OLED production - Page 25

Israeli-based InZiv announced that it has successfully closed a Series A round, raising $2.5 million from Maverick Ventures Israel.

Using proprietary technology, InZiv designs and manufactures inspection equipment based on highly specialized nano-scale optics and near-field microscopy. InZiv's equipment is specifically designed to test next-generation display - such as OLEDs, Micro-LEDs and QLEDs. InZiv says that its nano-optical and metrological inspection equipment offers the ability to study a wide variety of defects not detectable with existing tools.

Towards the end of 2015 LG Display announced that it plans to build a new OLED fab (P10) in Paju in a $8.7 billion investment. The P10 was supposed to produce both LCD and OLED displays (mostly OLED TV panels, but also mid-sized flexible OLEDs), and production was planned to begin towards the end of 2018.

In 2017, we heard reports that LGD decided to cancel the LCD production at the P10 fab and focus exclusively on OLED displays. A new report from Business Korea confirms this report - and says that LG also decided to postpone the production at the P10 as the shift to OLED technologies is challenging - especially as LGD intends to produce OLEDs on 10.5-Gen substrates for the first time at the P10 fab.

Earlier this month we reported that BOE started to construct its 3rd 6-Gen flexible AMOLED production line in Chongqing's Liangjiang district (the B12 line). The Chongqing line will join BOE's first flexible 6-Gen OLED fab in Chengdu (the B7) and its second line in Mianyang.

BOE now announced plans for another large investment in a new flexible OLED fab, this one in Fuzhou, Fujian. This fab will be similar to BOE's other fabs - a 6-Gen (1500×1850 mm) line with a capacity of 48,000 substrates. The investment will total 46.5 billion Yuan (about $6.75 billion USD). This fourth line will bring BOE's total flexible OLED capacity to 192,000 monthly substrates.

According to reports from China, last week BOE started to construct its 3rd 6-Gen flexible AMOLED production line in Chongqing's Liangjiang district (the B12 line). The investment in the new fab will total 46.5 billion Yuan, or about $7.3 billion USD.

The B12 line will have a capacity of 48,000 monthly substrates - which will bring BOE's total flexible OLED capacity to 144,000 monthly substrates (second only to Samsung).

Samsung Display is developing hybrid QD-OLED TV technology, and according to estimates, the company aims to begin trial production in 2019. It seems that Samsung is managing to overcome the technical challenges and the company is preparing to start production of such QD-OLED TVs in 2019.

Last month Digitimes updated about Samsung's plans to start installing equipment by the end of 2018 and begin trial production in H2 2019. Digitimes now posted another article, revealing more details on Samsung's plans.

In 2016 China-based Everdisplay (EDO) started to construct a 6-Gen flexible AMOLED fab in Shanghai. In August 2017 EDO said that it finished the building's main steel frame roof, and in July 2018 EDO started to install equipment.

Everdisplay now announces that the new production line has been successfully lit for the first time. It's not exactly clear what the company means by that, but progress seems to be going well and EDO says that trial panel production will begin in January 2019, as planned.

CLSA says that as OLED displays are too expensive for many smartphone makers and lack enough differentiation to LCDs, the company is lowering its OLED adoption forecasts. CLSA now expects China's OLED smartphone shipments to total 116 million in 2018, 143 million in 2019 and 168 million in 2020. CLSA lowered its forecasts by 12-21%. In terms of penetration into the total Chinese smartphone market, CLSA sees 14% in 2018, 18% in 2019 and 21% in 2020.

Looking at the OLED makers, side, CLSA sees ample OLED supply in coming years, which means that expansion is likely to slow. CLSA assumed that OLED makers will achieve 70% yields and a utilization rate of 90%, which will bring all OLED makers to have a combined production capacity of around 288 million 6" panels in 2020. As demand will be only 168 million by Chinese phone makers (and remember there's also Samsung and LGD of course), this will create quite an oversupply situation in China. CLSA cuts its China OLED production forecasts by BOE, Tianma, Visionox, CSoT and Everdisplay by 23% to 26% in coming years.

China-based display maker CSOT held a ceremony yesterday as it started construction on its upcoming T7 large-area display production fab. The T7 fab, which has a total cost of around 42.7 billion Yuan ($6.15 billion USD), will produce both LCD and OLED displays.

Total capacity in the T7 line will be 105,000 monthly substrates (according to our information, the OLED capacity will be 20,000 monthly substrates). The T7 OLED line will use IGZO backplanes and inkjet printing deposition. CSOT's plan is to start production by the end of 2020 - with real mass production starting in 2021.

BOE is ramping up its AMOLED production, and according to CLSA its target for the second half of 2018 is to produce 3 million panels. BOE is reportedly the supplier of AMOLED panels to Huawei's Mate 20 Pro smartphone, but CLSA says that the company is struggling to find customers from other smartphone makers.

According to CINNO, BOE produced around 1.7 million panels in the first half of 2018 - which means that it plans to almost double its shipments in the second half of the year.

The following is a sponsored post by Shaanxi Kuntech Semiconductor Technology

The press conference for the landing and launching of Shaanxi Kuntech Flexible Semiconductor Service Manufacturing Base Project was grandly held in West Fengxi New City, West Xian Xin New District, Shaanxi province on the morning of October 16, with its theme being "Shinning Shaanxi and Shaping the Future World".

A number of Chinese government leaders, partners from home and abroad, as well as the media attended the event, where the duo direction foldable AMOLED display with internal and external folds developed by the R&D team was also displayed.