OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 12

During an OLED display Seminar in Korea, UniJet's CEO Kim Seok-Soon said that new advances in Ink-Jet printing technologies could enable displays that are over 500 PPI - and so make printing a viable technology to produce small and medium-sized OLED panels.

Kim says that current ink-jet printing processes can reach to to 150 or 200 PPI, which is good enough for TV production (enough for a 8K 55" panel in fact) but not good enough for small sized displays. However current laser-droplet measurement processes could enable discharge control of less than 0.1 μm and a volume accuracy of less than 0.1% - enough to reach 550 PPI. Kim estimates that such technologies could be ready for mass production lines by 2020.

A few day go JOLED announced that it started commercial shipments of its 21.6" 4K OLED panels for use in medical monitors, in its low-volume 4.5-Gen ink-jet printing production line.

Following JDI's decision to halt its plans to increase its stake at JOLED, the company is now seeking to raise $900 million to support its plan to start mass producing OLEDs in 2019. According to a report from Japan the company has received commitments from Sony and Panasonic and both Sumitomo Chemical (who supplies its PLED materials to JOLED) and Screen Holdings (who supplies its equipment to JOLED) are likely to take part in the financing round as well.

In June 2017 JOLED announced that it started to sample 21.6" 4K OLED panels, with plans to initiate low volume production at its 4.5-Gen pilot inkjet production line. JOLED announced today that it has began commercial shipments of these panels. We do not know JOLED's first customer but it is likely to be Sony.

JOLED says that it has now achieved the necessary product quality and production yields. The product was already selected for use in medical monitors (again, we believe this is Sony, who we know received JOLED's first samples and already has its own 25" OLED medical monitor that uses Sony's own OLEDs). JOLED also aims to ship these panes to other OLED monitors applications.

OLED ink-jet developer Kateeva made several interesting updates regarding its OLED Ink Jet printing technologies. First up, the company formally introduced its inkjet equipment for large-area RGB OLED emitter deposition. Kateeva brands its new line as YIELDJet Explore and these systems are targeted for R&D lines and pilot lines.

Kateeva offers two systems, the Explore, which is used for early development and small panels (up to 200 mm substrates) and the Explore Pro which can be used to produce panels up to 55" in size (this is still a development/pilot system, though). Kateeva announced that it has shipped four Explore systems in 2017, and it expects to ship three additional systems by Q2 2018.

DSCC released a new market report which tracks the OLED materials market. According to DSCC's estimates, the OLED material revenues will reach $905 million in 2017 and will grow at a 20% CAGR to reach $2.25 billion in 2022. Note that these numbers do not include royalty payments.

DSCC sees the small/medium display materials growing at a 22% (from $586 million in 2017 to $1.56 billion in 2022) - and growing faster than OLED TV materials (CAGR 16%) as ink jet printing, which will begin to be adopted in 2020 will result in more efficient OLED deposition.

LG Display currently produces all its OLED TV panels using an evaporation (VTE) process. Market research company DSCC says that ink-jet printing is more efficient than current VTE processes as it will result in simpler displays (no need for color filters, for example, as used by LG's current WRGB displays). Ink-Jet printing will also enjoy lower depreciation costs and lower indirect expenses such as water and electricity.

DSCC estimates that an ink-jet printed 55" OLED TV panel will cost 17% less to produce compared to a VTE produced panel. An ink-jet printed panel will theoretically be significantly brighter (as the color filters absorb a large portion of the light), however solution-based OLED materials have traditionally lagged behind evaporation ones (Merck though says that the latest soluble materials are on-par with evaporation ones).

OrelTech is an Israeli-based early stage company that commercializes a unique printed electronics technology based on novel conductive ink and production process.

OrelTech's Head of R&D, Konstantin Livanov, was kind enough to explain the company's technology and business. Dr. Livanov received his PhD in chemistry from Weizmann Institute of Science, and his expertise is in surface chemistry, nanomaterials, composite materials and electron microscopy.

Q: Hello Dr. Livanov, thank you for your time. First, can you explain ORELTech's process and technology?

Sure. We are doing conducive ink for advanced applications in printed electronics. The advantages of printed electronics are obvious: drastically reduced manufacturing costs due to simpler equipment, fewer fabrication steps and shorter throughput time. However, most organic devices, including OLEDs, are not printed. We could however print them if we could print metal layers at low temperatures. Right now most of them are assembled or deposited in high vacuum.

As we just posted, Japan Display has decided to halt its plans to turn its minority stake at JOLED into a majority one, and so JOLED is now seeking external financing to support its plan to start mass producing OLEDs in 2019 at the JDI plant in Nomi, Ishikawa (which currently makes LCDs, but will be shut down towards the end of 2017).

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, JOLED aims to raise 100 billion Yen (almost $900 million) from Japanese companies, and it has already approached Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon and Sumitomo. If this plans fails JOLED may turn to foreign companies, including Chinese ones.

Taiwan-based Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) says that it is developing Quantum-Dots displays (QD-LEDs) produced using a printing process. CPT says that QD-LEDs offer pure-colors, long lifetime and are more efficient and stable compared to OLED displays.

CPT hopes that a printing process will enable low cost QD-LED displays. CPT's Material Technology Division manager estimates that the major obstacles have already been overcome - although the performance of quantum dots is still lacking and CPT is continuing to research and develop QD materials. CPT estimates that it could start mass producing QD-LED displays within two years.

Universal Display reported excellent financial results for Q2 2017. Revenues increased 59% (compared to Q2 2016) to $102.5 million, with material sales increasing 110% to $46.8 million. Net income increased $25.4 million to $47.2 million.

UDC has $380 million in cash and equivalents, and is on the lookout for opportunities to use this money. UDC also increased its guidance for 2017 to be in the range of $285 million to $300 million.