Monday, May 7th 2018
AU Optronics Sees Increased High-End Panel Demand, Naturally Increases Output
It's true, it seems: as time passes, technology becomes cheaper, the entry point becomes lower, more people can acquire more products, demand balloons, and supply tries to keep up. The fundamentals sine right through AU Optronics' choice to increase output on panels that are apparently flying from their inventory: high-end LTPS notebook panels, for one, are selling like hot cakes. The reason is simple: LTPS (low-temperature polycrystalline silicon) can better sustain higher resolution panels with higher vibrancy and accurate color reproduction, but deteriorates faster than IPS LCD panels. So, it serves two purposes (though they'll never tell you about the second): better specs and increased, built-in obsolescence: a traditional feature in the world of capitalism.
Besides LTPS, 4K panels have increased their momentum (planned adoption rates for 2018 are being set at 40%, 10% over 2017's 30% attachment rate), 75-85" panel sales have more than tripled since the beginning of 2018, and 8K panels will start being shipped (in relatively small volumes) in the first quarter of this year. AU Optronics has also increased fabrication of 240 Hz screens for manufacturers that then use their panels on premium products, such as Acer, Asustek Computer, BenQ, ViewSonic, AOC and Philips.
Source:
DigiTimes
Besides LTPS, 4K panels have increased their momentum (planned adoption rates for 2018 are being set at 40%, 10% over 2017's 30% attachment rate), 75-85" panel sales have more than tripled since the beginning of 2018, and 8K panels will start being shipped (in relatively small volumes) in the first quarter of this year. AU Optronics has also increased fabrication of 240 Hz screens for manufacturers that then use their panels on premium products, such as Acer, Asustek Computer, BenQ, ViewSonic, AOC and Philips.
12 Comments on AU Optronics Sees Increased High-End Panel Demand, Naturally Increases Output
-4K,
-10bit color panels with very good coverage,
-HDR600+ certified,
-have a variable refresh rate of something like 35-75/80Hz (be it G-Sync or Freesync2)
-and have a size between 30-38" ?
LTPS really isn't that fantastic
MicroLED is brand new tech that's just barely getting off the ground, and almost entirely thanks to the commercialization of Quantum Dot tech. Give it 5-ish years and it should be ready for mass-market adoption in phones at the very least (microLED yields being high enough, basically.. the qdot layer has already been solved by just applying good ol' inkjet printer tech to the problem). MicroLED tech is inherently a better display tech than OLED, since it has all the benefits of being an emissive display tech like OLED, but doesn't have the burn-in or maximum brightness limitations that OLED has.
As @Gungar said, microLED is coming for them all, and it can't arrive soon enough!
OLED does not require higher brightness values, because it can still achieve extreme static contrast ratio, and in a more pleasant to look at way by producing true blacks. Its an obvious case of marketing spin: in fact it is non-OLED tech that NEEDS the higher brightness to fit into recent (HDR) standards. The pleasure (not) of looking at 600-1000 nits comes after that ;)
That's the whole thing: microled really is just 'making existing tech smaller'. That is all it is. And Samsung's current achievements are nothing to write home about, even on their 'Wall' sized displays they have visible gaps between the leds that stand out when displaying darker tones. The image quality isn't quite there yet either.
I really do hope microled takes off because its more durable than OLED and promising in that sense, but Samsung's research into it is stagnant, and honestly, for obvious reasons. High cost + lots of individual points of failure and simply impossible to manufacture at such microscopic sizes and with good yields. There are good reasons why nobody else ventured into this earlier, its not like this is a new idea.
You have to understand why Samsung is pushing this tech so hard, just like the horrible attempt they made with QLED, they have already lost quite a few display battles to LG now and cannot afford to lose more, so the solutions they target are becoming more and more radical. That is why I say: I'll believe it when I see it.
As for the LED array displays.. have you looked at one up close? There's a limit to how small you can make a traditional LED, and it's nowhere near small enough to be fit into something like a 30" 4K or 8K display.
PS: The LG OLED TVs sorta cheat for their high brightness levels by using a pure White OLED panel under filters, with 4 subpixels (1R, 1G, 1B, 1white for brightness boosting). Phones also cheat: by leaning on the fact that they're mostly screen-off, they can allow themselves to be driven to really high brightness levels (450-700nits, depending on implemtation) without as much burn in as, say, a desktop monitor.Much like how transistors were just making existing tech (vacuum tubes) smaller, the whole point is making it smaller so it can be used better - in this case moving from an arbitrary light in the middle of empty space to a giant wall-sized display, and later on to smaller monitors and screens. Just give it time: development has basically just started thanks to Qdots making it viable at all (much easier to make a panel of only blue LEDs than a panel of mixed red, blue and green LEDs.. so they claim anyways).Much like pretty much any other nanoscale transistor fabrication, just give it time to mature. I mean, not 3 even years ago 10/7nm transistors were being shown in single-transistor and single SRAM cell (4 transistor) demos only, and now the ramp up to full scale production is happening. Then there's the minor detail of Qdots making a full colour microLED display actually worth building at all (which in turn affects how much R&D you put into it).I view it differently. I think Samsung went QLED (Qdot on top of classic LCD) as a stepping stone to microLED under Qdot - basically lets them get familiar with printing the Qdot layers that will eventually go on top of their pure microLED panels. They might do a pure blue OLED + Qdot panel lineup as well at some point, but I personally don't see it happening given how well Samsung ElectroChemical has been executing.