We went along to see Tianma which was showing its first flexible OLED sample (pictured), a 5.46″ diagonal display with 720 x 1280 resolution (270ppi) and curvable at radiuses of 20mm. The company told us that it will develop rigid OLEDs first, to improve its production capabilities before switching to flexible production, probably in 2018. There was a rigid OLED of the same size and resolution as the flexible one that has 350 cd/m² of brightness and 10,000:1 contrast. The rigid display has integrated on-cell touch.
The company also had some products that are now in shipping products and we looked at a 1280 x 720 LCD with on-cell touch and is being sold to ZTE. Fossil is using a 1.5″ LTPS circular LCD display with 360 x 326 resolution in its Fossil Q watch. Tianma is also supplying a 12.1″ notebook panel with 2160 x 1440 resolution that is being sold “as an alternative to a Macbook” by Huawei. HTC’s One M9 uses a Tianma 5.2″ display with 1440 x 2560 resolution and is made on an LTPS substrate.
Consumer demand for better displays is increasing in China and Tianma had a 5.5″ FullHD LTPS LCD with 100% of the NTSC gamut and the company expects a continuing increase in demand for WCG panels.
Most of the other items were as we saw at CES (Tianma Addresses Mobile & Automotive Apps) including a 10.4″ 8K panel and the ‘quarter size’ 5.2″ UltraHD version. The firm was also highlighting its TED in-cell touch technology.
