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The next full-screen display trend is the under-display camera

Reporter : Daejeong Yoon

Since Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Apple’s iPhone X launch, smartphones with the Home button removed have become a trend in the smartphone market.

Due to the nature of smartphones that cannot grow indefinitely, display sizes with a large proportion within limited smartphone sizes are directly related to the competitiveness of smartphone set makers.

Samsung’s Galaxy S10, which was recently released, attracted great attention with its flexible OLED with HIAA (hole in active area) technology. Notch or HIAA designs, however, can still interfere with video viewing and gaming because camera lenses occupy a small portion of the display.

That is why a number of panel makers are developing under display camera technology for a full-screen display.

Under display camera technology allows the front camera to be placed behind the display for a full-screen display. Oppo unveiled the first smartphone with the technology at MWC China 2019, and BOE and Visionox also anticipated that under-display cameras will become the next trend in smartphones at CIOC 2019.

It is expected that screen, camera module, and algorithmic technologies will all be specially designed to implement under display camera technology. Specifically, the technology to make the pixel near the camera at low resolution to secure transmittance, to mount a CMOS image sensor of a larger pixel size than the existing, and to apply algorithm technology to improve the picture quality.

The trend of full-screen smartphones, which began in 2017, is paying attention to whether full-screen smartphones will bloom with the technology of under-display cameras since 2020.

2Q OLED panel shipments, continued to rise

■ Panel shipments of smartphones grew 2.6% YoY to 95.3million units

■ TV OLED panel shipments reached 370,000 units, up 165% YoY

 

According to Ubi Research, OLED panel shipments for smartphones in the second quarter of 2017 were 96.3 million units, up 2.6% from 92.9 million units in the same period last year.

Compared to the previous quarter (94.7 million units), it increased by 0.6%.

<OLED panel shipments for smartphones>

Samsung Display has a market share of 96.7% in the second quarter of 2017 and is the number one player in the small and medium sized OLED market. Galaxy S8 and S8 + are showing robust sales, and Samsung Display’s small to medium sized OLED market is expected to continue to remain strong for the time being with OLED adoption of Galaxy Note 8 and some models of the iPhone 8.

OLED panels are also applied to LG Electronics’ V30, which is expected to be released on the 31st, and major smartphone makers in China are also expanding their OLED panels. The OLED panel market for smartphones is expected to grow steadily, and the trend for smartphone displays is expected to gradually shift from LCD to OLED.

<TV OLED panel shipments>

On the other hand, TV OLED panel shipments are growing 370,000 units, up 165.0% from 140,000 units a year earlier. Compared to the previous quarter (306,000 units), it increased 21.2%.

The OLED TV market is expected to expand gradually this year with Sony’s participation in OLED TV camps.

LG Display’s Paju E4 new line is expected to be fully operational from 3Q and TV OLED panel production is expected to increase steadily.