LTPS - Page 5

Back in 2014 we reported that BOE Display will build a Gen-6 LTPS AMOLED fab in Chengdu, China. The company started working on the new fab in May 2015, and said that the total investment will reach around $3.54 billion.

Today BOE filed a statement today in which they confirm the new fab and disclose that it is going to produce flexible OLEDs. BOE announced an investment cooperation with the Chengdu Municipal Government, and discloses also that the fab will have two lines with a capacity of 24,000 monthly substrates for each line. The new fab is expected to begin mass production in 2017.

AU Optronics announced several new display products, including some new OLED panels - a 12.3" Full-HD AMOLED display, a foldable AMOLED panel and OLED displays for smart watches and VR headsets.

The foldable panel features a thickness of only 0.1 mm and can be repeatedly folded over 200,000 times on a radius of 4 mm. This is an improvement of AUO's previous bendable panel (shown above) that was 0.2 mm thick.

Photonics-based solutions provider Coherent announced their financial results for Q4 2015, which were below estimates, but the company reported high bookings, mostly for its Linebeam systems which are used for laser annealing (turning a-Si into LTPS) for OLED producers.

Last quarter Coherent reported that they shipped their third $20-million Linebeam 1500 OLED ELA system in the quarter. Back then Coherent expected substantial new OLED orders in 2016 and now they confirm that. Coherent reports that they received a large (well in excess of $150 million) for OLED systems - and they have a "significant number" of orders pending for the balance of the second quarter and for the remainder of fiscal 2016. Deliveries of the new systems will begin in June 2016 and will run through 2017.

According to Digitimes, Innolux is building a new 6-Gen LTPS line that will have a monthly capacity of around 23,000 substrates - and will produce both LCD and AMOLED panels. Innolux expects the new line to start producing panels in the first half of 2016.

Innolux AMOLED prototypes (2012)

Innolux has been promising small scale OLED production back in 2012, but this never materialized, and the company shifted focus to 4K technologies later that year. The company has a 3.5-Gen IGZO fab in Tainan is used for R&D only. Innolux has been using WRGB architecture for prototype AMOLED panels, but we do not know what kind of panels are currently under development there.

Photonics based solutions provider Coherent announced their financial results for Q3 2015, and the company reported that they shipped their third Linebeam 1500 OLED ELA system in the quarter (this system costs around $20 million). Coherent expects "substantial" new OLED orders in 2016 with deliveries expected in 2017.

Coherent commented that most OLED displays for mobile phones are processed using their equipment - which means that Samsung Display is a Coherent customer. The new system is probably also being supplied to SDC, but it may also go to LGD or other makers. The ELA process is used to process the LTPS backplane. LG Display does not use such equipment to make OLED TVs as they are based on Oxide-TFT backplanes. Coherent expects to see a broader adoption of OLED display in mobile phones in the near future.

A few days ago AU Optronics announced that it will unveil a new 5" bendable AMOLED prototype with an integrated touch sensor, and today we have more details and a photo of this interesting AUO prototype.

The new panel is a 5" 720p (295 PPI) AMOLED display on an LTPS backplane. The frontplane is a top-emission AMOLED and the substrate is a plastic film, encapsulated using a thin-film barrier film. The whole panel, including the "film-type" touch sensor, is 0.2 mm thick.

In 2014, CSoT (a subsidiary of TCL) announced plans to establish a 6-Gen LTPS fab in Wuhan, China, in a $2.6 billion investment. New reports suggest that the company is actually ahead of schedule, and now estimates that mass production will begin in Q1 2017. The plan is to make both small and medium sized displays - LCDs and OLEDs.

The new production line will have a capacity of 30,000 monthly substrates - it's not clear what will be the ratio between high-end LCDs and OLEDs.

TCL's chairman, Tomson Li, gave an SID DisplayWeek speech, during which he predicted that the next-gen large-size displays will be printed OLEDs. Tomson said that global partners are welcome to join TCL and co-develop printed technologies, processes and materials.

During the DisplayWeek exhibition, TCL's CSOT subsidiary demonstrated three new AMOLED display prototypes, including a 5.5" PWM LTPS OLED and a 31" OLED TV panel. In May 2014 TCL announced plans to co-develop 5.5" LTPS AMOLEDs with Ignis innovation, I do not know if the new 5.5" demonstrators are based on this collaboration.

JOLED (Japan OLED) was launched in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display producer - focusing at first on OLEDs for tables, laptops and signage). A report from Korea's ETNews claims that Apple has contracted JOLED to produce OLED displays for next-gen iPad tablets.

Earlier estimates said that JOLED will begin pilot production in the second half of 2017 and mass production in the second half of 2017, which seems more reasonable then the current ETNews estimates which are quite aggressive - mass production for Apple by the end of 2016.

During an investor conference call, Universal Display revealed some new details on LG Display's flexible OLED program. According to UDC, LGD's current production capacity in its 4.5-Gen fab is 14,000 monthly substrates, more than double its capacity (6,000 substrates/month) that was reported in the middle of 2014.

LGD indeed said they expect to double their capacity towards the end of 2014, and that's great news. Some of that capacity will go to LG's own flexible products (such as the G Flex 2 and the G Watch R) - and reportedly also to support Apple's Watch which will launch in April.