Manufacturing equipment

DSCC says that the display industry's spend on production equipment will grow 47% in 2024, to reach $7.3 billion. The next three years (2025-2027) will see pretty much the same levels, and will  not return to the high levels we've seen in 2022 and before. 

2024 will see significant investment in new LC capacity, but going forward there will be very little  investments on LCD production, which is not surprising. DSCC says that the major catalyst for the growth will be production lines for IT AMOLED displays.

TOYOTech, Sharp Display Technology Corporation (Mie, Japan), and the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Ishikawa, Japan) have developed a novel measurement technology to analyze the behavior of Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) under extremely low luminance conditions.

This new technology measures the gap between the onset voltage of current change and the emission voltage—factors closely linked to OLED degradation. It is expected to play a critical role in analyzing display Mura, a defect that appears in low luminance or as OLEDs degrade.

OLEDs emit light when a voltage is applied to organic compounds, enabling the creation of displays that are thinner, lighter, and more energy-efficient, suitable for devices like TVs and smartphones. Unlike Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), OLEDs have a simpler structure due to their self-emissive properties, which eliminate the need for a backlight. OLEDs are formed by stacking multiple layers of thin films, and their performance depends on optimizing deposition conditions. Traditionally, these characteristics have been evaluated using J-V-L (current density-voltage-luminance) measurements, which track current and luminance as voltage is applied. However, J-V-L technology has limitations in detecting small currents and low luminance levels at the start of OLED light emission.

DSCC says that display makers are increasing their OLED CapEx investment as demand for OLED displays is on the rise. DSCC has raised its forecast for OLED spending by 14% compared to their previous update, while they retain their previous forecast for LCD, OLED microdisplay and microLED display equipment spending. 

Between 2020 and 2027, OLED display makers will invest $44 billion in new production equipment. The spending on OLED equipment will keep growing year after year from 2023 to 2027, reaching $6.5 billion in 2027, as OLED penetration in the smartphone, tablet and laptop market is increasing, and fab utilization is increasing too, encouraging display makers to add capacity.

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) announced that it has started mass producing fine metal masks (FMM) at its new production line at Kurosaki Plant, in Fukuoka, Japan. DNP invested $140 million to expand the production line.

8-Gen and 6-Gen FMM samples (DNP)

The new production line is producing masks suitable for 8-Gen substrates. As the OLED industry is moving to expand its IT AMOLED display production for laptops, monitors and tablets, companies are building larger (8.7-Gen mostly) production lines that require these larger masks. While the company is already producing at the new fab, it will also announced that it may gradually expand production further at the new line, depending on market demand.

According to recent rumors, LG Display has decided to go ahead and build its 8.6-Gen (2250 x 2600 mm) IT AMOLED line, in Paju, Korea (at its P10 hub, which was originally planned for OLED TV production). The company recently started to conduct discussions with equipment makers for supply agreements.

LG Display's plan is to officially announce its 8.6-Gen production line plans in the second half of the year, and start ordering equipment. It is likely that the capacity of the fab will be between 7,500 to 15,000 monthly substrates. LG will be using its P10 building and existing equipment (backplane deposition) to reduce the costs of the 8.6-Gen line. This will mean that there will be delays to LG's WOLED TV panel capacity expansion plans. 

Market research firm Omdia says that display production equipment sales will rebound in 2024 and reach $7.7 billion (154% over 2023), and will grow slowly in the near future, mainly driven by 8.6-Gen OLED production lines (used to make IT displays).

Omdia says that the new 8.6-Gen OLED fab require novel technologies, which results in high equipment costs. In 2024, 32% of all spending ($2.4 billion) will be for Samsung's A6 line, a large investment for a 15,000 monthly subtrates fab. BOE's investment in its upcoming B16 flexible 8.6-Gen line will be even higher - by 18% due to the backplane choice (LTPO over Samsung's oxide-TFT A6).

OLED microdisplay maker Sidtek announced that it is starting to install production equipment at its 12-inch production line in Wuhu City, Anhui Province. The company says the first production line in the project is on track to start production in 2024.

Sidtek is currently producing its OLED microdisplays on a 8-inch production line, also in Wuhu. The first phase of its 12-inch fab will have a monthly capacity of 6,000 substrates, and the company is planning an expansion to 18,000 substrate. The total investment in the 12-inch fab (including the 2nd stage) is estimated at 6 billion Yuan (around $840 million USD).

China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay (EDO) reported its financial results for Q3  2023. Net loss increased to 1.1 billion Yuan ($150 million USD), and total loss in 2023 so far was 2.39 billion Yuan (around $325 million USD). 

The company says that the increased loss and drop in revenues were due to the global economic recession and weak demand in the consumer electronics market. The industry is facing a fierce price competition with radical price drops by AMOLED makers causing revenues and losses to decline.

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.

The OLED market is always innovating the technology industry, and the Thin Film group at INFICON is here to help OLED manufacturers grow that innovation. INFICON has developed Magnesium Sensitive OLED and High Precision Sensor Crystals, specifically for the OLED market to preserve the high stability and reproducibility of OLED processes.

The Mg Crystal Advantage

Magnesium Sensitive Crystals fill a significant gap in the manufacturing of OLED displays. Up until now, there was no solution for the difficulties of realizing fast magnesium (Mg) detection. Manufactures had to work around this delay by precoating crystals, an added step that not only adds a substantial amount of time to the process, but also wastes material, which in turn, costs more money and is not sustainable. The revolutionary development of Mg Sensitive OLED Crystals removes these unnecessary, wasteful precoating steps. The difference between current crystal products (green data) and the INFICON Mg Sensitive OLED Crystals (purple data) is substantial is shown below: