Merck announced that is has signed a Memorandam of Understanding with China's Visionox to accelerate the development and application of OLED displays. Merck did not provide a lot of details, but it did say that this agreement markets a strategic alliance between Merck and Visionox.
Merck offers a complete portfolio of materials for OLED display and lighting devices - including evaporation and soluble materials suitable for ink jet printing.
In June 2018 Merck opened a new OLED technology center in Shanghai to provide local customers with tailor-made solutions to enable innovative OLED application development. Merck's new center offers a range of state-of-the-art equipment and clean room facilities that can be used for OLED device fabrication and characterization.
Visionox produces both PMOLED and AMOLED displays (although reports suggest that the company is set to sell its PMOLED business). In May 2018 Visionox announced that it started to produce flexible AMOLED displays at its first 6-Gen OLED fab in Hebei. The production line has a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates and total investment in that fab was around $4.5 billion.
In October 2018 Visionox announced plans to establish its 2nd flexible OLED production line in Hefei. The new line will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 1500x1850 mm substrates (6-Gen). Mass production in Visionox's Hefei line is expected to start by the end of 2020.
