Tokyo Electron (TEL) announced a new OLED R&D inkjet printing system, the Elius 500 Pro that is capable of printing on 2-Gen substrates (370x470 mm).
The Elius 500 is able to accommodate 12 kinds of inks and can produce red, blue and green sub pixels at the same time. The maximum display density is 200 PPI.
DSCC updated its display equipment spending forecast, and the company now expects LCD spending to stop completely in 2023 - as all new production lines from 2023 forward will be producing OLED displays (DSCC does not include other display technologies in this report, such as QDEL, e-paper and Micro-LEDs).
2019 will see 26% decrease in spending from 2018, with OLED spending down 64%. DSCC sees a rebound in 2020, where OLED spending will jump 132% due to new mobile flexible OLED lines in China.
2019 is shaping up to be a dramatically-low investment year for the OLED industry. DSCC for example expects that the market will fall 88% in 2019 compared to 2018. Two companies reported their financial results this week, with interesting notes about the OLED market.
First up is France-based effusion cells and sources producer Riber. The company reported that H1 2019 revenues in its evaporator business fell from €10.4 in H1 2018 to only €1 million. The sharp decline is linked to the "freeze on investments in OLED screen production equipment following the major investments made in previous years".
In March 2019 we reported that LG Display has delayed its plans for its $10 billion P10 10.5-Gen OLED TV fab in Paju, as the new larger deposition process was a larger challenge than expected.
According to a new report from Korea, LG display has actually started to install some of the Oxide-TFT deposition equipment (supplied by Applied Materials and Jusung Engineering) earlier than it first planned. LGD's original plan was to install this equipment in early 2020. The mass production at the P10 fab is expected to begin in 2021.
Samsung is developing its QD-OLED TV technology and the company was supposed to hold an investment review committee on April 2019 to decide whether to go ahead with plans to start production soon (mass production by the end of 2020).
However in May we later reported that Samsung decided to delay the production - trial production will begin towards the end of 2020, with real mass production on a new 10-Gen line only at around 2023. A new report from Korea sheds some more light on Samsung's situation.
DSCC estimates that the mobile OLED equipment will rebound in 2020 - up 461% in fact to $8.2 billion, after falling 88% in 2019.
In 2020, OLED spending will account for 56% of the total display equipment market spending, basically returning to the levels we saw in 2017-2018.
The Netherlands based SALDtech, established in 2018 as a spinoff from the TNO institute, announced that it closed its 2nd financing round led by Innovation Industries and BOM, Brabant Development agency.
SALDtech developed deposition tools based on the Holst Centre's Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition that can be used to produce large area ultra-thin layers with world class performance. SALDtech says it will used the investment to develop and build flexible OLED production equipment.
Digitimes reports that AU Optronics has setup a 3.5-Gen test ink-jet OLED printing line, and the company now intends to start building a 6-Gen production line. AUO will start constructing the line before the end of 2019.
AUO's Chairman confirmed that the latest advances in printing materials and equipment are starting to make OLED printing viable for commercial use. AUO has not yet decided the schedule for volume production.
Aixtron announced that it has commissioned a 2-Gen OVPD OLED system on a customer pilot production line. In the coming month the facility will deliver test results for the customer. Aixtron expects to receive an order from its OLED customer for a large-scale test system as part of its ongoing qualification process for OVPD technology.
Aixtron says that is OVPD deposition technology (developed originally by Universal Display, and licensed exclusively to Aixtron) offers several unique advantages over competing systems and it can enable the highest deposition rates, provide an efficient material utilization while minimizing the risk of degradation of organic material. In 2017 Aixtron spun-off its OLED business unit to a new subsidiary called APEVA.
According to Business Korea, LG Display is likely to start investing in its P10 10.5-Gen OLED TV fab in Paju by the end of the month (Q1 2019). Total investment in the P10 production fab is estimated to reach almost $10 billion.
LGD was supposed to start ordering equipment for the P10 line towards the end of 2018, but the company delayed these plans - according to an earlier BK report, LGD delayed the P10 fab in late 2018 as it found the shift to new 10.5-Gen substrates more challenging than it earlier expected, and in addition it wanted to focus on its upcoming 8.5-Gen line in Guangzhou first. Apparently LGD is now ready to start building the P10 line.
