In the beginning of June. SID's DisplayWeek, the display industry leading tradeshow took place. We're getting to used to OLEDs taking the center stage at such events, and this years seems to be no different. LG and Samsung did not show any new panels, but they did receive several prizes: the Gold Award for Display Application (LG's flexible OLEDs), the Silver Award for Display of the Year (curved OLED TV), the best-in-show award (LG's 77" UHD curve OLED and finally the Gold Award for display of the year for SDC's 5.7" flexible OLED panel.

Sony's Dr. Nomoto delivered a keynote speech in which he praised OLEDs and detailing Sony's OLED TV efforts. This is a good indication that Sony is still developing OLED TVs. Sony also announced a new 0.23" nHD+ OLED Microdisplay for wearable applications.

SEL demonstrated some interesting prototypes. First up are a couple of foldable OLED panels, developed in collaboration with Nokia. Both panels are 5.9" 1280x720 (249 PPI) - and one can be folded in two while the other can be folded in three (check out this nice video showing those displays in action). SEL also showed a 13.3" 8K (664 PPI!) OLED prototype - developed with Sharp.

AUO also had several OLED prototypes on display - a 1.6" in-cell touch AMOLED for wearable devices and a 0.2 mm thick 5" flexible OLED prototype. AUO also showed a 5.7" WQHD (1440x2560, 518 PPI) rigid OLED.

Universal Display presented two new OLED architectures. The RGB monochrome striped OLED can improve OLED lighting's performance, manufacturing yield, uniformity and color tunability. The Two-Mask AMOLED display enables a significant improvement in the lifetime of an OLED display and reduced burn-in, while also lowering power consumption and improving the resolution.

China's BOE was showing a 55" 4K OLED TV panel. The panel was produced at the company's Gen-8.5 pilot AMOLED line in Hefei. The panel uses a bottom-emission white OLED with a color filter array (WRGB architecture). BOE also uses internal compensation technology.

Finally, during the event, Konica Minolta announced that they developed the world's most efficient OLED lighting panel - at 139 lm/W. This breaks KM's own 131 lm/W record announced only a couple of months ago. Well done guys!

So there we have it - Samsung is finally putting AMOLEDs back in tablets. On June 12 , the Korean giant unveiled their two new tablets, both called Samsung Galaxy Tab S - one with a 8.4" display and the second with a larger 10.5" display. Both Super AMOLED displays offer the same resolution - WQXGA (2560x1600), which means 359 PPI for the 8.4" tablet and 287 for the 10.5" one.

Both the Tab S 8.4 and the Tab S 10.5 have the same hardware and software specification: Android 4.4, a 1.9 Ghz Octa-Core CPU (2.3Ghz quad-core in some markets), 8MP camera, 3GB of RAM and 16/32 GB storage and a micro SD slot. Both tablets are only 6.6 mm thick, and the 8.4 has a 4,900 mAh battery while the 10.5 one has a larger 7,900 mAh battery. Both of these tablets are now shipping from Amazon.com. The 8.4" costs $399.99 while the 10.5" costs $499.99

In their marketing material, Samsung mostly talk about the new displays - as they say this is the most important feature for consumers. The Super AMOLED display has a wide color gamut (90% Adobe RGB), a high contrast ratio (100,000:1), and Samsung uses their Adaptive Display software which intelligently adjusts gamma, saturation, and sharpness based on the application being viewed, the color temperature of the viewing environment and ambient lighting.

Reviews of the new tablets have been very favorable. The display measurement experts at DisplayMate said that the these are the best tablet displays ever tested. As these displays are very similar to the GS5 display, it's not surprising that DisplayMate found those tablets to offer the best performing displays ever. This is yet another testimony to how great OLED displays are - and the rate of improvement in OLEDs is very rapid. It turns out that the Galaxy Tab S establishes new records for best tablet display performance in: highest color accuracy, infinite contrast ratio, lowest screen reflectance, and smallest brightness variation with viewing angle. These are also the highest resolution tablets ever at QHD. The new OLED tablets were found to be superior to both Amazon's and Apple's top LCD tablet displays.

LG is still pushing forward strongly in their effort to bring OLED TV prices down and volumes up. The company's upcoming $650 million M2 Gen-8 fab will soon start producing panels, but the company will not stop there. LGD's CEO announced that LGD intends to increase the capacity in that fab to 34,000 monthly substrates (up from 26,000) in a $788 million investment. LGD's CEO further commented that they expect their OLED business to produce "significant" results to the company by the end of 2015, and they see OLEDs become the mainstream TV technology quickly - faster than it took CRT and LCD TVs to do so.

Earlier in June a company official said that LG wants to ship over 5 million OLED TVs in 2015. Even if the M2 is at 100% yield, it will only be able to produce 1.8 million 55" panels with 26,000 substrates and 2.3 million with 34,000 substrates. So even with this large new investment, they will not be able to reach their target (unless they plan on building more high capacity fabs soon). What we know about LG's capacity is a bit confusing, really, and hopefully we'll know more soon regarding the company's actual production plans for 2015.

Even before the M2 started producing panels, LG Electronics continues to lower their OLED TV prices. Amazon currently lists LG's curved FHD 55" OLED TV for only $3,999! That's quite a fast price drop - down from $14,999 in less than two years! LGD's Byeonggyu Roh says that they will continue to reduce the cost of their OLED TV panel production. According to UBI Research, LGD ultimate goal is to reach a price premium of only 10% over LCDs.

Meanwhile in the UK, LG launched two new UHD (4K) curved OLED TVs - the 65" 65EC9700 (£5,999 or just over $10,000) and the 77" 77EC9800 (£19,999, or $34,000). Both TVs will ship in October for UK customers. These TVs are still very expensive of course. But remember that when LG launched their first OLED TV in the UK a year ago on March 2013 the price was £9,999 for a flat 55" FHD TV. So the new 65" UHD panel costs 40% less than that older 55" FHD model, which is now priced at about £3,300 ($5,600) in the UK.

Finally, according to reports from Korea, LG Display managed to achieve major breakthroughs in their OLED TV production process. LG applies a new gate structure, a new deposition technology (ALD based) and developed a way to "revive" dead pixels using lasers. LG's new technologies will increase the yield of their production process, improve the process time and lower the production cost.

In May 2011, I launched The OLED Handbook, my comprehensive guide to OLED technology, industry and market. The book is now in its fourth edition, and I'm quite proud to say that over a 1,000 copies have been sold in three years! And this does not include site/enterprise licenses and upgrades.

So yes - I'm bragging a little bit, but it's also great to see more and more people and companies from all over the world that want learn more about OLEDs as the technology gets more and more prevalent. And of course this provides great social-proof. If you haven't yet bought and read the OLED Handbook, please consider doing it today...

Samsung announced a new GS5 variant for the Korean market, called the Galaxy S5 LTE-A. This new phone uses SDC's new 5.1" QHD (2560x1440) panel which reaches a record new PPI of 577 - this is probably the world's highest density mobile display (beating LG's G3 display which is a 5.5" QHD LCD, 538 PPI).

We don't know much about this display, but it probably uses some kind of Pentile display (or Diamond Pixel like the GS5). While this phone will probably be exclusive for Korea (it will be released via SK Telecom later this summer), hopefully Samsung will also release a similar upgraded GS5 phone with a QHD panel worldwide.

There's an interesting report from Korea that suggests that Apple and Samsung are showing "signs of a ceasefire" in their long-running patent fight. According to the report, Apple is interested to source SDC's OLED displays, especially for wearable applications.

It was widely reported that Apple's upcoming iWatch (due in October) will use small flexible AMOLEDs from LGD. But according to my analysis, LGD may not be able to produce enough flexible OLED displays for Apple (which will require 3-5 million 1.5-inch panels each month). So this bit of news about Samsung may be the missing piece in this puzzle and may lead the way towards Apple's first OLED product.

Smithers Apex (together with the OLED Association) announced the agenda and lineup for the OLEDs World Summit 2014 conference. LG Display, Novaled, BASF, Acuity Brands Lighting, Konica Minolta, DuPont Displays, Panasonic, Visionox, BOE, Philips Lighting and many more of the industry’s most influential players in OLED lighting and displays will be presenting at the event.

The 16th annual event will take place September 16-18 at the Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, CA. Smithers Apex says that the OLEDs World Summit is the longest-running, preeminent business development and technical event dedicated exclusively to the OLEDs industry - connecting researchers with customers and manufacturers in both the lighting and display sectors. You can find out more information here, and we also got a $100 discount coupon (OLEDINFOVIP) for you. Enjoy!

I'm happy to announce my second OLED market report, the OLED Automotive Market Report. This report provides a great introduction to OLED display and lighting solutions for the automobile market, and covers everything you need to know about OLED technologies in this niche. This is a great guide for anyone involved with the automotive market - car makers, suppliers and aftermarket solutions.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• What kind of OLED displays are currently adopted in cars
• Why OLED lighting is exciting for car makers
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• A list of major OLED display makers and their products
• Several OLED lighting roadmaps
• Personal contact details into leading OLED display and lighting makers
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• Free updates for a year

I'm now offering this market report for a special launch price of $199.99 (for a single user license, site and enterprise licenses are available too). You can find out more information and download the report here.

This is my second report, the first one focused on OLED microdisplays.