TCL CSOT - Page 10

Colnatec just told us that a large European customer is building an OLED deposition machine that is headed for China. The machine will adopt Colnatec's temperature-controlled Tempe system.

Colnatec would not reveal much, besides that the substrate size is "larger than anything currently on the market", and the customer ordered a "large number" of Tempe Systems. This is very interesting news, and hopefully we will know more in the future. If this is indeed the largest substrate-size OLED fab ever, it is bound to produce OLED TV panels, and it will be great to finally see competition for LG Display's OLEDs. Of course it may take a couple of years before mass production actually begins.

In October 2012 we reported that Taiwan's AU Optronics is suing two former executives that allegedly stole technologies (including AMOLED related ones) from the company and supplied it China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT, a subsidiary of TCL).

Today we learned that those two executives were found guilty by the Hsinchu Court in northern Taiwan. Tsung-Yi Hsu, a former OLED R&D department manager at AUO was charged of leaking AMOLED manufacturing and Thin-Film Transistor (TFT) structure research findings to CSOT (where he was employed as the director of the R&D center). Hsu will be jailed six months and fined NT $180,000 (around $5,500 US). The prosecutors are still deciding whether Hsu can pay a fine instead of facing imprisonment.

During the OLED World Summit, an analyst from UBI gave an interesting presentation, showing the company's view of the current status of the OLED TV industry, and their OLED market forecasts for upcoming years.

So first of all, we have LG and Samsung. LGD has obviously been successful in launching WOLED OLED TVs, and scaling up to mass production has been achieved. LG is also hopeful that solution processing will enable them to produce RGB-structured OLEDs efficiently. LG is collaborating with Merck and Espon on printing technologies.

In 2014, CSoT (a subsidiary of TCL) announced plans to establish a 6-Gen LTPS fab in Wuhan, China, in a $2.6 billion investment. New reports suggest that the company is actually ahead of schedule, and now estimates that mass production will begin in Q1 2017. The plan is to make both small and medium sized displays - LCDs and OLEDs.

The new production line will have a capacity of 30,000 monthly substrates - it's not clear what will be the ratio between high-end LCDs and OLEDs.

Digitimes research estimates that small and medium AMOLED production capacity in China will grow 373% by 2017, which will establish China as the number two AMOLED producer behind Korea.

Currently the only Chinese AMOLED producers are Everdisplay, with a 4.5-Gen production line and Visionox which has recently started to produce panels in their 5.5-Gen fab. According to Digitimes, Taiwan's AU Optronics has a larger capacity AMOLED fab (which I'm not sure is true), but growth in China will surpass the growth in Taiwan.

TCL's chairman, Tomson Li, gave an SID DisplayWeek speech, during which he predicted that the next-gen large-size displays will be printed OLEDs. Tomson said that global partners are welcome to join TCL and co-develop printed technologies, processes and materials.

During the DisplayWeek exhibition, TCL's CSOT subsidiary demonstrated three new AMOLED display prototypes, including a 5.5" PWM LTPS OLED and a 31" OLED TV panel. In May 2014 TCL announced plans to co-develop 5.5" LTPS AMOLEDs with Ignis innovation, I do not know if the new 5.5" demonstrators are based on this collaboration.

TCL Group announced that it is going to raise 5.7 billion RMB ($926 million) in a private placement (there will be 10 different investors) to build CSOT's T2 8.5-Gen fab. This fab will use Oxide-TFT substrates and will produce both LCDs and AMOLEDs. The company filed information which specifically mentioned that this fab is important due for the future OLED technology.

CSOT's 8.5-Gen Oxide-TFT fab was discussed back in July 2013, but we do not have any information regarding its capacity and how CSOT plans to split it between LCD and AMOLED production. A $926 million investment is not very large for such a fab, so this is probably just the first production line. Earlier estimates for the cost of this fab were 24.4 billion RMB (just over $4 billion).

In April 2014 TCL announced that their CSOT subsidiary will invest 16 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) to build a 6-Gen display fab that will be used to produce small/medium AMOLED displays. Now digitimes reports that CSOT, with support from the government of Wuhan, China, already begun trial production of AMOLED panels, and the company expects to start mass production by 2016.

It doesn't seem likely that CSOT, went from an investment plan to trial production in less than 3 months, but honestly these reports from China are not very clear. I hear it's more likely that CSOT has a pilot 4.5-Gen AMOLED line, in which they started the trial production.

IGNIS Innovation announced today that they are going to collaborate with Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) to develop a 5.5" HD AMOLED panel that will use Ignis's MaxLife Lite driving scheme.

The AMOLED panel will be produced by CSOT using an LTPS backplane. Ignis's MaxLife Lite will enable high yields, low cost, low-power consumption, and long life time. CSOT hopes that Ignis' technology will enable them to quickly ramp up production.

Towards the end of 2013 it was reported that TCL plans to invest 24.4 billion yuan (just over $4 billion) to build a new 8.5-Gen TV fab in Shenzhen, owned by CSOT. This fab (called Huaxing Power Two) will have two lines, one for a-Si LCDs and one for Oxide-TFT (55" OLED TV and LCD TV, it seems) panels. The Oxide-TFT capacity will be 30,000 monthly substrates.

Now TCL announced that the company, together with CSOT and the Hubei Science & Technology Investment group will invest 16 billion yuan ($2.56 billion) and build a 6-Gen display fab that will also be used to produce AMOLED displays. It's a bit confusing, but it seems that CSOT aims to use both LTPS and Oxide-TFT for this production. The fab will be used to produce small/medium displays.