Manufacturing equipment

Everdisplay's losses increase as demand for OLED displays in sluggish

China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay (EDO) reported its financial results for Q3  2023. Net loss increased to 1.1 billion Yuan ($150 million USD), and total loss in 2023 so far was 2.39 billion Yuan (around $325 million USD). 

Everdisplay 6-gen flexible OLED fab Shanghai (render)

The company says that the increased loss and drop in revenues were due to the global economic recession and weak demand in the consumer electronics market. The industry is facing a fierce price competition with radical price drops by AMOLED makers causing revenues and losses to decline.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 30,2023

CSoT is planning to buy JOLED's inkjet printing production equipment and initiate production in China

Inkjet printing pioneer JOLED has filed for bankruptcy, following many years of struggles to increase production capacity and revenues.  According to earlier reports from Japan, display maker Japan Display will take over JOLED technology and remaining operations.

TCL-CSoT 14'' inkjet-printed rollable OLED prototype (DTC 2021)

There are now reports from Korea that suggest that TCL's CSoT is considering buying JOLED's OLED production equipment, and moving it to China to attempt OLED production in-house using inkjet printing. If this plan goes through, the plan is to initiate production in 2024. It's not clear whether CSoT is in talks with JDI, or whether JDI did not take over the equipment from JOLED.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 04,2023

Preserving High Stability and Reproducibility of OLED Processes with Mg Sensitive OLED and High Precision Sensor Crystals

The OLED market is always innovating the technology industry, and the Thin Film group at INFICON is here to help OLED manufacturers grow that innovation. INFICON has developed Magnesium Sensitive OLED and High Precision Sensor Crystals, specifically for the OLED market to preserve the high stability and reproducibility of OLED processes.

The Mg Crystal Advantage

Magnesium Sensitive Crystals fill a significant gap in the manufacturing of OLED displays. Up until now, there was no solution for the difficulties of realizing fast magnesium (Mg) detection. Manufactures had to work around this delay by precoating crystals, an added step that not only adds a substantial amount of time to the process, but also wastes material, which in turn, costs more money and is not sustainable. The revolutionary development of Mg Sensitive OLED Crystals removes these unnecessary, wasteful precoating steps. The difference between current crystal products (green data) and the INFICON Mg Sensitive OLED Crystals (purple data) is substantial is shown below:

Read the full story Posted: Aug 07,2023

Yeolight starts installing production equipment at its $300 million 4.5-Gen OLED lighting fab

In May 2022 we reported that China-based OLED lighting developer Yeolight Technology is starting to build a 4.5-Gen OLED lighting production line, in Huaibei City, Anhui Province, China. The company is now starting to move in and install the first production equipment. The total equipment cost is estimated at 800 million Yuan (about $111 million USD). 

Yeolight 4.5-Gen OLED lighting fab, Anhui (Render)

Yeolight says that the new fab, when complete, will have a capacity of around 7 million panels in a year, or 1.2 million automotive lighting modules (probably referring to rear light modules). This will be the world's largest OLED lighting fab, when complete.

Read the full story Posted: Aug 04,2023

Notion Systems – interview on EHD printing in the display industry

Notion Systems, a leader in ink jet printing for industrial applications, has been active in the display market for a long time. The company is now promoting its EHD technology for high precision printing. Here’s an interview we conducted with Antonio Schmidt – SVP Sales & Business Development and Jochen Seeser – Senior Process Development Manager, Notion Systems.

Hello Antonio and Jochen, thank you for your time. In 2022, you started offering EHD printing systems. Can you explain how this technology works and what applications does it enable in the display industry?

Notion Systems has been active in the display market since 2016, when we delivered an n.jet display for pixel printing to a lab of a leading display manufacturer in China. Since then, we have supplied several inkjet displays for RGB printing and encapsulation to various R&D and production sites in China and Taiwan. I think we can also claim that we are the only manufacturer, along with perhaps one other U.S. competitor, that has multiple systems in operation for 24x7 display production.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 20,2023

Seeya orders OLED microdisplay deposition equipment from Sunic Systems in a $25.5 million deal

OLED microdisplay developer Seeya Information Technology has ordered OLED deposition (evaporation) equipment from Korea's Sunic System, in a deal worth $25.15 million.

Seeya OLED microdisplay photo

Sunic Systems will provide Seeya with 12-inch (300 mm) OLED deposition tools. Sunic is developing direct-patterning deposition equipment, but it is not clear whether this order is for such tools or whether these will be the standard white OLED with color filter deposition.

Read the full story Posted: Jun 21,2023

Coherent launches a new UV laser for high-speed cutting of OLED displays

Industrial laser developer Coherent announced a new Monaco industrial ultraviolet (UV) femtosecond laser with 50 W of output power. The company says that the new laser, the first 50 W 400 fs UV laser with proven 24/7 industrial-grade performance, is ideal for high-speed, high-volume cutting of stacked-OLED displays. 

This laser is used to cut the OLED displays after they are fully produced, which is why Coherent uses the term stacked-OLED (it does not refer to an OLED display with a stacked - or tandem - emitter design). The laser cutting enables shapes, notches and holes. Coherent updates that it installed over 800 Monaco laser systems worldwide (not all at OLED display fabs, though, the Monaco systems are also used in other applications).

Read the full story Posted: Jun 20,2023

UDC announces new narrow-spectrum PHOLED materials, reports advances in OVJP deposition technology

Universal Display announced that it will detail advances in its latest PHOLED materials at Display Week 2023. The company's latest red, green, and blue PHOLED materials offer a narrow emission spectrum, which increases the efficiency of OLED devices, in addition to enhancing the color gamut.

UDC PHOLED materials photo (2017)
UDC also unveil a new OVJP system printed on a 200mm x 500mm Corning Astra Glass substrate. UDC will also showcase the first-ever fully printed seven-layer (HIL/HTL/EBL/EML/HBL/ETL/EIL), 80 PPI, green commercial-level PHOLED device fabricated by its R&D OVJP system that has comparable device performance with vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE). 

Read the full story Posted: May 22,2023

Samsung Display starts ordering equipment for its 8.6-Gen IT OLED production line

According to report from Korea, Samsung Display has established a dedicated organization to head its new 8.6-Gen IT OLED Production line, and has started to order equipment. Samsung is converting an existing LCD line in Asan to OLED production, with an titak estimated cost of $3.1 billion.

Samsung Display 8-Gen IT OLED line slide (2022-08)

According to the report, SDC's decision to have a dedicated organization was made to give that team independence from the company's current small-area (smartphone/wearable) focused business and TV-focused business. 

Read the full story Posted: May 16,2023

The US may decide to add OLED equipment to the list of items prohibited to sell to China as trade war escalates

The trade war between the US and China escalates, an the US is mostly focused on restricting semiconductor equipment, materials and chips sales to China as its sees semiconductors as a crucial strategic technology.

F-35 helmet HMD photo

According to new reports, the US is now considering adding display technologies, mostly OLEDs, to the list of restricted technologies and may ask Japan and Korea to stop selling materials and equipment to Chinese display makers. 

Read the full story Posted: Apr 29,2023