LG Display applied Feb. 9 to register the trademark “ROLED,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. LG Display filed a similar application Jan. 15 with South Korean trademark authorities, said the PTO filing. Bob O’Brien, president of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), thinks the ROLED term applies to rollable OLED, he told us. The panel maker at CES showcased prototypes of a 65-inch Ultra HD OLED that can be rolled up and hidden when not in use. The rolled-up screen’s small size “means that it can be more easily moved and stored, allowing for better space utilization, something existing displays can’t deliver,” it said on the eve of the Las Vegas show. O’Brien saw the CES demo but came away with doubts that “there's much of a market for a rollable TV,” he said. At the show, LG Display representatives “seemed to be poking around at possible uses,” he said. DSCC thinks “the likely first major application for truly flexible displays will be foldable smartphones,” not large-screen TVs that hang on the wall and roll up for easy storage, he said. DSCC CEO Ross Young said a case can be made that a rollable OLED screen “can certainly reduce logistics costs” when placed in a shipping container. As TVs “get even bigger,” a rollable OLED also “can make it more easily delivered into spaces which are hard to get into now,” such as small elevators and tight stairwells, he said. But rollable OLEDs are sure to command a hefty price “premium” over non-rollable OLED displays, and that could well become “an issue” impeding their adoption, said Young. LG Display representatives didn’t comment.

Samsung and Apple didn’t respond to a Tuesday report Samsung will slash production of OLED panels at its plant in South Chungcheong, South Korea, in response to an Apple plan cutting iPhone X output due to weak demand. Nikkei Asian Review reported Samsung Display will produce panels for 20 million or fewer iPhones in Q1, down from an estimated 45 million-50 million. The new target will reduce plant production to 60 percent of the original plan, and 50 percent or less in the facility dedicated to Apple devices, it said. Samsung is looking to offset the impact by securing orders with Chinese and other customers, it said.

Nanosys landed a trademark registration Tuesday for the commercial name Hyperion to describe the low-cadmium quantum dots technology the company unveiled at the 2016 Display Week conference (see 1605240002), a Patent and Trademark Office certificate showed. Nanosys claims Hyperion helps a quantum-dot TV achieve 90 percent or more of the colorimetry in the BT.2020 spec, matching the color performance of the industry’s best cadmium-based quantum-dot materials without requiring regulatory safety exemptions. Hyperion had its first commercial use in December, said the PTO certificate. Nanosys applied for the trademark in May 2016, said PTO records.

Universal Display announced long-term OLED material supply and license agreements with Samsung Display. Under the agreements, Universal Display will continue to supply its UniversalPHOLED phosphorescent OLED materials and technology to Samsung for use in its OLED displays through Dec. 31, 2022, it said Wednesday.

Universal Display and Sharp entered into an updated and extended evaluation agreement for UniversalPholed phosphorescent OLED materials and technology to be incorporated in Sharp OLED displays, said the companies Wednesday. “OLED technology is paving extraordinary paths for cutting-edge consumer display products,” said Universal Display CEO Steven Abramson.

BenQ bowed a $749 1080p home theater projector to be sold through Best Buy, Projector People and Fry's. The HT2050A is geared to gamers and home theater enthusiasts with a 6x speed RGBRGB color wheel said to achieve more than 96 percent of the ITU-R Recommendation BT.709 standard for color accuracy. The 3D-capable projector comes with a 10-watt CinemaMaster Audio+ 2 speaker tuned for immersive, bass-forward audio and claims a 16.67-millisecond input lag and game mode. Inputs include two HDMI ports, including one with mobile high-definition link for streaming content from a smartphone or tablet, it said.

IHS Markit sees 2018 as the year when most TV panel suppliers will begin mass-producing 8K displays, it said in a report. IHS estimates 4K panels had more than 89 percent of the 60-inch and larger display market, it said. With that magnitude of 4K entrenchment, the migration to 8K will be gradual, it said. It forecasts 8K will make up only 1 percent of the 60-inch and larger display market in 2018, growing to only 9 percent in 2020. With 4K having “rapidly replaced” 1080p in the largest consumer screen sizes, “panel makers are willing to supply differentiated products with higher resolution and improve profit margin with premium products,” said IHS. Samsung and Sony will drive the 8K TV market at the start, with both planning to release “flagship 8K TV models in 2018,” it said. In so doing, Samsung and Sony will consume almost all the available supply of 120-Hz 8K panels from Innolux, AU Optronics and Samsung Display, with sizes varying from 65 to 85 inches. it said. At CES, Sony demoed a prototype of X1 Ultimate picture processor on an 8K display to showcase real-time processing of 8K HDR content at a peak brightness of 10,000 nits. In Las Vegas, Samsung featured the world’s first QLED TV that uses artificial intelligence to upscale standard definition content to 8K resolution, saying the technology will be launched internationally, starting with Korea and the U.S., during the second half of 2018.

Two tech firms landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for using magnesium oxide (MgO) as what they call a “breakthrough material” for enhancing the performance of thin-film transistors that drive the pixels in most consumer displays. The patent (9,856,578), which describes “methods of producing large grain or single crystal films,” was based on an April 2014 application and was assigned to Solar-Tectic and Blue Wave Semiconductors and names Ratnakar Vispute, Blue Wave’s owner, and Andrew Seiser, systems/process engineer, as the inventors. MgO thin films “have assumed significant importance in recent times” as a protective layer on the glass used in consumer displays and as an “intermediate buffer layer” between a semiconductor substrate and a ferroelectric film used in chip production, says the patent. As an insulating material, MgO “is not only highly transparent, but also has very high thermal conductivity, high thermal stability, and a high melting point,” said Solar-Tectic and Blue Wave in a Tuesday statement. “Perhaps most importantly, however, the new material has an unusual orientation which can enhance the preferred orientations of silicon and germanium.”

Wisconsin “is open for business and stronger than ever,” said Gov. Scott Walker (R) Wednesday in a “2017 in review” wrap-up that mentioned nothing about the huge Foxconn display fab project he helped spearhead (see 1707270017). “This year alone, 59 businesses worked with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to expand or relocate their operations to our state,” said Walker, who plans to seek a third term as Wisconsin governor in 2018. “That translates to over $11.6 billion in capital investment and a planned creation or retention of nearly 30,000 jobs.” Walker’s plan to offer up to $3 billion in cash incentives to lure Foxconn to Wisconsin is highly unpopular in the state, a Marquette University Law School poll of 1,200 adult residents found in October.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) said Monday it defined an open standard specifying high dynamic range quality for laptop and desktop monitors’ displays. The standard initially addresses LCD panels, which are 99 percent of the market, with the first release of the spec, DisplayHDR v1.0, establishing three levels of HDR system performance designated by 400 (baseline), 600 (midrange) and 1000 (high end), VESA said. The levels are certified using eight parameters and tests: three peak luminance tests involving different scenarios -- small spot/high luminance, brief period full-screen flash luminance, and optimized use in bright environments; two contrast measurement tests -- one for native panel contrast and one for local dimming; color testing of both the BT.709 and DCI-P3 color gamuts; bit-depth requirement tests, which stipulate a minimum bit depth; and an HDR response performance test for backlight responsiveness in gaming and rapid-action movies, which analyzes the speed at which the backlight can respond to changes in luminance levels, said VESA. The association chose 400 nits as the DisplayHDR spec’s starting point because it's 50 percent brighter than typical standard dynamic range laptop displays, and the bit depth is true 8-bit vs. the 6-bit rating of most SDR laptop displays that use dithering to simulate 8-bit video, said Roland Wooster, Intel platform manager and chairman of the DisplayHDR VESA task group. The DisplayHDR 400 spec requires HDR10 support and global dimming at a minimum, said Wooster, and the tiered spec enables PC makers to have “consistent, measurable” HDR performance parameters. Consumers will be able to view an HDR rating number “that is meaningful and will reflect actual performance." VESA expects future releases to address OLED and other display technologies as they become more common, as well as the addition of higher levels of HDR performance.