Omdia: Inkjet printing carries many important advantages for OLED production, will be 30-35% cheaper than FMM for laptop panel production

Omdia estimates that producing a laptop OLED panel using inkjet printing is about 30-35% lower in cost compared to traditional FMM production. Both technologies are expected to slowly reduce production costs, but the gap will remain rather constant, at least in the next 3 years.

Inkjet printing, according to Omdia, provides many advantages over conventional technologies. - advantages in red, green, and blue (RGB) subpixel patterning, greater material utilization, flexibility, panelization, and larger pixel apertures. At the same time, equipment and maintenance costs are lower than those required by FMM processes. All of this translates to lower production costs.

Another advantage of inkjet printing is that it enables full-size substrate processing, whereas half-cut frontplane processing is typically required in conventional FMM approaches (as it is challenging to produce large masks). In the frontplane process, glass substrates are cut in half for evaporation due to mask sagging and alignment issues. This generates particles, reduces process efficiency, and wastes valuable glass area. In inkjet printing, full-size substrate processing is possible, which increases productivity - Omdia estimates that in a 8.6-Gen substrates, about 10% more 16.3" laptop panels can be produced, this is an important advantage.