E-Ink outships OLEDs in cell phones

[Anchoku]

You've all seen Motorolla's new cell phone with the E-Ink display. Here's some news about it.

Originally Posted by Nikkei Electronics Asia

Sharp #1 in Shipments, Revenue in Mobile Phone Market, DisplaySearch Says
Jun 18, 2007 10:37
Nikkei Electronics Asia

According to the Q2 2007 Quarterly Mobile Phone Shipment & Forecast Report by DisplaySearch, Q1 2007 shipments of 268.8 million main displays and 58.6 million sub-displays marked a combined decline of 10% Q/Q and 2% Y/Y.

While the Q/Q decrease in shipments is largely due to seasonality, the decline of 2% Y/Y is the first time that there has ever been a decline Y/Y and is representative of an overall decrease in the growth rate of the mobile phone market.

Sharp is still the No.1 in terms of unit shipment and revenue. Samsung SDI ranked second, followed by Epson Imaging Devices, Wintek and TPO. Revenue for mobile phone displays is forecasts to be flat in Q2 2007 as shipments should climb by 2% due to seasonality and ASPs continue to be modest declines.

By technology, a-Si TFT LCD continues to dominate the market, and no change in the top technologies over the next two quarters is expected with LTPS staying at No.2, CSTN at No.3 and MSTN at No.4. Although EPDs have only been shipping for two quarters, and only to Motorola, they have already passed OLED in shipment market share, with 0.8% vs 0.3%.

[brecklundin]

interesting. Just at the begining of this year I was almost sold on OLEDs as the end all and true solution to longer battery life on laptops & other portable devices. Since then I really have been researching e-ink based ebook devices in earnest this past few months I have developed a belief that e-ink is the true future over OLED...the main reasons are two fold.

First is OLED has a built-in life-span issue. They degrade and die. We won't see OLED devises last for 20-years are their CRT or even LCD counterparts easily do. E-ink displays should not suffer the same fate and should pretty much last a lifetime.

The second reason is the obvious one...POWER. E-ink can solve the biggest problem created by the proliferation of computer devices...power consumption. Specifically power demands of all the other display technologies currently in use today.

Once e-ink moves into color (and I recall that has already happened or will be happening this year???) all bets are off and we will finally begin to see devices requiring far less power which are safer to use because they will generate less heat associated with the power storage. Sure CPUs will still have large power demands but that oo is chaninging...it's just great to see display technology finally moving to that next evolution!!