LG Electronics will license webOS TV software platform development and adoption to other TV brands, with RCA, Ayonz and Konka the first of about 20 globally to sign on, said the manufacturer Wednesday. "By welcoming other manufacturers to join the webOS TV ecosystem,” LG is “embarking on a new path” that extends the features of LG TVs to non-LG brands, said Park Hyoung-sei, LG Home Entertainment president. LG’s strategy “signals consolidation” in smart TV operating platforms, speculated Strategy Analytics. WebOS TV has 7% share in the market for smart TV operating systems, behind Samsung’s Tizen, but ahead of Sony PlayStation, Amazon’s Fire TV OS, Roku TV OS and Google’s Android TV, said SA. “The rest of the market is highly fragmented, and LG’s move is likely to soak up some of the smaller players rather than having an impact on its major rivals,” SA said.

OLED materials and technology supplier Universal Display continues to make “excellent progress” in its “ongoing development work” to commercialize a blue phosphorescent system for large-screen TVs, said CEO Steve Abramson on a Q4 investor call Thursday. The R&D work yielded “advancements” in Universal’s prototype organic vapor jet printing (OVJP) technology for high-yield production of “maskless, solventless, dry direct printing of large-area OLED panels,” he said. The OVJP subsidiary that Universal created July 14 “is focused on scaling our novel technology platform into a commercial equipment system,” he said. The team’s first “milestone” is to develop an alpha prototype system, “anticipated to be ready during 2022,” he said. “We are seeing strong interest from customers and potential partners for our OVJP technology.” Universal expects to increase R&D spending by 25% this year, including “a significant investment in OVJP development,” said Chief Financial Officer Sid Rosenblatt. “We're hiring the teams right now” in California, said Abramson, suggesting Universal will remain quiet on OVJP progress until it achieves the alpha prototype milestone next year.

Panel maker AU Optronics managed in 2020 to swing to a $121 million profit from a year-earlier loss, despite numerous industry headwinds, said CEO Paul Peng on a Q4 investor call Thursday. Components supply is “very tight,” and the availability of display glass “has been in deficit,” said Peng. Three major display glass providers, Asahi, Corning and Nippon Electric, “have been experiencing some issues with their factories starting from last year, through the beginning of this year,” he said. There’s also the “factor” of a labor shortage that’s “especially severe” in China, he said. AUO has been promoting automated “smart manufacturing” for the past six years, “so we are less vulnerable” to labor shortages, “but we will still have to work harder to address the issues” of tight components supplies, he said. Demand amid the COVID-19 stay-at-home economy “has been quite strong” for larger-screen TVs with higher resolution, said Senior Vice President James Chen. AUO’s 85-inch TV panel shipments doubled year over year in 2020, as did 8K panels, he said.

The global market for AMOLED materials for all display applications is expected to rise at an 18% compound annual growth rate, reaching $2.46 billion in 2024, reported Display Supply Chain Consultants Thursday. Small and medium panels for mobile display applications will continue to generate more than 50% of all AMOLED material revenue through 2025, said DSCC. Materials revenue from AMOLED mobile applications is expected to increase at a 17% CAGR to $1.32 billion in 2024, while revenue from AMOLED TV and other large-screen applications will rise at a 19% CAGR to $1.14 billion, it said.

Retail demand for large-screen TVs “continues to grow,” with 75-inch set sales up more than 60% for full-year 2020, said Corning CEO Wendell Weeks on a Q4 investor call Wednesday. Corning’s Gen 10.5 glass plants in China, including the two newest Gen 10.5 facilities in Wuhan and Guangzhou, are optimized for 65- and 75-inch TVs, he said. Both plants “are now expanding production to meet customer demand,” he said. “Ramping these sites has been no small feat in the midst of a pandemic.” Corning engineering teams “rose to a host of unprecedented challenges to start-up tanks in both facilities,” he said.

Samsung Display will mass-produce 14-inch 90 Hz OLED laptop displays beginning in March, it said Wednesday. Most current laptops use 60 Hz panels, it said. In rendering static images 90 times a second, the displays make movements look smoother and more lifelike, said the company. OLED displays transition from one screen to the next more quickly than LCD screens with the same refresh rate, putting the 90Hz screens on par with 120 Hz displays, said the company. The 90 Hz OLED panels require a high-end graphics card.

Persistently strong demand plus fears about a glass shortage emanating from last month’s power outage at Nippon Electric Glass in Takatsuki, Japan (see 2012210039), are pushing LCD TV panel prices upward this quarter, reported Display Supply Chain Consultants Monday. Samsung Display’s decision delaying its year-end exit from LCD panel production in South Korea (see 2010290025) is doing little to abate the price hikes, said DSCC. The industry experienced “massive” Q4 price increases sequentially from Q3, ranging up to 38% in 32- to 55-inch panel sizes, said DSCC. More modest increases of 19% for 65-inch and 8% for 75-inch reflected higher plant utilization for Gen 10.5 panel production, it said. Average LCD TV panel prices in Q1 will increase by another 9%, it said.

Kopin will collaborate with Jade Bird Display of Shanghai to develop “superbright” 2Kx2K monochrome LED microdisplays, said the companies Thursday. Jade Bird will supply the LED wafers and bonding on Kopin-designed and supplied silicon backplane wafers, they said. LED microdisplays have the potential for “superhigh” brightness and low power consumption, making them ideal for augmented- and mix-reality applications, they said.

Samsung Display is expanding its OLED laptop display lineup to serve a growing volume market, said President Sung-chul Kim Monday, announcing half a dozen models for 2021. Kim referenced growing demand during the pandemic for telework, online education and gaming. The move to OLED mirrors Samsung’s shift from LCD to OLED displays in smartphones, Kim said: “We aim to increase our laptop OLED presence with greater consumer value, size diversity and technological innovation.” New OLED sizes are 13.4, 14 and 16 inches. The latest OLED display meets the Digital Cinema Initiatives P3 color standard at 100% and has a black level below the 0.0005-nit threshold, said the company.

Nanosys is “not quite ready to discuss in detail” its next generation of quantum dot enhancement film products called XQDEF, emailed Director-Marketing Jeff Yurek. ZhongSheng Luo, Nanosys general manager-Greater China, mentioned XQDEF in a talk at the virtual China International Display Conference last month, describing it as enabling lower-cost QD backlights without sacrificing QDEF’s efficiency or color performance, said Yurek. XQDEF products will be “similar to current-gen QDEF in that they are also deployed in LCD backlights but will have some advanced features and different form factors,” said Yurek. XQDEF is still under development, and “we haven’t shared any more specificity than that as products are not quite in the market yet,” said Yurek. Nanosys applied June 9 to trademark XQDEF (see 2006150039) for a class of goods fashioned from “chemicals, films, and plastics,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. A PTO examining attorney refused the application Sept. 19, citing the “likelihood of confusion” with a July 2011 trademark for XD, owned by the Dutch manufacturer TenCate for synthetic fibers used in the production of artificial turf. The examiner rejected XQDEF because of its “similarity” with the XD trademark and XD’s goods and trade channels. Nanosys has until mid-March to respond.