do, but those people are wrong. Sony and Panasonic have a joint venture to develop technologies to produce OLEDs. That's ideas that would lead to machines and processes for a hypothetical OLED plant that either of them might build or another joint venture they might announce in the future would use for both of them. The existing JV is several steps away from the making-TV step.

I have no doubt Sony is working with AUO because it owns zero LCD production in mainstream sizes. It also works with LG and Sharp and Samsung. The fact that Sony has no announced strategy to remain relevant in the TV business is troublesome. The only people who are likely to survive are primary mfrs. and deep discounters. Even primary mfrs. have suffered (Sharp, Panasonic) with high yen, expensive plant investments, economic challenges in the world, etc. The idea that Sony can be successful without internal production is absurd. That's Vizio territory, which is a very low-margin model.

If Sony shows up at CES again with multiple technologies and no announced products, it's basically an admission they are done in the TV business. It won't appear that way, but it will be that. By mid-decade, you'll either own OLED fabs, own LCD fabs or be finished. You won't be buying panels from XYZ and selling them for premium prices. Sony has already lost billions doing that for a decade. Oh, you also won't be claiming there is a future in those multiple technologies. You'll have a stake in the ground not pie in the sky.

Seems to me that the product that gets the most attention at CES, IFA etc...owner gets most free publicity. That is what this prototype stuff, for the most part, is all about isn't it?