Counterpoint details the capex needs of FMM, photo patterned and inkjet OLED lines

Counterpoint (DSCC) released an interesting post, detailing the display industry's capex spending in the near future. Unsurprisingly, OLED technology will contribute the majority share of these investments.

After a long time during which all OLED production was performed using FMM (evaporation and mask) technology, finally we are seeing two competing technologies - photo patterned OLEDs (adopting by Visionox as ViP and JDI as eLEAP), and inkjet printing (adopted by TCL CSoT). According to counterpoint, the price different between FMM and Photo-Patterned, in terms of the investment in equipment, is not dramatic. In fact, the company estimates that it is 8% cheaper to build a photo-patterned production line. Counterpoint admits, though, that it may be a bit early to understand the complete costs involved with such a line.

Inkjet Printing, though is a different story - here the investment required to build a production line, capable of producing 15,000 monthly substrates, is almost half of that of an FMM line. Counterpoint says that it still remains to be seen whether inkjet printed displays could compete with regular AMOLEDs in the main display industry categories.