LG Display’s work on flexible OLEDs has been underway for some time, though the company’s efforts have perhaps been overshadowed somewhat by rival Samsung’s YOUM development. Last year, according to a Korea Times report, LG Display was preparing for mass-production of flexible screens by the second half of 2013.

Samsung, meanwhile, demonstrated a flexible OLED concept back at CES, though the screen wasn’t implemented in quite the way many had expected. Rather than being a clamshell device, with the flexibility used to allow the prototype to open up and reveal a bigger panel, Samsung instead wrapped the display around the edge.

That allowed the handset to display status updates along the side, making for at-a-glance notifications without needing to power up the whole display. However, Samsung insisted at the time that the device was merely a concept of what flexible OLED could be used for, not an indication of an actual product in development.

While OLED panels have become more common in their use on mobile devices, LG Display still faces potential bottlenecks in ensuring supplies for its smartphone affiliate. Analysts have already warned that the next-gen displays still suffer from low yields, which likely means high prices and low numbers of products.

That would probably put the eventual device in line with LG’s curved OLED TVs, demonstrated at CES, officially intended for the market but at a cost that will make the potential audience tiny. Nonetheless, as a proof of capabilities, it suggests we could see flexible OLED phones more widespread in 2014 and beyond.

[via OLED-Info]

LG Display finds itself in a precarious position, then, as it faces an uncertain 2013. Its Q1 performance was a marked improvement year-on-year, but down 74-percent quarter-on-quarter. Meanwhile, Apple’s requirements for the coming months aren’t clear, though some market watchers have suggested that the company’s demands might spike sharply amid chatter of a cheaper iPhone model for developing markets.

The Korean firm isn’t giving specifics, but did say on Monday that it expected panel shipments to rise between 5- and 10-percent in Q2, versus Q1. If talk of a July budget iPhone launch pans out, that would suggest parts shipments from LG Display to begin roughly in June, potentially ending the quarter on an uptick in sales.

Overall, LG Display made 151bn won ($135m) in Q1 2013, down from 211bn won a year previous. Further down the line, a new iPad is tipped to be likely to drop in September, with LG Display providing some of the screens for that model too.

Meanwhile, the company is attempting to diversify and bring prices of alternative technologies to LCD, such as OLED, down to more affordable levels. Back in February, LG Display announced it would be investing the equivalent of $655m into OLED manufacturing refinements, so as to offset stagnating demand in TV-scale LCD screens.

[via NYTimes]

The bezel is designed to be small and unintrusive, shrouding an IPS display offering full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. There’s support for 3D, and response time clocks in at 5ms. Connectivity includes 2 HDMI ports, composite and component video, 3 USB ports, as well as LAN, WiDi, and Miracast. There’s two 7 watt speakers with 3D Sound Zooming, as well as 2D to 3D Conversion, Magic Remote and USB Quick View.

LG’s Senior Vice President and Head of the IT Business Unit Il-geun Kwon had this to say: “LG designed its Personal Smart TV lineup to meet the growing demand for compact, multipurpose devices suitable for bedrooms, studio apartments and dormitories. The MT93 is the best in its class and its thin bezel design belies a well-rounded set of features that consumers have come to expect from LG’s large screen Smart TVs.”

With the smart TV’s software, users will have access to Facebook, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and a variety of other online content. In addition, games can be played on the MT93 via a mobile device that is streaming the content to the display via Home High-Definition Link. The MT93 IPS will be launched later this month in Europe, and will then be released in other locations around the globe at an undisclosed date. No price was given.

[via LG News Room]

The company will implement a new 8th-generation OLED manufacturing line in South Korea that LG plans to start up in the first half of 2014, building 26,000 input sheets every month using LG’s WRGB OLED evaporation process. These sheets will be big enough to manufacturer 55-inch televisions.

It looks like LG Display is ramping up its efforts in order to compete with Samsung, which also recently launched a 55-inch OLED television set at CES last month, as well as curved displays alongside LG, with both companies referring to them as “the world’s first” curved OLED set, even though they debuted at the same time.

OLED televisions are said to have more vivid colors with deeper blacks and whiter whites, compared to existing liquid crystal display units. The new technology also allows manufacturers to make really thin TVs, and it may eventually make its way into laptops, where the OLED technology could save on battery life. LG’s investment will begin sometime during this first quarter.

Stepping up to laptop-scale screens, LG will trim bezels with a 13.3-inch LCD with a sub-2mm surround, while a larger 23.8-inch Neo-Blade Series LCD will do similarly narrow things for larger devices. LG also has a 12.9-inch 2560 x 1700 (QSXGA) screen for laptops and ultraportables, which is actually higher resolution than the panel Apple uses in the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, despite being slightly smaller.

LG biggest computing screen is a 30-inch 4K2K monitor, delivering 4096 x 2160 resolution. It’s expected to find a home in hospitals, used for reviewing high-resolution scans, as well as on the desks of designers.

Into the living room, and LG Display has several UHD (Ultra High Definition) 3840 x 2160 panels to flaunt. 55- and 65-inch UHD screens join the existing 84-inch panel, with Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) 3D technology for better quality passive 3D viewing. The company has also put its 55-inch OLED TV on a diet, running it down to 4mm thick and 3.5kg in total.

The rest of the display magic will be for broader purposes, such as a 47-inch transparent display, a 47-inch high-brightness display intended for better visibility when outdoors, and an 84-inch UHD Interactive Whiteboard. Finally, LG will have an eye-catching video wall, consisting of nine 55-inch FPR 3D displays.

“Through this action, LG Display seeks to completely stop the sale, manufacture, and importation of [the] infringing Samsung product” the company said in a statement on the injunction, which was filed in Korea on Wednesday this week. If Samsung continues to sell the Note 10.1, LG Display says it will seek damages in the region of 1 billion won ($934,000) per day of “continued non-compliance.”

LG Display’s patents at the heart of the argument center on technology used to improve screen visibility at broad viewing angles. Samsung has paired an LCD panel with a Wacom digitizer, allowing the Note 10.1′s digital pen to be used for accurate sketching, handwriting, and other uses.

Unsurprisingly, Samsung is defiant in the face of LG Display’s allegations. The suggestions of patent infringement are “unjustified claims” the division’s vice president, Shim Jaeboo, said in a statement, promising that Samsung would respond to the suit.

Earlier this month, Samsung filed a suit against LG Display in which it was claimed that its rival infringed seven LCD patents.

DigiTimes is reporting that Apple isn’t expected to reach its shipment targets for both the iPad mini and 21.5- and 27-inch iMacs until the first quarter of 2013, since parts providers in the company’s supply chain aren’t expected to increase their yields until then. Apple is targeting 10 million iPad mini shipments for Q4 2012, but they might only reach 6 million due to production delays at AU Optronics.

Both AU Optronics and LG Display provide displays for the iPad mini, and LG Display is the exclusive provider of display panels for the new iMacs. Both manufacturers are experiencing mass production issues with their respective displays. For instance, the overall shipment of panels used in the iPad mini from AU Optronics dropped to about 22%, which is down from their original 40% target.

As for the new iMacs, LG Display has had to develop a completely new production process for mass producing panels for the new iMacs, and they had limited capacity to begin with. Both the change in the production process and the already limited capacity is delaying shipments. However, Apple has said that the new iMacs will arrive on November 30.

[via DigiTimes]

Newly announced over on the LG Korea website, the EA93 is a panoramic monitor with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,080. The monitor features built-in 7w stereo speakers, and has an ultra-slim bezel for those who hate wasted space. It also offers a Super Energy Savings feature, which results in the monitor drawing about 25-percent less electricity than equivalently-sized units.

As for connectivity, the EA93 offers a DVI-D Dual port, two HDMI ports, three USB 3.0 ports, a Display Port, and Audio In/Headphone Out. The monitor has built-in software that offers a four-screen split so that users can divide their computing activities up. You can watch a movie in fullscreen mode in one of the split screens, for example.

Says the announcement, the EA93 offers life-like colors via an IPS display, and is ideal for both entertainment and multimedia, making it a “multi-entertainment” device. The monitor features 100-percent sRGB color expression. Finally, one of the HDMI ports is a mobile high-definition link, allowing users to display share with a mobile device. The monitor is available in Korea for 690,000 won ($633USD), and will be available elsewhere later this year.

[via LG Korea]

The video consists of people getting into an elevator, and once they push the desired floor number, the elevator would have a brief moment of malfunctioning, and the fake floor shown on the IPS displays would all of sudden give and fall out from underneath the elevator riders. LG titled its little stunt “So real it’s scary,” and indeed a lot of the people probably thought they were going to meet their maker that day.

Of course, the whole point behind the stunt was for LG to show off the “lifelike colors” of its IPS displays, and what better way to do that then to put the displays to the test in real-life situations. Obviously, since this is an ad, we wouldn’t be surprised if these people were actors, but we’re really hoping they’re not.

The whole point of LG’s lifelike-colored IPS displays is to give users “consistency and less changes in colour temperature,” and the displays “offer a color impression identical to that of the original image.” This would essentially make calibration obsolete, but we’re simply just curious as to how lifelike the displays really are.

In fact, LG claims, its True HD IPS+ Displays use 70-percent less power than when showing an all-white background, something which taxes AMOLED. LG reckons the panel also bypasses screen burn-in, unlike AMOLED, while still hitting 470 nits of brightness.

That high-tech screen is paired with a new style of touch layer, too, with LG working with LG Innotek to create the G2 Touch Hybrid Display that bonds glass and LCD. Thickness is down 30-percent compared to previous-gen screens, and graphics themselves appear to float right under the fingertip.

LG had already confirmed that its new device would debut Qualcomm’s upcoming S4 Pro Snapdragon chipset, the APQ8064. Having benchmarked the processor ourselves, we know that’s going to make the LG one very quick phone.

It’ll be matched with a battery that LG insists will hold up to the usability challenge, too. The company’s LG Chem arm has come up with “high-density technology” which runs 60-percent more efficiently than rival batteries while extending recharge cycles from the typical 500 to 800.

We’re expecting to see more on the new LG in the coming weeks.

LG, of course, denies any involvement in the theft of Samsung’s technology and claims that the information Samsung accuses it of stealing was already widely known, and therefore can’t be considered a trade secret. OLED looks like it’s going to be the next big thing in display technology, and with OLED TVs costing thousands upon thousands of dollars, it’s pretty easy to see why Samsung is being so protective of its information in this case.

Interestingly enough, Samsung doesn’t want any money, just a formal apology from LG Display. LG, on the other hand, is apparently planning to take Samsung to court for defamation.

Who is right and who is wrong here isn’t for us to decide, but it sure does make the day a whole lot more exciting. Samsung and LG are the world’s two largest flat-panel makers, and there isn’t any doubt that the two will be competing fiercely when it comes to making OLED technology the new industry standard for displays. LG could be in a mess of trouble if it turns out that Samsung’s charges are legitimate, so this will definitely be a story to watch in the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned.

[via Bloomberg]

Bon-moo is reportedly frustrated that LG didn’t make full use of the technology at its fingertips, and will be feeding direct input into the new device. Not much is known about the handset, except that it will feature a quad-core processor and 10-megapixel camera. The phone will reportedly go on sale in September.

LG currently supplies various electronic parts to companies like Apple, with some of the Retina displays in the latest iPad and next-generation MacBook Pro supplied by the South Korean company. Despite the fact that LG is keeping pace with the likes of HTC and Samsung spec-wise, its handsets haven’t gained the same kind of traction in the market. The company also recently revealed it would be sidelining tablets and focusing on smartphones in the near future.

[via The Next Web]

LG Display is saying that it’s the highest resolution screen created for smartphones so far. The display uses an Advanced High Performance IPS panel with a total of 440 pixels per inch. LG say that the naked eye will be unable to discern individual pixels, and the use of IPS technology means you’ll be getting faithful color reproduction, wide viewing angles, plus brighter images and low power consumption.

When can you expect to see this panel making its way into future devices? It’s not too far away, as it turns out. LG say the display will be released during the second half of this year, and will make an appearance at SID 2012 Display Week in Boston starting from June 4th. Make sure to head over to that event to peep the screen, and send us an email telling us how gorgeous it is, OK?

[via Engadget]

That means lighter gadgets that are actually more durable since the panels should be more resilient to drops or bumps. They can also be thinner, too: the plastic panel is a third slimmer than glass equivalents, at just 0.7mm thick.

LG Display says it can drop its new screen from 1.5m – the average height a device is held when it’s being used for reading, apparently – without any resulting damage. The company also hit the screen with a plastic hammer, leaving no scratches or breaks, ETNews reports.

LG isn’t the only company to be working on flexible screens this year. Samsung has already confirmed that it is looking at launching devices using flexible AMOLED panels in 2012, though it’s unclear whether the screens will actually fold or bend, or simply be used to wrap around smartphones for new types of UI.

The first products using the LG Display flexible panel are on track for a release in the European market in early April, the company claims. No word on what vendors will be offering them, nor how pricing will compare to traditional glass-substrate epaper.

[via OLED-Display]

Although Apple has seemingly had sufficient new iPad stock to grant most stores at least some units on-hand, online availability is still constrained. Online orders are listed as not shipping for 1-2 weeks – down from the 2-3 week delay in the run-up to shipments starting – and the situation is unlikely to be helped by the fact that Apple put the third-gen tablet on sale in a further 24 countries today.

Still, Samsung Electronics is expected to remain the biggest source of new iPad panels this quarter, with both Sharp and LG Display’s new shipments being only of small volumes. Apple can probably use all that the firms can produce, too; sales hit 3m in the opening weekend.

Apple’s taste for the very latest in technology led it to Super High Aperture panels, where extra pixel density is achieved by stacking the layers of transistors and pixels along with an organic film across the top. That requires more backlighting in order to achieve the same brightness as the previous-gen iPad, however, which has a knock-on effect in power consumption. Display experts suggest the extra heat some users have complained of is down to the bigger battery and stronger backlighting LEDs.

Nonetheless, Sharp is expected to remain a supplier for Apple’s tablet, and its LCD IPS panels are tipped to begin shipping to Apple as early as this month. The shipments had initially been expected from late December.

Meanwhile, LG Display is also believed to have encountered difficulties initially shipping its panels, and the source declined to comment on whether it is currently providing units to Apple.

The struggles to produce high-quality, pixel-dense screens could leave Samsung in a stronger than ever position with Apple. The Korean company expects Apple to spend as much as $11bn on components in 2012, and analysts claim LG Display and Sharp’s issues gives them a far better negotiating position.

Dubbed Retina Display by Apple, the panel technology is actually believed to be Super High Aperture (SHA) where ”applying approximately a 3 µm thick photo-definable acrylic resin layer to planarize the device and increase the vertical gap between the ITO pixel electrodes and signal lines” increases individual pixel aperture and allows for denser resolution, according to DisplaySearch. However the process is also more costly and complex than for traditional LCD production, something which seems to have caught out both Sharp and LG Display.

New iPad shortages had already been predicted, and while Apple looks to be able to ramp up production once Sharp begins its panel deliveries, it’s still unclear how many units will be made available and how that will hold up to the expected high demand. The iPad 2 suffered stock shortages for several months following its launch.

More on the new iPad in our full hands-on and at the Apple Hub.

A Samsung Securities investor report shared with OLED-Display, meanwhile, lends further weight to the Q3 2012 iPad mini release timescale. “Following the success of its iPad 1 and iPad 2, which have together achieved sales of 55m units,” analyst JungHoon Chang wrote in a December 2011 report, “Apple plans in 1Q12 to launch the iPad 3 and in 3Q12 a new 7-inch product temporarily referred to as the iPad mini.”

Chang goes on to suggest that “Apple may yet decide to use flexible panels in its next iPad models, if panel makers (such as SMD) can mass produce flexible AMOLED panels and improve resolution.” However, that doesn’t seem hugely likely; even if Apple is convinced by AMOLED over LCD IPS, it’s uncertain that Samsung Mobile Display could keep up with the demand. Samsung’s smaller panel division “could produce only 54m AMOLED panels per year, even if its 5.5G line were full used for tablet PC production” Chang concedes.

Meanwhile, the ongoing legal sparring between Apple and Samsung looks likely to prove a solid motivator for the Cupertino company to reduce its reliance on its Korean foe. Exactly how possible that will be is unclear at this stage, given the number of fingers in pies Samsung Electronics has.

Apple is expected to reveal the iPad 3 on Wednesday this week, with the third-gen tablet predicted to have a high-resolution Retina Display along with a new processor and potentially LTE connectivity. SlashGear will be liveblogging the whole launch event from 10AM PST on March 7, so join us at live.slashgear.com for all the news!

The smaller iPad will have a screen resolution the same – or “similar” – to the existing iPad 2, or 1024 x 768, one source indicated. That would suggest Apple was sticking with the 4:3 aspect ratio, sensible given iPad apps are currently designed for that. Similar rumors – citing the same suppliers – broke last October, with a 7.85-inch screen size tipped.

However, while the supplier insiders say Apple has been showing potential designs for the new tablet around suppliers, it’s also pointed out that such product flirtation isn’t unusual: and, it often doesn’t amount to a commercial device. Although the company has been slow and steady with its iPhone range, sticking to a single “flagship” device at any one time and keeping older models on the market to satisfy lower price points, Apple is supposedly considering an iPod-style strategy with tablets where different models would address different use-cases.

If true, the new “iPad mini” would be another example of Apple dismissing a product category before subsequently entering it. Steve Jobs memorably blasted 7-inch and similar tablets as “tweeners” back in October 2010, arguing that their scale “isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps” and suggesting that such models should include sandpaper so that users could file their fingers down to a usable size.

“Apple has long contemplated different tablet designs” the WSJ’s sources say, though again there’s no guarantee that contemplation will lead to production. Nonetheless, even with a third-gen iPad expected on March 7, this looks to be a rumor that won’t die any time soon.

Initially, though, production will be more conservative, ramping up from around 8,000 panels per month. LG Display will use the time to make a decision on investment into its 8G OLED production facilities, expecting to decide in Q3 this year whether to pump cash into large-scale production in 2013.

The panels will be slotted into high-end sets like the LG 55EM9600, launched at CES. Less than 4mm thick and weighing just 16 pounds, the TV supports passive 3D and Full HD resolution, though LG is yet to say exactly what it – or production variants – will cost. More details on the 55EM9600 in our eyes-on report.

LG Display announced another loss-making quarter, but at 6.25 billion won ($5.56m) it was an altogether more successful three month period than the previous year, when the company made a $239m loss. Panel production is expected to be low through 2012, the company has warned, though the market is expected to grow compared to 2011.

[via OLED-Display]

Sharp’s involvement in iPad 3 components was first rumored back in November last year, following reports earlier in 2011 that claimed Apple was considering a $1bn investment in a Sharp display plant. The status of that potential investment is unknown, however, though Sharp continues to supply panels for Apple’s iPhone.

That iPhone partnership, at least, is expected to continue, with reports that Apple will use the company’s displays for the sixth-generation handset expected to debut later this year. Such panels are believed to use low-temperature poly-silicon technology (p-Si LCD) for its lower power consumption and the fact that it enables thinner, lighter screens.

Although Apple has been hampered by stock shortages with both its first- and second-generation tablets, the company also has a high standard of screen quality it insists on. That standard has led to issues in the past, with LG Display apparently encountering production issues that forced Apple to temporarily freeze its orders with the company, later believed to be responsible – at least in part – for a scarcity of units in the marketplace.

[via Patently Apple]

EIH invested NT$1.5bn ($49m) in CPT (Chunghwa Picture Tubes) in July this year, in an attempt to secure production for its FFS displays. Panels using the technology were at one point tipped for inclusion in the iPad 3, with an analyst suggesting back in February that Apple would use an FFS Retina Display for the third-gen tablet. However, more recently it has been indicated that Apple will likely use AH-IPS panels produced by Samsung, Sharp and LG Display.

It’s unclear how the shifting allegiances will impact LG Display’s use of FFS technology, though the indication is that the company will no longer be able to manufacture such displays since Hydis will continue to hold the patents. FFS screens are used in Kobo’s new Vox tablet/ereader, though it’s unknown who actually provides Kobo with the 7-inch panels themselves.

DigiTimes reports that the shipments from LG Display to Apple have now returned to previous levels. Before the shipments were cut, LG was producing 4 million panels per month. The production and shipments to Apple have now gone back up to 4 million monthly. Apple had reduced the shipments from that 4 million number to between 2.5 million and 2.6 million screens from July until now.

The reduced LG shipments were picked up by other screen providers including Samsung Electronics and CMI. Apple is likely also gearing up for higher sales during the holiday season. I would assume that initially the iPads with LG screens had a higher rate of failure than the other screen models.

[via DigiTimes]

Whereas Samsung would normally be expected to produce around 1m panels for iPad 2 production, in July the company supposedly almost doubled that. Apple has also boosted orders from CMI, which shipped just over 450,000 panels in the same month.

LG Display – as the majority provider of displays - had apparently expected to increase its monthly output to almost 4m units, after bringing its 6G LCD plan online in Q2 2011. Unfortunately, it seems more likely to manage just 2.5m to 2.6m, say the tipsters, as it works on refining its yield and ousting the backlight unit problems.

All is not lost, however: LG Display is likely to remain the lead supplier for the iPad 2, assuming the company can address the problems in a timely manner. Apple is likely reluctant to look to Samsung for too much component support; the company is already believed to be switching its CPU production to TSMC as it attempts to put distance between itself and its legal foe.

Part of Apple’s reluctance to consider OLED is the generally small panel size, though the resolution on offer also comes in for criticism. “Another drawback is the current OLED technology is not at the level to realize a full HD viewing experience, which is important for tablets” the inside source suggests.

Instead, both Samsung and LG Display’s screens use low-temperature polysilicon LCD, or p-Si LCD, which sees the display driver mounted directly to the glass substrate; that makes for a thinner, lighter panel altogether. As for pixel density, the screens are expected to offer in the region of 280 ppi, short of the 326 ppi “Retina Display” found on the iPhone 4, but still considerably higher than the 132 ppi iPad 2 currently on sale.

Each company demonstrated its panel technology earlier in the year, with Samsung showing a 10.1-inch 2560 x 1600 screen while LG Display outed its own AH-IPS high-res option. Both companies have declined to comment on these latest rumors.

Samsung’s continued presence on the Apple component supply roster, despite the ongoing legal battle between the two companies, is indicative of how reliant the Cupertino company has become on its Korean friend/foe. Recently, Apple has been tipped to be switching its chip supplier from Samsung Semiconductor to TSMC, though Samsung Display is confident its panels will find their way into future products. “We aren’t affected significantly by Apple’s changing approach” an unnamed senior Samsung exec suggested. “Apple is first and foremost about product quality, and while it may find other manufacturers to provide customized chips for its new products, the same can’t be said about LCDs.”

The exact product these high-resolution 9.7-inch displays will be used for is unclear. Various rumors have circulated in the past few months regarding Apple’s iPad plans; most recently, an iPad HD has been tipped, co-existing with the current model and offering a pixel-rich option for graphics professionals. Despite having now been on sale for several months, Apple has only managed to muster sufficient supplies to meet demand in the past week.

[via Apple Insider]

The improvement only currently appears to be affecting Apple’s North American online stores – the Canadian store is also down to 1-3 days – with orders elsewhere still demanding extra patience. In the UK, both the WiFi-only and 3G + WiFi models are listed at 3-5 days.

Various unofficial explanations for Apple’s shortage of stock had been suggested, though unsurprisingly Apple itself declined to comment. Panel supplier LG Display was tipped to be experiencing lower than expected yields, at least of 9.7-inch screens that met with Apple’s exacting standards: rejected panels were believed to have shown more light leakage than the company permitted. Interestingly, tablet-producing rivals are said to have picked up the screens Apple rejected for their own models, in an attempt to work with the significantly constrained supply-chain.

Ironically, just as Apple is getting up to speed with the iPad 2, the company is also believed to be readying a new model. The “iPad HD” is, leaks claim, an addition model rather than a replacement, with a higher-resolution display intended to appeal to graphics professionals.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

At that meeting, the sources suggest, Cook offered Samsung Display an advance to secure AMOLED panels for the third-gen iPad. If true, that would mark a transition for the tablet from LCD panels – with LG Display the primary supplier – to the rival technology.

However, it’s not all clear cut. A Samsung Mobile Display spokesperson said “he had not heard of such discussions with Apple” while the company is believed to have seen its AMOLED production timetable set back by the Japanese earthquake. Samsung has previously said that it has no plans to use its Super AMOLED or Super AMOLED Plus displays in tablets of its own this year.

Production at Samsung’s 5.5Gen facility is expected to hit 48,000 substrates per month, rising to 100,000 in the first half of 2012. If the rumors regarding Apple’s intent are true, that suggests it won’t be until next year that Samsung could likely meet the demand for the iPad 3. Supplies of the iPad 2 have been constrained since its commercial release, with LG Display’s inability to meet panel demand cited as a key cause, and only now is the situation believed to be alleviating.

Earlier this week, a judge ruled that Samsung must hand over various Galaxy tablets and phones – some of which unreleased – to Apple’s legal team for examination. It seems they might not be the only samples the company is providing Cupertino, though under far more agreeable circumstances.

[via OLED-Info]

Now, LG Display isn’t quoting actual resolutions for its 7-inch and 9.7-inch tablet displays, but we’re guessing it’ll be above the 1024 x 768 of the current 9.7-incher in the iPad and iPad 2. The company has already confirmed that its tablet-scale panels will find their way into slates other than the iPad, but it seems likely that if Apple is shopping around for Retina Display scale screen then one of their existing suppliers would be a likely place to start.

That’s assuming LG Display has fully ironed out the production issues which have reportedly been the cause of the iPad 2′s rarity. According to the company, the AG-IPS screens offer not only broader viewing angles than regular LCD, but a higher number of sub-pixels so that there’s less graininess.

Press Release:

LG Display Brings Innovation in Smart Mobile Panels to SID 2011

Seoul, Korea (May 12, 2011) – LG Display Co., Ltd. [NYSE:LPL, KRX:034220], a leading innovator of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) technology, will showcase a full line-up of Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching (AH-IPS) products at SID(Society for Information Display)’s Display Week 2011 to be held during May 15 to 20 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. The AH-IPS panels deliver ultra high resolution, notable for their superiority in use for smartbooks(tablet PCs) and smartphones.

LG Display will introduce a full line-up of products that employ IPS technology to deliver ultra high resolution, including 3.5- and 4.5-inch panels for smartphones, 7- and 9.7-inch panels for smartbooks, and 55- and 84- inch panels for TVs at the exhibition. In particular, by highlighting the strengths of AH-IPS, the company plans to solidify its competitive edge in the smart mobile market. The Company is already enjoying dominance in technology, supply capability, and cost competiveness based on its extended experience in mass production.

“Consumers can enjoy crisp and clean pictures in any device like smartphones and smartbooks with LG Display’s proprietary AH-IPS technology,” said President and CEO of LG Display Mr. Young Soo Kwon. “Our goal is to be the world’s No. 1 display maker that consistently delivers groundbreaking technologies like IPS to innovate the display industry.”

AH-IPS technology, an advanced form of IPS, has realizes 1.5 to 2 times the resolution of typical LCD panels. This ultra high resolution becomes particularly valuable when the emphasis is on displaying highly detailed images. The technology also improves display’s color accuracy, which in turn leads to reproduce the original color precisely without color distortion. In addition, it provides greater light transmission which translates into lower power consumption while delivering exceptional picture quality, making it ideal for use in outdoor settings.

Resolution is generally defined by the total number of pixels whereas image crispness is measured by pixels–per-inch (PPI) which refers to pixel density per unit area. The ultra high resolution technology employed by AH-IPS adds a greater number of pixels than the PPI that can be recognized by the human eye at a typical distance. This makes it more difficult for the naked eye to distinguish each individual pixel, thus making the image sharper.

LG Display’s 3.5-inch smartphone panel supports 960×640 pixel resolution at 326 PPI, delivering the most detailed images among smartphones available on the market.

About LG Display
LG Display Co., Ltd. [NYSE: LPL, KRX: 034220] is a leading manufacturer and supplier of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, OLEDs and flexible displays. The company provides TFT-LCD panels in a wide range of sizes and specifications for use in TVs, monitors, notebook PCs, mobile products and other various applications. LG Display currently operates eight fabrication facilities and six back-end assembly facilities in Korea, China and Poland. The company has a total of 50,000 employees operating worldwide. Please visit http://www.lgdisplay.com for more information.

LG Display only shipped 3.2m of the screens in Q1 2011, outnumbered by Samsung (who shipped 4m); the pair is expected to be joined by CMI as another panel supplier in May, assuming Apple approves its production. The LG panels were apparently plagued with light leakage issues.

However, it’s not the only issue Apple has reportedly had with iPad 2 production; the lamination process for the slimline glass display is also said to have been causing headaches, along with production shortages of the speaker assembly, new to the second-generation model. Apple was recently forced to halt iPad 2 sales in South Korea and Singapore

Acer has reportedly ordered as many as 500,000 10.1-inch touchscreens, for use in its tablets, though even then that’s not as many as the company was apparently hoping for. Apple’s demand dominance in the touchscreen segment has meant that Acer will only reach 70-percent of its shipment forecast at most.

As for Acer’s remaining notebook plans, according to component sources the company is using so-called Shuriken screens, produced by LG Display, to create ultraportables with bigger than average panels. A new model, set to debut in May 2011, will have a 14.1-inch screen in the same form-factor as a 13.3-inch notebook, thanks to the Shuriken panel’s minimal frame (down from 12mm to 8mm) and scant 4mm thickness.

However, the screen technology is around 50-percent more expensive than traditional notebook displays, and Acer is reportedly intending to use this initial, unnamed model to gauge consumer willingness to pay for a bigger screen in a compact form-factor. If buyers are willing to dig deep into their pockets, the Shuriken panels could become a key aspect of Acer’s range.

That could mean that replacements to the T-Mobile G2x and other recent LG handsets might switch to AMOLED panels. The displays used in Nokia’s recent Symbian smartphones have arguably been the best thing about the devices, with the so-called “Clear Black” technology on the E7 and other handsets providing excellent viewing angles and vividly-saturated colors.

LG Display will begin its 8-Gen OLED fab ramp-up – producing OLED TV panels – perhaps as early as mid-2013, having begun testing the technology later this year.

[via OLED-Info]

As with Samsung’s panel, LG Display is targeting the screen technology at commercial implementations rather than something for your desk. The company reckons shopping malls and digital signage are the most likely uses, but we can’t quite lose our enthusiasm for LCD windows that can show us the headlines as well as the garden.

No word on when LG Display’s IPS LCD screens might be on sale, nor even if they’re in mass-production like Samsung’s smaller panels.

[via OLED-Display]

Unsurprisingly, LG Display took offense at the expletive, and while the company initially planned to let the insult pass without comment, it later began preparing for legal action. “There are business ethics and practices to follow even if we are competing with each other over technological standards” a spokesperson said, “it is very disappointing and unacceptable if an executive at a respected global company humiliated its rival company’s employees at an official event hurling a curse.”

The contentious technology is film-type patterned retarder (FPR) 3D, as on LG’s new CINEMA 3D LW5700 HDTVs. The company claims they are flicker-free and avoid the crosstalk present in Samsung’s competing active-shutter 3D systems.

Update: LG Display has apparently accepted an apology from Kim Hyun-suk and is no longer planning legal action. “We spoke about the letter with our engineers” the company said in a statement, “and decided to accept the apology because we believe Samsung Electronics and the executive in question have gone through self-reflection.” [Thanks Kunal!]

[via Gizmodo]

Coming in at 31-inches, it may not be the biggest TV out there, but in terms of OLED displays, it’s ridiculously impressive. And, that’s not all. It comes in at only 2.9mm thin, which is just down-right ridiculous. Put this thing in your living room, and we’re pretty sure that everything else in there will look way too big for its own good. As for the other features? This OLED TV packs in full HD resolution, at 1920 x 1080, and it has a contrast ratio of . . . Infinite. Yes, you read that right. That means you can pretty much view the clear image from any angle you want.

You’ve probably already guessed the bad news, though. Considering the earlier OLED TVs that were released this year were expensive, you can already guess this one is, too. Though, it’s not nearly as bad as it could be. LG says that the 31-inch OLED TV is set to hit retail shelves by March of next year, and it will come with a price tag of about £6,000. Like we said: it’s not as bad as it could be.

Reuters reports that despite the fact that LG recognizes it is unable to meet the demand for screens, the company is considering production cuts. That makes no sense at all to me. LG Display’s CEO states that the production cuts will be smaller than the industry average.

The reason for the cuts is low overall demand for LCDs. LG expects demand to pick up in September. I guess we are to assume that the demand from Apple LCDs that LG is unable to meet doesn’t make it enough money to continue operating at full capacity despite the fact that the demand for the screens is there.