Maskless OLED production

Exactly one year ago in December 2024, Japan Display announced a strategic partnership with Taiwan-based Innolux and CarUX (Innolux's automotive display company) to bring eLEAP OLED displays to the automotive market. 

Today Innolux's CEO announced that this strategic partnership has been terminated. Innolux explains that the two companies, even after many discussions and plans, have failed to reach a commercial agreement.

Both Samsung Display and BOE are building next-generation 8.6-Gen OLED production lines, aiming to increase capacity for IT AMOLED panels (for laptops, tablets and perhaps monitors as well). Samsung is on track to enter mass production in Q3 2026, and BOE's original plan was to start mass production in Q4 2026.

According to the news from China, BOE is accelerating its plans, and is currently about 4 months ahead of schedule - and now the company hopes to be the world's first display maker to mass produce OLEDs in a 8.6-Gen line. Not only that, but BOE's line will be able to produce flexible OLEDs (on Polyimide substrates), while Samsung's line only supports rigid OLEDs on glass.

Samsung Display is progressing as planned with its  8.6-Gen AMOLED production line, and the company's president Lee Cheong, now says that the company expects to start mass producing panels by Q3 2026, or even a few weeks before that.

 Lee Cheong also noted that the company is also moving forward with the final development of foldable OLED displays, to be supplied to a North American client, pretty much confirming that Samsung will supply these displays to Apple for its first foldable smartphone due out in 2026. It is understood that these flexible displays will not be produced at the 8.6-Gen IT line (which will produce rigid glass based OLEDs, at least in the first phase).

Towards the end of 2023, BOE officially announced its plans for a 8.6-Gen B16 flexible LTPO AMOLED line in Chengdu. The agreement with Chengdu's local government was signed in early 2024, and in April BOE announced it is starting to construct the new fab. 

The company now updates that the B16 line is actually ahead of schedule, and it expects to light up the line before the end of 2025. Mass production and shipments are targeted for Q4 2026. The main applications that BOE plans for are in IT (laptops, tablets and monitors) and automotive - but the fab will also be able to produce smartphone AMOLED displays if BOE needs to.

China-based LCD maker HKC aims to become an AMOLED producer, and we now have more details on its strategic plans. In 2023, HKC started a collaboration with JDI to build an eLEAP AMOLED production line in China. These plans were canceled towards the end of 2023, but the company continued to develop its AMOLED technologies, and in early 2025 it acquired Royole's AMOLED production line equipment.

Earlier this month HKC produced its first AMOLED display sample - a smartphone type panel, produced on an advanced Oxide-TFT (IGZO) backplane. 

Japan Display, who's been in financial problems for many years, has decided to halt its OLED production at its Mobara Fab, its only OLED production line. As a consequence, the company will no longer supply panels to Apple. The Mobara fab will end production by March 2026.

Beyond being good news for LG Display (Apple's other main wearable OLED panel supplier), this is a sad ending to JDI's OLED fab. The company been considering moving the production equipment to its Ishikawa LCD line but has apparently decided instead to try and sell the OLED production equipment.