Itching to get you hands on a nice 30- or 40-inch OLED-TV? While you can pay $2,500 for Sony’s 11-inch OLED-TV here in the US (less in Japan), you’ll have to wait at least until 2010 before these larger OLED TVs hit the store shelves. The good news is that Sony announced today they will spend upwards of $203M "to accelerate development" for large OLED panels in the second half of next fiscal year (for Japanese companies, this runs April 1 through March 31). Sony’s target is to have full production technology in place by the end of fiscal 2009 (March 2010). The bad news is that a good chunk of this money is going to buy-out its partner and not in new plant and equipment.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

The Sony press report said the investment will "strengthen middle and large size OLED panel production technology" at the Aichi prefecture plant. Presumably, this means further development of the technology for deposition of the light-emitting layers, and for manufacturing low temperature polysilicon (LPTS) transistors at the former ST LCD Corp. facility. The company also reported they will focus on substrate panels in the 600 x 720mm size, (Gen3.5 to 4), the same size line ST LCD used to produce its 40K panels/month of the small (0.6 x 0.72-cm) displays primarily used for electronic viewfinders in camcorders.

Back in October, we reported that Sony agreed to consolidate two 50-50 joint ventures with Toyota Industries (yes the car maker). The plan was to merge ST Liquid Crystal Display corp. (STLCD) and ST Mobile Display Corp. (STMD) to form a new company. Sony and Toyota established the new company effective Dec. 1, with the Sony’s share at 86%, and Toyota Industries 14%. But Sony said they won’t stop there. Through a series of share purchase transactions, the company plans to make the facility a wholly owned subsidiary by the end of March 2009 - and this recent announcement coincides with that date.

But beyond the technology challenges and investment to overcome them, Sony still faces a formidable competitive challenge from rival (and S-LCD partner) Samsung. In January, the company stole much of Sony’s OLED thunder at CES, displaying two new OLED TV panels in 14- and 31-inch sizes, and a whopping full HD (1920×1080) resolution. Samsung, also recently reported making a second phase investment of $506M (more than twice Sony) to double monthly OLED production capacity to 3M units this year (for small cell phone sized displays.)

Last month, Nicolas Mokhoff wrote in EE Times about the intense OLED technology rivalry building between the two companies and their different approaches in going to market. Samsung will continue to manufacture and sell small OLED displays for cell phones, while Sony turns its focus on OLED-TVs (if you count an 11-inch display as a bona fide TV.) He cited Samsung dominance in the OLED space with a quote from iSuppli analyst Vinita Jakhanwal, "…the market for Samsung’s displays is more tangible: The units have already been used in five products", said Jakhanwal. Phone companies in Japan are using AMOLED displays made by Samsung SDI, and Nokia also offers a phone that uses the company’s displays. Jakhanwal reported that iSuppli gives Samsung 70% of the 10M unit, $225M market today for AMOLEDs and Samsung is the only company making AMOLEDs for mobile phones.

But that is about to change. LPL, which recently merged AM OLED lines from LG Electronics, also plans AM OLED investment. According to the Korea Times, a spokesperson from LPL said, "We are considering building a new plant for AM OLEDs. The announcement will be made no later than June. A recent decision to change the company name to LG Displays reflects our goals for a bigger presence in the next-generation display market."

Other companies expected in the OLED space before 2010 include TPO Display Corp. (JV between Toppoly Optoelectronics Corp. and Philips MDS), and Taiwan based CMO (Chi Mei Optronics).

It seems like Sony is quite determined to get back on top of TV technology and the technology de jour is OLED. The company is pursuing its vision of next generation large screen TV production and pouring billions of yen into the venture - and for now coming up a bit shy of the goal. Its expensive XEL-1 is little more than an 11-inch proof of concept device that gives Sony bragging rights to "first-to-market." This gamble may pay-off for Sony but the "safe" money is on Samsung working the technology in areas that produce more substantial revenue like small sized displays for cell phones and other mobile devices. This also makes sense as these device have a much shorter product life than a TV, making them a better match for the somewhat limited lifetimes of AM OLEDs today. Quoting Gus from Charlie Wilson’s War, "…we’ll see"

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