OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 2

IPValue Management announced that it has acquired around 200 OLED patents from Seiko Epson. We do not know the nature of these patents, and whether IPValue bought all of Seiko Epson's OLED IP portfolio or just a part of it. IPValue says that the patents will be owned by its subsidiary Lumitek Display Technology.

Seiko Epson has been working on OLED technologies for many years - and it has been involved mostly with soluble OLED materials, ink-jet printing and OLED microdisplays. In 2013 Samsung Display bought several OLED patents from Seiko Epson. 

TCL CSoT says that it will start producing OLED displays using an inkjet printing process in the second half of 2024. This is excellent news and good to know CSoT is still on track for initial production in 2024. The company says it will first target the IT and medical sector. 

The company says that the cost of producing OLEDs using its inkjet printed panels will be lower compared to the currently-used FMM based method, and its OLEDs will offer superior performance (in lifetime, mostly) as its process enables higher aperture.

According to reports, Kateeva's QD-OLED printing project saga is not over. Samsung Display tested the company's latest printers, but these failed the tests and Samsung Display will not but these printers. SDC planned to replace the currently-used Semes' printers, which also suffer from low performance.

Samsung Display is also not committed yet to expand its QD-OLED production lines, which means that in any case it does not need to buy new printers for production expansion. Earlier reports suggested that SDC wanted to upgrade it current capability for higher density (to reach 8K TV printing), so this may be the reason behind the testing of Kateeva's new printers.

In 2021, we reported that two researchers working at Samsung Display were convicted of handing over OLED technology to other companies, and are being sent to prison for two years. Representative and directors of the company that bought the technology was also sent to prison and the company was fined. The technology in question relates to Optical Adhesive Materials used in OLED production processes. The arrest of these employees was reported earlier in 2020.

It is now reported that another employee of Samsung Display, also involved in that case (seems to be he was the main organizer of the outfit) fled Korea following his indictment, but has now returned voluntarily to Korea and has been arrested and is now bring charged with violating unfair competition laws in Korea. 

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.

Notion Systems, a leader in ink jet printing for industrial applications, has been active in the display market for a long time. The company is now promoting its EHD technology for high precision printing. Here’s an interview we conducted with Antonio Schmidt – SVP Sales & Business Development and Jochen Seeser – Senior Process Development Manager, Notion Systems.

Hello Antonio and Jochen, thank you for your time. In 2022, you started offering EHD printing systems. Can you explain how this technology works and what applications does it enable in the display industry?

Notion Systems has been active in the display market since 2016, when we delivered an n.jet display for pixel printing to a lab of a leading display manufacturer in China. Since then, we have supplied several inkjet displays for RGB printing and encapsulation to various R&D and production sites in China and Taiwan. I think we can also claim that we are the only manufacturer, along with perhaps one other U.S. competitor, that has multiple systems in operation for 24x7 display production.

A few months ago we reported that Japan-based inkjet printing OLED developer JOLED has filed for bankruptcy, and that Japan Display (JDI) will take over JOLED's technology and operations. JDI released an official statement regarding JOLED and its plans for the future.

So indeed on March 7 2023, JDI signed a basic agreement to support JOLED. Since then the two companies held 'extensive discussions', following which JDI decided to form a subsidiary company called 'JDI Design and Development' or JDIDD, that will acquire JOLED’s OLED technology development business and all related operations.

TCL CSoT had several interesting new OLED demonstrations at SID DisplayWeek 2023, all of which were produced by inkjet printing, which shows the company's commitment to the new production process.

First up is the company latest inkjet-printed panel, this time CSoT showed a 8K (7680 × 4320) 65" TV panel that is foldable (with a bending radius of 25 mm). The panel offers a peak brightness of 800 nits, a response time of under 1 ms and a refresh rate of 120Hz.

Universal Display announced that it will detail advances in its latest PHOLED materials at Display Week 2023. The company's latest red, green, and blue PHOLED materials offer a narrow emission spectrum, which increases the efficiency of OLED devices, in addition to enhancing the color gamut.

UDC also unveil a new OVJP system printed on a 200mm x 500mm Corning Astra Glass substrate. UDC will also showcase the first-ever fully printed seven-layer (HIL/HTL/EBL/EML/HBL/ETL/EIL), 80 PPI, green commercial-level PHOLED device fabricated by its R&D OVJP system that has comparable device performance with vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE). 

A report from Japan updates that JOLED , the OLED inkjet printing pioneer established in 2014, has filed for bankruptcy. The company has been struggling financially for a long time, and will now close down its two production lines and lay off 280 employees (out of 380), as it could not raise funds and has liabilities of around $257 million.

According to the report, display maker Japan Display will take over JOLED technology and remaining operations.