Business Korea says that Samsung Display has finalized its QD-OLED TV production plans. The company will invest 13 trillion Won (around $10.85 billion) to convert its L8 LCD production line in Tangjeong to QD-OLED production.
According to the report, SDC's investment will be the single largest investment in Korea's display industry ever. The L8-1-1 LCD line will be shut down immediately, and converted to QD-OLED production. SDC will also shut down its second line (L8-2-1) and in total the two fabs will be able to produce 200,000 8-Gen glass substrates each month (down from the current 360,000 substrates in LCD production today). Mass production of QD-OLED panels will begin in 2022.
Following the shut-down of the L8 LCD line, SDC will have only one single large-area LCD line remaining, in Suzhou, China.
According to DSCC, Samsung's QD-OLEDs will offer several advantages compared to LG's current WRGB (four subpixels + color filters) system. Samsung will be able to use three sub pixels and only two emitting layers (LGD uses four), and so its stack will include 13 layers compared to 22 layers in LGD's TVs - which means fewer deposition stages, improved yields and lower material costs.
In fact, DSCC estimates that a square meter of QD-OLED production will require materials that cost around $26 - compared to almost $95 in a meter of WOLED production.
You can see DSCC's QD-OLED revenue forecast here - although they admit that as Samsung faces several technical challenges before it could launch commercial QD-OLED TVs, its forecast could be way off.
The two main challenges for QD-OLEDs, according to DSCC, are efficient blue OLED emitters (first-gen will likely use fluorescent emitters) and a good quantum-dot color converter (QDCC). Light management in this architecture is also a serious challenge.
