Applied Materials finished fiscal 2019 ended Oct. 27 with revenue down by about a third from the year earlier, as the company had forecast several quarters ago (see 1902150002). Applied supplies large-area deposition systems for LCD and OLED display manufacturing and can be a bellwether of display industry health. It expects fiscal 2020 revenue to stay “at similar levels as we bounce along the bottom of this market cycle,” said CEO Gary Dickerson on a Thursday call. “In this environment, our display business remains profitable even as we fund R&D for next-generation products. We still believe the display market provides good long-term growth opportunities for Applied as the industry becomes increasingly technology-intensive.” It sees “recovery” in the smartphone display business in the new year, “creating incremental growth for the company,” said Dickerson. Since many panel makers delayed their investments in new fabs, “there's a bit of inventory build on the TV side,” he said. “So as we look forward into 2020, we think there's going to be some incremental softness on the TV side that reflects all of the news that's out in the market to date.”

Apple’s likely introduction of an “all-OLED” iPhone lineup for September release would be the “largest opportunity” to boost “OLED market performance” in calendar 2020, said Coherent CEO John Ambroseo on a fiscal Q4 call Tuesday. Coherent supplies laser-based microelectronics to panel makers. Samsung Display “has the capacity in place” to fulfill the iPhone demand, said Ambroseo. It’s “widely known” that LG Display and BOE “are also vying for this business,” but they would need to pass “engineering and production qualifications no later than the middle of calendar 2020 to have a legitimate chance,” he said. Apple, LG and BOE didn’t respond to emails Wednesday seeking comment. An increasing number of smartphone SKUs from Chinese handset manufacturers “points to higher OLED output, mostly for rigid displays, but there has not been a watershed moment” in OLED production increases, said Ambroseo. It’s difficult to predict “the timing of future fab investments” because timing “has been and remains fluid,” he said. “We anticipate additional orders in the first half of the year that will cover our build plan for fiscal 2020" ending in September, he said.

The casings of three Best Buy Insignia smart TVs and three Hisense-built Toshiba-branded Amazon Fire TV sets tested positive for hazardous organohalogen flame retardants, alleged three green groups Thursday in a report they called "Toxic TV Binge." A few of the sets also had traces of decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) retardants that are banned in five states, they said. The sets contained retardants “at percentage levels by weight in the plastic” that made them “a significant portion of the product,” said Toxic-Free Future, the Mind the Store campaign and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. “These chemicals can migrate out of televisions and get into indoor air, household dust, and make their way into our bodies, posing risks to families and pets.” They bought the Insignia sets at a Best Buy store in Seattle where decaBDE is banned and the Toshiba TVs online from Amazon, they said. They sent samples of the plastic casings to a lab in Amsterdam for testing, they said. Best Buy didn’t respond to emails seeking comment, nor did Hisense and Amazon.

A newly launched “first of its kind” weekly database giving the complete toolsets and components used in virtually all display fabs in China is available from Display Supply Chain Consultants, said the research company Wednesday. The database also lists the toolsets’ suppliers and the quantity of units being delivered to the panel makers, it said. “These awards are typically issued before purchase orders are released, allowing analysts to not only track, but also predict company bookings.” Since display equipment typically “can be delivered more than a year after the awards are issued, it allows users to accurately forecast market share” up to 18 months in advance, said DSCC. An annual subscription to the database costs $6,999, but DSCC offers $1,000 discounts the first year for those who order by Nov. 2.

Global revenue for OLED TV display panels is expected to more than double to $7.5 billion in 2025, from $2.9 billion in 2019, said IHS Markit Wednesday. OLED TVs are “rapidly gaining share,” and will grow to be 20.6 percent of the market in 2025, from 8.6 percent in 2019, said IHS. OLED TV average selling prices are expected to begin declining in 2020 “due to increases in manufacturing capacity,” it said. “This will pave the way for much more widespread adoption.”

Global revenue for active-matrix OLED TV displays will increase to $7.5 billion in 2025, from $2.9 billion in 2019, reported IHS Markit Thursday. OLED TVs are “rapidly gaining share,” and expected to become 20.6 percent of the $36 billion global TV display market in 2025, up from 8.6 percent in 2019, said IHS. Higher average selling prices compared with LCD sets have hampered wider consumer adoption but are expected to begin declining due to increases in manufacturing capacity, it said.

Display Supply Chain Consultants forecasts industry display capacity rising at a 4 percent compound annual growth rate through 2025, including a 20 percent CAGR increase for OLED vs. 3 percent CAGR rise for LCD, said the researcher Monday. OLED’s share of display capacity will jump to 14 percent from 5 percent, “as new OLED fabs are built, some LCD fabs are converted to OLEDs and some LCD fabs are downsized or shut down,” it said.

Netgear announced its first digital canvas since buying Meural last year, bowing the brand’s Canvas II at IFA Friday. Two versions -- at 27 and 21 inches -- are designed to display artwork like originals as seen in a gallery or museum, said Netgear. The smaller frames are $399 and $499 depending on frame color; $599 and $699 in 27-inch models. The 16:9 frames automatically detect whether the art should be positioned in horizontal or landscape mode. An annual artwork subscription is $69, said the company, billing the “dynamic library of art” as a collection of over 30,000 works curated from leading museums, artists and image collections from around the world, including paintings from the Renaissance, Impressionist and modern periods, along with photographs. Subscribers can buy select works to own, and they can upload their own photos via SD card slot and USB port. On-display editing tools enable color adjustment and cropping to fit personal art to the display, it said. User interfaces include gesture, voice via an Amazon Echo device, desktop and mobile apps. Improvements in generation two are streamlined setup using a QR code for connection to a Wi-Fi network, a more energy-efficient canvas that uses 45 percent less power than the previous model, and an ambient light sensor to adjust screen illumination based on the lighting environment, Netgear said.

LG Display’s 8.5-generation OLED panel plant opened in Guangzhou, China, with an initial 60,000-sheet production capacity of 55-inch and larger panels, growing to 90,000 by 2021, it said Friday. The facility, operated by LG Display High-Tech China, will primarily produce 55-, 65- and 77-inch panels, it said. LG Display forecasts it will make more than 10 million OLED panels annually by 2022 from its operations in China and Paju, South Korea, including a 10.5-gen plant in Paju scheduled to open in 2022. Global OLED TV sales are expected to reach 5.5 million units this year, growing to 7.1 million units in 2021, it said, citing IHS Markit. Demand is being driven by a growing number of brands selling OLED TVs, now at 15 and expected to reach 16 next year when Vizio sets reach the market, LG said. Current LG Display customers include LG Electronics, Sony, Philips, Hisense, Skyworth, Changhong and Konka. The company expects its large-size OLED panel business to report its first annual profit this year.

Asus continued to shake up conventional laptop design Monday, introducing a high-end 15-inch model with ScreenPad Plus, a larger version of the secondary display it has employed in other ZenBook PCs. The 14-inch-wide ScreenPad Plus touch screen is positioned above the laptop’s keyboard and interacts with the 4K OLED HDR NanoEdge main display. Solid-state drive capacity is up to 1 terabyte; ports include a Thunderbolt 3-enabled USB Type-C, HDMI, two USB 3.1 type A and an audio jack. The array mic has Cortana and Alexa voice-recognition support working with a Harman Kardon-certified audio system. Connectivity includes 802.11ax Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. The 6.4-pound ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE comes in two versions based on an Intel i9 processor ($2,999) and Intel i7 processor ($2,499).