So who, beyond LG, will make OLED Tv panels? It’s such an interesting situation that smartphone OLEDs and Tv OLEDs are so different that while Samsung has tried, and failed, to make Tv panel size OLEDs, LG has been trying to make smartphone sized OLED panels, but they’re still terrible.
Both Samsung and Sharp are planning to start OLED production in 2020-2021. I'm sure there will be 1-2 Chinese manufacturers as well, but might join the market later in 2022-2023.
Incorrect today; that was their stance until they now realized OLED dominance in the high-end TV market and will be making QD-OLED panels in addition to their existing portfolio.
QD-OLED is true per-pixel emissive, not a backlit panel technology like LCD. In fact, it's similar to LG's WOLED TVs in that it uses a single color for the OLED emitters (blue, in the case of QD-OLED, vs. white for WOLED), and then employs color converters to make the other colors. WOLED uses traditional red, green and blue color filters for each colored subpixel (plus an unfiltered white subpixel to increase peak brightness), whereas QD-OLED uses quantum dot color converters for red and green subpixels, leaving the blue OLED unconverted for the blue subpixels.
Samsung makes OLED panels for phones, but they use a different diamond subpixel structure with a GGRB alignment while their OLED TV panels used a traditional RGB subpixel structure, like an LCD TV does, though slightly different with a larger blue subpixel. LG uses a WRGB OLED subpixel structure, which is basically a white pixel for luminance boosting, and RGB pixels through filtering. For a true RGB OLED, you'd need to have one of the Sony BVM displays before they moved to a dual-layer LCD design.
Samsung can't do the WRGB OLED design because it uses patents that LG owns, and no one can seem to do RGB OLED subpixels at scale (that Sony BVM was $45,000 for a 30" display), though they would offer high peak light output and better color saturation in highlights if they can pull it off.
kinda scary really, if LG goes bust for some reason, oled prices would blow up. So much hardware is dependent on a straight supply chain that it can effect a market like crazy. Remember the whole RAM prices craziness a few years back.
Its not as if LG has lots of OLED tv sitting around to, they often sell out during holidays for discounts they get. Which is not a good sign if something went wrong with LG as a company.
I know what you think to "Oh they won't ever go under, someone will buy them out, or something to keep running". Not really, these places operate under a ROI strategy, its not always a appealing purchase for anyone.
> Kinda scary really, if LG goes bust for some reason, oled prices would blow up
It's much more likely that Chinese manufacturers will push both LG and Sharp out of the market. Only Samsung has a shot to survive the Chinese invasion.
The interesting thing is that panasonic had a joint venture to make oleds. Now that there is money to be made, maybe again? Funny about Samsung and LG. Takes different expertise to make different size oleds. Like needing to reinvent the wheel going from a size 24 jeans to a size 36.
-->Japanese company cant compete against south korean and chinese manufacturers -->Japanese company announces it will pull out of market -->market downturn occurred during 2010s, when obama administration was in power -->muh trump. -->muh russia
Kindly STFU. Take your trump derangement syndrome to Reddit where it belongs. This has nothing to do with trump, or politics in general. This is simply the business of Western countries being unable to compete with sweatshop working conditions and lack of environmental protections or regulations in general provided by china's oppressive communist government. Such "oligarch market economics" exist in socialist Europe, communist china, and capitalist USA, and have existed for decades regardless of political ideology.
As long as people prefer paying as little as possible for electronics and other goods, this will only continue to occur.
You can't fix a problem if you choose to ignore it. Trump claims that tariffing up our sphincters *will* fix the problem. He says so. Don't you believe him? Just because other countries support oligarch market economics doesn't mean we should. If you believe that excessive market concentration causes bad results in prices of goods and services, then do something about it. Just claiming that "it's always been this way", doesn't fix the problem. Tariffs haven't either.
*You can't fix a problem if you choose to ignore it*
You should take your own advice. A globalized market means you are competing with the lowest bidder. If an oppressive communist regime runs one of those countries, where you can pay $1 a day to get labor done, then your $15 an hour western labor will never be cost effective. Welcome to global economics 101.
There are ways to fix this. Refusing to trade with said oppressive countries would make it significantly easier for your native industries to compete. Placing tariffs on their goods to negate their slave labor wage rates also works. The country in question could also raise their own living standards to the equivalent of western countries, but you cant do that with the CCP in power.
This problem existed long before trump was elected, affects more then just the USA, and will exist as long as the post industrial western world continues to trade freely with underdeveloped asian countries that work for pennies.
You should write up an example of how you would fix this problem while maintaining open trade with asia's $2 a day labor rates, since you seem to know so much better then any president or administration in history.
"The country in question could also raise their own living standards to the equivalent of western countries, but you cant do that with the CCP in power."
Modern China and it's half-billion-strong newly-minted middle class would like to disagree with you. Downtown Beijing looks like downtown NY. Wage rates in BJ, Shanghai are already close to Western.
"The country in question could also raise their own living standards to the equivalent of western countries, but you cant do that with the CCP in power." It depends on how exactly you define "living standards", or more specifically to whom these standards apply. China used to have a small filthy rich minority, a huge piss poor majority and barely no middle class between them. Today the filthy rich minority remains but they also have a very sizable middle class.
For these hundreds of millions of people the living standards *were* raised roughly to the equivalent of western countries. However these are not the people who work at Chinese factories (well, many of them do, but as managers or engineers, not as workers). The piss poor people of China are now fewer but there are still hundreds of millions of them.
It is still not possible to raise the living standards (to at least a Western middle class level) for *everyone*. If it was China's GDP would have not only surpassed that of the US (that will happen rather soon) but it would be 4 to 5 times as high, which is ridiculous. That might happen in two to three decades but it cannot happen today. It is not as undesirable as you think though. When/if that happens China will be by far the richest country in the world, and so they will have no trouble to import workers from poorer countries.
Tariffs have contained the problem for dozens other countries for many many decades. Now that Trump does it, hes the bad guy? You have no clue whatsoever and just follow the hypocritical propaganda cries of said countries.
False equivalency. I didnt tell him to bow out of politics, just his Trump Derangement Syndrome. Blaming a single man for an economic situation is a waste of oxygen. No different then those that blindly follow Trump or any other president and consider his actions Gospel.
I have provided rebuttals for his arguments. The best response to a bad argument is a good argument.
They should have gone into gaming panels. Lots of profit there. If they would only have higher QC standards than AUO or LG, which are very low, they would steamroll that market.
But I guess for neoliberalism OLED is the future. They need to be replaced often, so you wont have many people keeping them for 10 years or more and you wont have to push many new features that are only added to make it look better than the last generation.
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melgross - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
So who, beyond LG, will make OLED Tv panels? It’s such an interesting situation that smartphone OLEDs and Tv OLEDs are so different that while Samsung has tried, and failed, to make Tv panel size OLEDs, LG has been trying to make smartphone sized OLED panels, but they’re still terrible.vladx - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Both Samsung and Sharp are planning to start OLED production in 2020-2021. I'm sure there will be 1-2 Chinese manufacturers as well, but might join the market later in 2022-2023.lioncat55 - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Wait, Samsung doesn't make OLED panels?vladx - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Specifically TV panels, they stopeed when they realised it was too expensive and will start production again after 2020.lilkwarrior - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Incorrect today; that was their stance until they now realized OLED dominance in the high-end TV market and will be making QD-OLED panels in addition to their existing portfolio.mantikos - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
Which are just quantum dot LED TVs with OLED backlighting as discussed here on Anandtech previouslysubtec - Saturday, November 30, 2019 - link
QD-OLED is true per-pixel emissive, not a backlit panel technology like LCD. In fact, it's similar to LG's WOLED TVs in that it uses a single color for the OLED emitters (blue, in the case of QD-OLED, vs. white for WOLED), and then employs color converters to make the other colors. WOLED uses traditional red, green and blue color filters for each colored subpixel (plus an unfiltered white subpixel to increase peak brightness), whereas QD-OLED uses quantum dot color converters for red and green subpixels, leaving the blue OLED unconverted for the blue subpixels.limitedaccess - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
They make smaller panels for use in smartphones, tablets and laptops but not larger one for use in TVs.Sivar - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
They make small OLED screens for mobile phones, but to the best of my knowledge they have focused entirely on LCD for television-sized panels.cheinonen - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Samsung makes OLED panels for phones, but they use a different diamond subpixel structure with a GGRB alignment while their OLED TV panels used a traditional RGB subpixel structure, like an LCD TV does, though slightly different with a larger blue subpixel. LG uses a WRGB OLED subpixel structure, which is basically a white pixel for luminance boosting, and RGB pixels through filtering. For a true RGB OLED, you'd need to have one of the Sony BVM displays before they moved to a dual-layer LCD design.Samsung can't do the WRGB OLED design because it uses patents that LG owns, and no one can seem to do RGB OLED subpixels at scale (that Sony BVM was $45,000 for a 30" display), though they would offer high peak light output and better color saturation in highlights if they can pull it off.
lilkwarrior - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Samsung will be doing QD-OLED starting next year.Santoval - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Samsung do not (yet) manufacture OLED TV panels.melgross - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
We’ll see how that turns out. I’m a bit skeptical right now.mantikos - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
Sharp is a Chinese manufacturer now...has been for a whileimaheadcase - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
kinda scary really, if LG goes bust for some reason, oled prices would blow up. So much hardware is dependent on a straight supply chain that it can effect a market like crazy. Remember the whole RAM prices craziness a few years back.Its not as if LG has lots of OLED tv sitting around to, they often sell out during holidays for discounts they get. Which is not a good sign if something went wrong with LG as a company.
I know what you think to "Oh they won't ever go under, someone will buy them out, or something to keep running". Not really, these places operate under a ROI strategy, its not always a appealing purchase for anyone.
vladx - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
> Kinda scary really, if LG goes bust for some reason, oled prices would blow upIt's much more likely that Chinese manufacturers will push both LG and Sharp out of the market. Only Samsung has a shot to survive the Chinese invasion.
MamiyaOtaru - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
"So who, beyond LG, will make OLED Tv panels?"...Panasonic. Like it says in the article. "the company will continue offering OLED televisions."
notashill - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Panasonic has never made OLED panels. They just make televisions using LG's panels (because those are the only ones that exist).Santoval - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Take note of the precise wording : "OLED televisions" does not equate with "OLED panels for televisions".Blaab1 - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
The interesting thing is that panasonic had a joint venture to make oleds. Now that there is money to be made, maybe again? Funny about Samsung and LG. Takes different expertise to make different size oleds. Like needing to reinvent the wheel going from a size 24 jeans to a size 36.haukionkannel - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
This is bad... less companies to produce screens... less competition = higher prices...FunBunny2 - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
welcome to oligarch market economics. vote Trump. he'll fix it with help from his Russian Friends.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
-->Japanese company cant compete against south korean and chinese manufacturers-->Japanese company announces it will pull out of market
-->market downturn occurred during 2010s, when obama administration was in power
-->muh trump.
-->muh russia
Kindly STFU. Take your trump derangement syndrome to Reddit where it belongs. This has nothing to do with trump, or politics in general. This is simply the business of Western countries being unable to compete with sweatshop working conditions and lack of environmental protections or regulations in general provided by china's oppressive communist government. Such "oligarch market economics" exist in socialist Europe, communist china, and capitalist USA, and have existed for decades regardless of political ideology.
As long as people prefer paying as little as possible for electronics and other goods, this will only continue to occur.
FunBunny2 - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
"Kindly STFU. "You can't fix a problem if you choose to ignore it. Trump claims that tariffing up our sphincters *will* fix the problem. He says so. Don't you believe him? Just because other countries support oligarch market economics doesn't mean we should. If you believe that excessive market concentration causes bad results in prices of goods and services, then do something about it. Just claiming that "it's always been this way", doesn't fix the problem. Tariffs haven't either.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
*You can't fix a problem if you choose to ignore it*You should take your own advice. A globalized market means you are competing with the lowest bidder. If an oppressive communist regime runs one of those countries, where you can pay $1 a day to get labor done, then your $15 an hour western labor will never be cost effective. Welcome to global economics 101.
There are ways to fix this. Refusing to trade with said oppressive countries would make it significantly easier for your native industries to compete. Placing tariffs on their goods to negate their slave labor wage rates also works. The country in question could also raise their own living standards to the equivalent of western countries, but you cant do that with the CCP in power.
This problem existed long before trump was elected, affects more then just the USA, and will exist as long as the post industrial western world continues to trade freely with underdeveloped asian countries that work for pennies.
You should write up an example of how you would fix this problem while maintaining open trade with asia's $2 a day labor rates, since you seem to know so much better then any president or administration in history.
gfkBill - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
"The country in question could also raise their own living standards to the equivalent of western countries, but you cant do that with the CCP in power."Modern China and it's half-billion-strong newly-minted middle class would like to disagree with you. Downtown Beijing looks like downtown NY. Wage rates in BJ, Shanghai are already close to Western.
Santoval - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
"The country in question could also raise their own living standards to the equivalent of western countries, but you cant do that with the CCP in power."It depends on how exactly you define "living standards", or more specifically to whom these standards apply. China used to have a small filthy rich minority, a huge piss poor majority and barely no middle class between them. Today the filthy rich minority remains but they also have a very sizable middle class.
For these hundreds of millions of people the living standards *were* raised roughly to the equivalent of western countries. However these are not the people who work at Chinese factories (well, many of them do, but as managers or engineers, not as workers). The piss poor people of China are now fewer but there are still hundreds of millions of them.
It is still not possible to raise the living standards (to at least a Western middle class level) for *everyone*. If it was China's GDP would have not only surpassed that of the US (that will happen rather soon) but it would be 4 to 5 times as high, which is ridiculous. That might happen in two to three decades but it cannot happen today. It is not as undesirable as you think though. When/if that happens China will be by far the richest country in the world, and so they will have no trouble to import workers from poorer countries.
Beaver M. - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
Tariffs have contained the problem for dozens other countries for many many decades.Now that Trump does it, hes the bad guy? You have no clue whatsoever and just follow the hypocritical propaganda cries of said countries.
melgross - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
Uh, you need to bow out of the politics as well, you’re no better than him.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
False equivalency. I didnt tell him to bow out of politics, just his Trump Derangement Syndrome. Blaming a single man for an economic situation is a waste of oxygen. No different then those that blindly follow Trump or any other president and consider his actions Gospel.I have provided rebuttals for his arguments. The best response to a bad argument is a good argument.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - link
I agree. The only way to make western production profitable would be to produce a notably superior product. But the south koreans have this down pat.Sadly, panasonic has been struggling for years now, and hasnt been able to find a notable feature to pull them away form the rest of the market.
Beaver M. - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
They should have gone into gaming panels. Lots of profit there. If they would only have higher QC standards than AUO or LG, which are very low, they would steamroll that market.But I guess for neoliberalism OLED is the future. They need to be replaced often, so you wont have many people keeping them for 10 years or more and you wont have to push many new features that are only added to make it look better than the last generation.