Inkjet printing pioneer JOLED has filed for bankruptcy, following many years of struggles to increase production capacity and revenues. According to earlier reports from Japan, display maker Japan Display will take over JOLED technology and remaining operations.
There are now reports from Korea that suggest that TCL's CSoT is considering buying JOLED's OLED production equipment, and moving it to China to attempt OLED production in-house using inkjet printing. If this plan goes through, the plan is to initiate production in 2024. It's not clear whether CSoT is in talks with JDI, or whether JDI did not take over the equipment from JOLED.
In 2020, TCL (CSoT) invested 20 billion Yen (around $187 million USD) in JOLED, and has also signed an agreement to jointly develop OLED TV printing technologies. TCL is getting ready to develop large-area inkjet printed panels by 2024 based on JOLED's technology, and JOLED's equipment could assist it in its plans.
JOLED was established in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display producer. Following years of R&D and initial production, the company initiated mass production of its OLEDIO panels in 2021 at its new 5.5-Gen production line in Nomi, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. CSoT is interested in the Nomi line.
JOLED's panels appeared on the market, but only for high-end applications such as LG's professional monitor range. But JOLED never managed to increase yields and its panel costs remained very high.
In 2019, JOLED raised $228 million to build a module production line. In 2018 the company raised $400 million from four investors, including Denso, Toyota and Sumitomo.
