Manufacturing equipment

According to recent rumors, LG Display has decided to go ahead and build its 8.6-Gen (2250 x 2600 mm) IT AMOLED line, in Paju, Korea (at its P10 hub, which was originally planned for OLED TV production). The company recently started to conduct discussions with equipment makers for supply agreements.

LG Display's plan is to officially announce its 8.6-Gen production line plans in the second half of the year, and start ordering equipment. It is likely that the capacity of the fab will be between 7,500 to 15,000 monthly substrates. LG will be using its P10 building and existing equipment (backplane deposition) to reduce the costs of the 8.6-Gen line. This will mean that there will be delays to LG's WOLED TV panel capacity expansion plans. 

Market research firm Omdia says that display production equipment sales will rebound in 2024 and reach $7.7 billion (154% over 2023), and will grow slowly in the near future, mainly driven by 8.6-Gen OLED production lines (used to make IT displays).

Omdia says that the new 8.6-Gen OLED fab require novel technologies, which results in high equipment costs. In 2024, 32% of all spending ($2.4 billion) will be for Samsung's A6 line, a large investment for a 15,000 monthly subtrates fab. BOE's investment in its upcoming B16 flexible 8.6-Gen line will be even higher - by 18% due to the backplane choice (LTPO over Samsung's oxide-TFT A6).

OLED microdisplay maker Sidtek announced that it is starting to install production equipment at its 12-inch production line in Wuhu City, Anhui Province. The company says the first production line in the project is on track to start production in 2024.

Sidtek is currently producing its OLED microdisplays on a 8-inch production line, also in Wuhu. The first phase of its 12-inch fab will have a monthly capacity of 6,000 substrates, and the company is planning an expansion to 18,000 substrate. The total investment in the 12-inch fab (including the 2nd stage) is estimated at 6 billion Yuan (around $840 million USD).

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). 

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.

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.

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.

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:

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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).