LG Display announced that it will build a new OLED display plant in Paju, Korea. The P10 fab will mainly make large-size OLED TV panels and flexible OLED panels - but LGD also expect to produce future display technologies such as transparent OLEDs at the new plant. LG Display's CEO says that this is an "historical investment" for the display industry as it will expand the OLED market and accelerate future display technology development.
The P10 is going to be a large plant - with an area of 382x265 meters (similar to 14 football fields) and will be 100 meters high. The OLED TV lines will be Gen-9 lines while the flexible OLED lines will host smaller substrates. The first production line is scheduled for mass production in the first half of 2018.
The total investment in the P10 plant is estimated at KRW10 trillion ($8.7 billion USD). The first phase (which covers the construction of the building, the foundations for the clean rooms and infrastructure) will begin this year and will require an investment of KRW1.84 trillion ($1.6 billion USD).
In August 2015 LG Display announced plans to invest around $8.5 billion in OLED capacity in the next three years as the company shifts its focus to OLED displays, and LG already committed to the E5 Gen-6 flexible AMOLED fab in Gumi (in a KRW1 trillion, or $900 million USD investment). It seems that LGD is accelerating its OLED investment plans, as this new fab alone exceeds the original investment plans.
According to some reports, Apple made the decision to switch to OLED displays in future iPhones - indeed in 2018. Apple is said to be in talks with suppliers to secure the huge capacity required (over 200 million displays, for the iPhone alone). This may be one of the reasons LG decided to make this huge commitment. Regardless of Apple, it seems that LGD already made the decision to go into the OLED display market for mobile devices.
Back in 2012, LG Display was awarded a project by the Korean government to develop 60" UHD flexible and transparent panels by 2017. Later in February 2014, LGD said it is still on target for this project, in July 2014 the company demonstrated 18" flexible (shown below) and transparent OLEDs and recently LG Electronics announced that it will demonstrate a 55" rollable OLED TV at CES 2016.
LG is expected to launch a bendable TV (the 77" EG9900), and the company also developed 0.97-mm flexible OLED "wallpaper" TVs that attach magnetically to a wall and can be "peeled off". Those aren't truly rollable OLED TVs, but perhaps by 2018 such displays may reach the market indeed.
We recently conducted a short interview with an official from LGD regarding the company's OLED business goals and aims.
