Sumitomo

Sumitomo Chemical announced that the company expects demand for polymer OLED materials will increase as large-area OLED displays are entering into the market. Sumitomo hopes that its OLED materials will become the standard for large-area OLED production.

The address this next phase in its OLED business, Sumitomo has decided to integrate its PLED Business Planning office into its IT-related Chemicals Sector, which will enable it to ramp up its OLED materials business through integrated operations with its IT-related Chemicals Sector, which handles display-related materials.

At the OLED Korea conference, both Merck and Sumitomo detailed their latest OLED inkjet material performance.

Sumitomo is advancing with its R&D efforts, and the company says that its PLED materials will be adopted in mass production systems by 2020 (although JOLED already uses PLEDs in its displays).

Last month it was reported that JOLED raised around $400 million from four new investors - auto parts maker Denso ($270 million), major trading house Toyota Tsusho ($90 million) and Sumitomo Chemical and Screen Holdings.

JOLED now confirmed this funding round. The total sum raised was actually a bit higher than reported - JPY47 billion, or about $424 million. It also said that these new investors are not just financial ones - JOLED will cooperate with DENSO to develop automotive OLED displays, while Toyota Tsusho will support this business using its automotive sales channels. Sumitomo Chemical will also enhance its already existing collaboration with JOLED to further develop OLED Printing materials.

Last month Japan-based OLED maker JOLED announced official plans for its first mass production printed OLED fab, and today it is reported that JOLED have raised around $400 million from four new investors - auto parts maker Denso ($270 million), major trading house Toyota Tsusho ($90 million) and Sumitomo Chemical and Screen Holdings.

JOLED intends to raise $900 million, so the current amount is less than half of what it needs to complete its first mass production line. According to earlier reports, Panasonic and Sony also intend to to invest around $50 million each.

Last month CSoT (TCL) announced plans to establish a 11-Gen LCD+OLED TV fab in Shenzhen, China. Details on the OLED part of that fab were not given, but now we have some updates following the company's investor day.

The new fab will use Oxide-TFT backplanes, and it turns out that the OLED part of the fab will also use the 11-Gen substrates (which may be cut for the actual OLED front plane deposition). Out of the entire capacity of 90,000 monthly substrates, the OLED line will use 20,000 substrates. The fab will start mass production in 2021.

DSCC says that the OLED circular polarizer market is set to grow from $428 million in 2017 to $1.27 billion in 2022. The market is still dominated by mobile displays.

The OLED circular polarizer market is led by two companies, Sumitomo Chemical and Nitto Denko, with LG Chem increasing its market share in OLED TVs polarizers.

Sumitomo Chemical announced it will exhibit new OLED lighting fixtures at Light+Building 2018. This is the fourth time that Sumitomo shows its OLEDs at this leading lighting bi-annual trade fair.

Japanese lighting designer Motoko Ishii is the art director of Sumitomo's booth and is showcasing several OLED chandeliers, including the OLED MINORI you see above. Motoko Ishii has been working with Sumitomo for a while now.

Many OLED producers believe that Ink-Jet printing of OLED emissive materials is the best way to achieve lower-cost OLED TV production, and to enable OLEDs to compete in the medium part of the TV market. Ink-Jet printing is an efficient process (less material waste compared to evaporation) and it can be very quick as well. The main drawbacks of inkjet are the limited resolution and the need for soluble emissive materials which are less efficient compared to evaporation ones.

A Kateeva OLED ink-jet printing system

These challenges are being overcome, and it seems that at least four groups (in Korea, Japan and China) are charging forward towards mass production of ink-jet printed OLEDs. Ink-jet printer makers and soluble material suppliers are also optimistic ink-jet printing commercialization will soon be here as the material performance gap is diminishing.

A few day go JOLED announced that it started commercial shipments of its 21.6" 4K OLED panels for use in medical monitors, in its low-volume 4.5-Gen ink-jet printing production line.

Following JDI's decision to halt its plans to increase its stake at JOLED, the company is now seeking to raise $900 million to support its plan to start mass producing OLEDs in 2019. According to a report from Japan the company has received commitments from Sony and Panasonic and both Sumitomo Chemical (who supplies its PLED materials to JOLED) and Screen Holdings (who supplies its equipment to JOLED) are likely to take part in the financing round as well.

In June 2017 JOLED announced that it started to sample 21.6" 4K OLED panels, with plans to initiate low volume production at its 4.5-Gen pilot inkjet production line. JOLED announced today that it has began commercial shipments of these panels. We do not know JOLED's first customer but it is likely to be Sony.

JOLED says that it has now achieved the necessary product quality and production yields. The product was already selected for use in medical monitors (again, we believe this is Sony, who we know received JOLED's first samples and already has its own 25" OLED medical monitor that uses Sony's own OLEDs). JOLED also aims to ship these panes to other OLED monitors applications.