Samsung SDI will begin mass production of active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays on October 1, three months ahead of the previously announced start date of January ‘07, according to a story in today’s The Electronics Times.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor
of MDTV Retailer

ET reported an unidentified "top executive of the company" as saying, "At the end of June this year, when installation of major facilities including crystallization and photo equipment is completed, the framework for starting mass production will be about 70 - 80% completed." The executive went on to say that Samsung SDI would announce its AMOLED business strategy in November. The strategy will include a brand for SDI’s AMOLED displays.

Samsung SDI will not be the first to company to adopt a branding strategy for its AMOLED displays. In 2003, with great fanfare, Dupont rolled out the "Olight" brand for its ambitiously planned family of OLED displays, and Kodak launched "NuVue." Both efforts were premature as commercial endeavors, and both companies now have more modest programs centered around technologies, materials and components rather than finished displays. DuPont has removed the Olight brand from its OLED web pages, but Kodak retains NuVue. Indeed, the NuVue AM550L AMOLED display, with complete specifications, can still be found on the Kodak website, even though the joint venture with Sanyo that once manufactured this display no longer exists.

Samsung SDI, however, approaches its roll-out of AMOLED displays at a time when materials, structures and processes are far more mature. The company’s $450M manufacturing plant in Cheonan will have an annual capacity of 20M 2.0- to 2.6-inch displays fabricated on Gen 4 substrates (730×920mm), Lee Woo-Jong, vice president of Samsung SDI’s Mobile Display Business, said earlier this year. Lee identified the major target application as "digital multimedia broadcasting-enabled phones."

Samsung SDI is a licensee of Universal Display Corp. (Ewing, NJ; www.universaldisplay.com ), which developed the phosphorescent OLED materials Samsung used to make an early prototype cell-phone display. This was the first of its kind to be more efficient than an equivalent LCD. Although UDC will not confirm it, it is reasonable to speculate that materials made or licensed by UDC will be incorporated in the displays that begin rolling off Samsungs Gen 4 AMOLED line in October.