Samsung Buying Novaled to Meet OLED Demand

By Kevin Parrish
published

Samsung is beefing up its OLED arsenal.

In a regulatory filing last week, Samsung Group affiliate Cheil Industries said it agreed to purchase a 50.1 percent stake in German OLED specialist Novaled AG for $155.5 million USD. Samsung Electronics will also purchase a separate 40 percent stake in the company for an undisclosed amount. The remaining stake of around 10 percent is currently held by Samsung Venture Investment which will maintain its current shareholding.

The news arrives after unnamed sources said back in July that Samsung was close to signing a deal to acquire the German company so that it could meet the increasing demand for new OLED-based products. The purchase reflects the company's commitment to invest in a high growth market as well as technology that's energy-efficient and capable of creating flexible screens.

Cheil Industries was established in 1954 and has reportedly propelled the development of Korea's textile industry. It began to expand into additional industries in the 1980's including a chemical business in 1989 and electronic chemical materials in 1996. Cheil acquired Ace Digitech in March 2007 to launch a polarizing film business, a core component of LCD panels.

"Leadership in future display market[s] will be determined by technological capacity," said Cheil Industries’ CEO Jong-Woo Park. "This acquisition is expected to generate significant synergy in new-generation OLED materials R&D and will play a critical role in enhancing Cheil Industries’ market position as a global leader in electronic materials."

Launched in 2001, Novaled AG specializes in high efficiency, long-lifetime OLED structures. Its OLED displays and customized solutions are based on a combination of organic conductivity doping technology, proprietary materials and OLED stack development expertise. Thus the end product has optimized performance, power efficiency, stability and lifetime while manufacturing complexity and costs are decreased.

"Through the acquisition of Novaled, Cheil Industries will be able to lead the change in the OLED market by leveraging Novaled’s technology and patents, and successfully positions itself for a new phase of growth as global market leader in display materials," Cheil Industries said. "According to DisplaySearch, the global OLED market is expected to grow rapidly from US$6.8 billion in 2012 to US$20 billion by 2017. Cheil Industries plans to grow Novaled’s existing R&D activities and concentrate a main part of its OLED R&D strategy in Dresden."

As part of the transaction, Cheil Industries and Samsung Electronics will also acquire the shares of founding partners of Novaled, the company said.

Kevin Parrish
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • IndignantSkeptic
    I don't think I want Samsung producing OLED screens anymore after they made Pentile screens.
    Reply
  • David Lugarov
    I hope the prices won't be too high, looking forward to this.
    Reply
  • ocilfa
    @IndignantSkeptic: Maybe read the article? "Launched in 2001, Novaled AG specializes in high efficiency, long-lifetime OLED structures". The whole reason we have pentile is because the blue sub-pixel has a dramatically shorter life than the red and green. If they specialize in long-lifetime oled's, then we should expect to see more full RGB amoleds in the future.
    Reply
  • IndignantSkeptic
    How the hell is Pentile connected to the short lifespan of blue sub-pixels?
    Reply
  • ikyung
    11340142 said:
    How the hell is Pentile connected to the short lifespan of blue sub-pixels?
    Pentile is still in infancy and is being further developed. Like how they went from rectangle matrix in S3 to diamond grid in S4 to produce better colors. But, yeah I still prefer higher end IPS LCD panels. Hopefully, Samsung keeps pushing the R&D to further mature their AMOLED, or just drop pentile all together like they did with S2 and Note 2.
    Reply
  • IndignantSkeptic
    What the hell?! I don't want Pentile further developed; I want it banned and the creator of it fired. Each pixel has only 2 sub pixels instead of 3. Half of the pixels are missing their red sub-pixel and the other half are missing their blue sub-pixel. I don't know how they think that looks acceptable. It makes me wonder what else they are trying to cheat us out of.
    Reply
  • vestibule
    Good, I'm more excited about OLED than I am about 4k LCD's. Of course, realistically most of us will have to choose one or the other as they become affordable, or wait longer for 4k OLED to become affordable. I'd be okay with a 1440p OLED when they are affordable, but hopefully 1600p wouldn't cost much more by then.
    Reply
  • Grandmastersexsay
    11341132 said:
    What the hell?! I don't want Pentile further developed; I want it banned and the creator of it fired. Each pixel has only 2 sub pixels instead of 3. Half of the pixels a7re missing their red sub-pixel and the other half are missing their blue sub-pixel. I don't know how they think that looks acceptable. It makes me wonder what else they are trying to cheat us out of.

    There are 30 million odd Galaxy S4 owners that disagree with your definition of acceptable.
    Reply
  • invlem
    11341132 said:
    What the hell?! I don't want Pentile further developed; I want it banned and the creator of it fired. Each pixel has only 2 sub pixels instead of 3. Half of the pixels are missing their red sub-pixel and the other half are missing their blue sub-pixel. I don't know how they think that looks acceptable. It makes me wonder what else they are trying to cheat us out of.

    So you're saying you can see the sub-pixels on a pentile display? Or are you just complaining because you don't agree with the technology.

    Put the S4 next to an iPhone 5 and you'll be hard-pressed to find any faults with Samsung's pentile display. At the high resolutions the new displays are out with now (1080 on the S4) the "inferior pentile" argument has gotten old and has no merit anymore.
    Reply
  • IndignantSkeptic
    Well, I haven't looked at the S4 but I did compare the S3 to iPhone 4 and the S3 looks absolutely hideous. I can see the grainy checker-board effect. Whoever finds a Pentile screen acceptable is the type of person that can handle looking at extreme ugliness, which may be a useful trait to have actually.
    Reply