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LG Display at CES 2018
January 15, 2018 Perhaps nothing was more breathtaking or eye-popping than LG Electronic’s 92-foot-long “LG OLED Canyon”. The installation featured a 246 LG Open Frame OLED displays, in concave and convex configurations. Figure 1: LG’s OLED Canyon 
Perhaps nothing was more breathtaking or eye-popping than LG Electronic’s 92-foot-long “LG OLED Canyon”. The installation featured a 246 LG Open Frame OLED displays, in concave and convex configurations.
Figure 2: LG’s OLED Canyon Ceiling 
Source: LG Display
But the most dramatic and creative display technology was the 65” Rollable TV that LG Display showed in its private suite. Figure 3: LG Display’s Rollable TV 
Source: LG Display
Here is the rollable TV undressed! The roll is fairly large and LG intends to miniaturize it. They will also make a version that rolls down as well as up, with the idea to replace all the projectors now being sold. However, the 65” will have to grow to ~110” so we’ll have to wait until their Gen 10.5 fab in Paju is completed. Figure 4: LG Display’s Rollable TV in the Raw 
Source: LG Display
LG also demonstrated an 88” 8K OLED, which features a 7,680 by 4,320 resolution and marks what the company called its “commitment to lead the high-end premium TV market.” We are barely able to provide 4K content but the point is that OLEDs are not limited in resolution and will grow as the industry grows. Figure 5: LG Display’s 88” 8K OLED 
Source: LG Display
LG Display is jointly developing OLED panels for center fascia, including dashboards for new models with Mercedes Benz, which they showed privately. They are developing them for models that will be launched in 2022." LG Display is already supplying automobile display panels to Daimler, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and GM among others but there are no cars with OLED panels. LG demonstrated automotive displays that they claim passed a critical milestone operating effectively for >2,000 hours at 85° C. Having met that spec, LG can now provide OLED displays to the auto industry. Daimler has been maintaining a solid partnership with LG Display to the extent that the former selected the latter as an OLED tail lamp supplier for new cars. "Daimler is active in employing OLEDs because the automaker is trying to keep its leading position in the future car market," said the official. “Recently, automakers have preferred to install their own built-in center fascia display panels rather than attaching tablets. We expect that demand for automotive OLEDs will increase as they have advantages in terms of design." OLEDs tend to use less power in automotive applications because in most uses, the background is black as demonstrated in the next figure. Samsung Display also demonstrated OLEDs for automotive applications and reported that their displays also met the 85° C spec. Figure 6: LG Display’s Center Fascia 
Source: LG Display
The automotive and truck industry has become a hot market as some vehicles may have 5-10 displays and in the future as shown by the Byton concept car and the Mercedes, the display may grow to as large as 50” in diagonal, replacing most of the one off indicators. Statistica indicates that in 2017, annual vehicles were 94.6m, which is expected to grow to over 100m by 2022. While the automobile might not challenge TVs for the #1 position in large area displays, they could end up being #2 in area replacing monitors and notebooks, which tend to be contracting Y/Y. Figure 7: Automotive Shipments 2000-2016 
Source: Statista
Innolux wants to take a part of the automotive market as it losses share in the TV segment and exhibited the world’s first AM mailed automotive panel. Innolux first initiated the idea of “miniLED” in 2017 and premiered the 10.1 inch AM miniLED product with thousands local dimming zones in 2018 CES exhibition. Mr. Chin-Lung Ting, Executive Vice President of Technology Development Center explained that the display saved a lot of extra components when compared to traditional LED backlighted miniLED. AM MiniLED featured better performance with a more competitive price. Innolux’s AM miniLED automotive panel claims to offer OLED-level contrast ratio and comparable sharpness without the drawbacks of limited temperature range and the brightness could be multiple times of OLED’s with the help of accurate electric current calibration. Flexible backplanes, an OLED staple with AM miniLED backlight will be the next goal with free-shaped/curved LCD to satisfy the design and appearance of future concept vehicles. |
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