OLED displays to replace LCD screens by 2020: report

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays will replace liquid crystal display (LCD) screens as the leading smartphone display technology in 2020, according  to a media report, IANS reported.

Samsung Electronics had already adopted OLED displays for its flagship smartphones including the Galaxy S7 and there was increasing demand for OLED displays from Chinese vendors Huawei, OPPO Electronics, Vivo, Meizu Technology and others, business website investors.com reported yesterday.

Apple is likely to switch to OLED displays with iPhone 8.

Universal Display Corporation, a supplier of materials and technology for OLED products, would see demand for its products rise. Its stock had shot 40 per cent in the past 12 months, according to the report.

LCD screens had dominated mobile phone displays for over 15 years but OLED displays were flexible, thinner and more power efficient.

Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays with a low temperature polysilicon (LTPS) backplane would account for over a third (36 per cent) of all smartphone displays shipped in 2020, and become the most used display technology in smartphones.

It would surpass a-Si (amorphous silicon) thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD and LTPS TFT LCD displays, the report added.

Meanwhile, LG is looking to make a major investment in flexible screens, with plans to spend around $1.7 billion on producing flexible OLED smartphone screens, The Verge reported.

Flexible screens had already been used in phones such as the curved Galaxy S7 Edge and could become a leading smartphone feature in the coming years.

Production of the new screens would start at the new OLED display factory that LG announced it would build last November.

According to rumours, the plant will be used in the near future to make iPhone screens, as the company planned to move from LCD to OLED displays beginning in 2018.