Samsung has been developing its QD-OLED TV technology for a long time, but the company did not yet commit to actual production. Now Samsung Display's CEO officially announced that the company is "making good efforts" to launch QD-OLED panels in the "near future".
SDC has decided to shut down on of its 8.5-Gen LCD lines in Asan Korea, which will be converted to QD-OLED production in the future.
It is not clear how close Samsung is to actual mass production. Samsung originally hoped to start mass production of QD-OLEDs by the end of 2020. Some reports suggest that Samsung still faces some technology challenges and actual mass production may be delayed until 2023.
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.
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. This is good news for Samsung of course, but may be not so good for OLED materials makers (especially UDC, at least until Samsung adopts a phosphorescent blue emitter as the first generation displays will likely be based on an all-fluorescence OLED architecture).
