OLED laptop - Page 7

OLED makers are gearing up to increase production of IT OLED panels, used in laptops, monitors and tablets. Towards that, analysts expects over 10 8.5-Gen OLED lines under consideration now in the industry. This drive is led by Samsung Display that confirmed is is building a 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) OLED production line, that will begin production in 2024.

A 8-Gen (or actually 8.5-Gen) fab uses 2200x2500mm glass substrates. According to a new report in Korea, Samsung actually decided to adopt a larger glass - a 8.7-Gen 2290x2620 mm. The ~10cm increase will increase production efficiency by around 9%, but this means that current 8.5-Gen LCD equipment that Samsung hoped to use will not be usable any more.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an increased demand for high quality IT solutions, including monitors and collaborative tools, which prompted OLED display makers to start offering solutions for this market for applications like computer monitors, signage and more.

OLED displays that are 20-inch or more suffer from incompatibility with standard capacitive touch, because the thin OLED panel results in large parasitic capacitive coupling with the touch surface. The dynamic driving of OLEDs (where only lit pixels draw current) further reduces the capacitive touch performance by introducing unpredictable “display pattern noise”. These issues are easily mitigated in small area displays, but as OLEDs increase in size, the performance and costs of capacitive solutions suffer.

Last Month Samsung Display confirmed that Samsung is now building a 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) OLED production line, that will begin production in 2024.

It is expected that the new line will mostly produce panels for IT devices (laptops and tablest) and also for automotive applications. Many believe that these applications will adopt tandem stack structure to increase brightness and lifetime. According to a new report, Samsung's new line will adopt a single-stack structure, and not a dual-stack one.

UBI Research estimates that sale revenues of medium and large OLED displays (UBI defines these from 10-inch and up) rose 22.9% in Q2 2022 compared to the previous quarter and 11.2% compared to last year - to reach $1.67 billion.

In term of sales, UBI estimates that total shipments in 2022 will reach 26.3 million units. Most of the growth in 2022 will come from laptop displays - where shipments almost doubled in the second quarter to 2.18 million units.

Samsung Display's CEO Choi Joo-sun says that the company sees a great potential for OLED displays in the IT market (mainly notebook and monitor displays), and that Samsung is building a new 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) production line which will begin production in 2024. The glass efficiency at 8-Gen (uncut glass) will be 20% higher compared to Samsung's 6-Gen lines.

This new fab was already reported last year, but this is the first time we officially hear a commitment from SDC. According to DSCC, there are over 10 8.5-Gen OLED lines under consideration now in the industry, as demand for OLED panels for laptops, tablets and monitors is o the rise. Samsung is the current leader in OLED IT displays.

DSCC says that in Q2 2022, OLED panel revenues increased 12% compared to Q2 2021, while shipment units declined 3%. Fewer OLEDs were shipped, but revenues increased as we've seen an increased growth in high value panels (gaming, monitors, laptops, automotive, etc) and also an improved form factor adoption in smartphones.

In Q2 2022, smartphones remained the largest OLED application with a 76% unit and revenue share. OLED smartwatches had a 16% unit share (and a 6% revenue share), and OLED TVs had a 11% revenue share (up from 8% in Q1 2022).

In January 2022, Asus announced its first foldable laptop, the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED. The innovative device offers a 17.3" 2560x1920 foldable OLED display (supplied by BOE) that can fold in half to become a 12.5-inch device with dual 1920x1280 displays.

ASUS now announced that it will officially launched the foldable laptop before the IFA 2022 trade show on August 31. Asus announce da virtual event on August 31 (14:00 CEST). This will be an interesting event to watch.

Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q2 2022, with record second-quarter revenues of 77.2 trillion Won ($59 billion USD).

Samsung Display reported record second-quarter revenue and operating profit for mobile displays driven by solid demand from major customers. Samsung specifically mentions the growth in its laptop OLED business. Performance in the large panel business was weaker due to initial ramp-up costs of Samsung's QD-OLED displays, and a decline in LCD prices.

DSCC estimates that the OLED market will increase 2% in 2022, to reach $42 billion. Revenues for smartphones, the leading OLED application, will actually decline by 4%, but this will be offset by increases in other applications.

In fact, some applications will experience very fast growth: OLED monitors (641% unit growth, 279% revenue growth), OLED laptops (64% units, 39% revenue) and automotive displays (73% units, 68% revenue).

Following strong demand for IT devices, and Samsung's success in the OLED laptop market, OLED makers have began to plan building new OLED production lines specifically for IT applications: laptops, tablets and monitors.

Several OLED makers, including Samsung, LG and BOE, are considering building 8.5-Gen production lines for this market. In fact DSCC estimated that there are 11 such lines under development right now. But it turns out that this is not so simple as designing the evaporation equipment for larger substrates is a challenge.