OLED is an eventful year, a few happy tears

- Kodak and Sanyo Corporation parted ways

February 2006 United States Kodak (Kodak) and SANYO (Sanyo) announced the termination of the cooperation agreement, shut down nearly 5 years of operation has been OLED joint venture plant - SK Display. OLED has a number of core technology of Kodak company, since 1999 with Japan's digital home appliance giant SANYO jointly research and development of OLED, and in 2001 in Japan established a joint venture company SK Display (Kodak accounted for 34% of the shares, SANYO accounted for 66% of the shares), and in 2003 put into production. The main reason for the termination of OLED cooperation in the development of production is the OLED panel can not compete with the LCD panel, the delay can not enter the mainstream display panel market, the company's product sales situation is not ideal.

- LPL join hands with Kodak to enter the big size AM-OLED

In SANYO and Kodak in February 2006 under the OLED sales disadvantage and the termination of the cooperation agreement, South Korea's LG PHILPS (LG.Philips LCD LPL) Company immediately announced an active matrix OLED and Kodak (AM-OLED) technology development cooperation agreement, both sides will share mobile display technology development and product development, AM-OLED technology supply cooperation. The United States has the world's leading Kodak OLED raw materials and production technology, TFT-LCD technology and production scale of LPL in the world leading level, both sides hope to play their respective expertise, realize the butt joint of TFT and OLED two technologies, into a large size AM-OLED development and production, in order to launch large size OLED TV in the next few years. In theory, AM-OLED backlight module and color filters and other valuable materials, so the proportion of material costs will be lower than TFT-LCD, but the current production costs are high, will affect its competitiveness.

- close the OLED Division

The middle reaches of Taiwan LED manufacturers to buy OLED opto patents to Kodak in 2002, the establishment of graphic display business in the production of OLED mainly, has built two full-color SM-OLED production line. However, due to the delay in production costs can not be reduced, and has always been a large number of applications in the high-end mobile phone TFT-LCD exclusion, resulting in the loss of the annual loss of the cause of the OLED division, the estimated loss of nearly NT $800 million in 2005. In 2005, Nichia and Hitachi shares optitek wire, the future will guanlei with Nichia and Hitachi electric closer cooperation, to further increase the Nichia LED chip grain production, the company will try its best to increase the profit of good LED business, November 2006 optitek board decided to close the OLED division, about NT $1 billion 800 million OLED production equipment will be sold yuan clearing.

- Samsung invested heavily to develop OLED

As the world's largest manufacturer of TFT-LCD panels, Samsung recently in OLED is also frequently heard encouraging news. Samsung Samsung Electronics (SEC) AM-OLED liquid crystal display in October 2006 successfully developed 17 "display, the thickness of only 12mm, resolution up to 1600 x 1200, brightness of 400nits, non dynamic contrast to 1000:1, the response time is less than 0.01ms, all the technical indicators are far higher than the current TFT-LCD display. At the same time, Samsung SDI PM-OLED rapid growth in sales at the same time (2006 second, three quarter sales were up 4800, 53 million), about the outbreak of the company optimistic about the 3G mobile phone, mobile TV targeting high-end market, recently announced it will spend about $450 million to expand the capacity of AM-OLED, the main products for the QVGA AM-OLED 2 inch -2.6 panel. Estimated initial annual output of up to 20 million, to 2008 will be raised to 50 million, the new production line is expected to be put into mass production in 2007.

In all kinds of plane display disputes as OLED industry, there are about the reasons behind the expansion, OLED is still the current high cost of production, by TFT-LCD technology and algebraic update fast, scale expansion of the mainstream market rapid decline in the cost of postpartum overcrowding has not enter the main screen of the mobile phone. SANYO and Kodak part company each going his own way and Taiwan guanlei was forced to close the OLED division, perhaps OLED continued losses under the helpless choice; while LPL, Samsung two TFT-LCD giant with the foundation and advantages of panel industry, have good potential for future AM-OLED in large size LCD panel, has invested heavily to develop a new generation of OLED panel market. More OLED industry indicates that winter will soon be over.