OLED production

TCL CSoT announced several times in the past that it plans to start producing OLED display using an inkjet printing process by the end of 2024, and yesterday it officially announced it has started mass producing printed OLED displays at its 5.5-Gen production line.

The company brands these displays as APEX OLED displays. In fact it seems as if all of TCL displays (OLEDs and LCDs both) will be branded as APEX OLEDs, with the slogan PACE to APEX.

LG Display announced that it will invest $1 billion to increase its OLED module fab capacity in Vietnam's Hai Phong Economic Zone. This will bring LGD's total investment in Vietnam to date to $5.65 billion.

LG Display first built its Hai Phong facility in 2016, and it then expanded capacity several times. The last capacity increase was announced in 2021.

China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay is constructing a new 6-Gen production line in Shanghai, an expansion of its existing fab. The company's original plan was to start mass production in December 2024, but it now announced it will delay this and mass production is now only expected in december 2025. This is the second delay of this project.

Everdisplay says that the reason for the delay is that the company wishes to upgrade the line to the latest OLED technologies, such as LTPO backplanes, Tandem stack architecture and a hybrid platform (which means rigid OLEDs with TFE encapsulation and a glass backplane).

According to a report from Korea Samsung Display aims to increase its small-sized and mid-sized AMOLED panels production in 2025 by 10.25% compared to its 2024 production (or 475 million panels up from 432 million panels).

Of course SDC's production plans depend on market demand, but it seems as if the company believes the OLED market is set to grow or that the company aims to grab a larger share of the market. SDC mostly aims to increase production of IT panels (laptops and tablet displays) and foldable smartphone OLED panels.

Towards the end of 2023, BOE officially announced its plans for a 8.6-Gen flexible LTPO AMOLED line in Chengdu. The agreement with Chengdu's local government was signed in early 2024, and in April BOE announced it is starting to construct the new fab. A few weeks ago BOE said it finished the construction of the main outer structure in this project, and that the company is on track to finish the fab by May 2026, with mass production expected by October 2026 - and full production in 2029.

Samsung Display is progressing as planned with its  8.6-Gen AMOLED production line. The company recently completed the installation of all major equipment in the new line, and mass production is still expected to begin in 2026.

Samsung Display is now focusing on testing, calibrating and improving all process steps, as the new fab includes new technologies that haven't been deployed before in OLED production.

The Elec reports that Korea's Chemtronics is constructing a new fab at Sejong City that will be able to etch 8-Gen OLED substrates. This fab is built specifically for Samsung Display's new 8-Gen IT AMOLED line. The Elec said that Chemtronics already spent almost $70 million on this new fab, with Samsung supporting it with an investment as well.

The new fab will receive finished 8-Gen IT TFE rigid AMOLED panels from Samsung Display's upcoming A6 line, on a glass substrate. The new etching fab will reduce the thickness of these OLEDs from 0.5 mm to 0.2 mm, to enable lighter and thinner tablet and laptop OLEDs.

Samsung Display announced that it has developed a new technology that can recover around 80% of the quantum dots ink used in its QD-OLED production process. The recovered inks is refined through advanced synthesis technology that revives its purity and optical properties. The company will apply this technology, to its process and it is expected to save around 10 billion Won (around $7.3 million USD) each year in QD materials cost.

It turns out that even though the QD layers are inkjet printed, there is still significant waste of materials, as around 20% of the total QD ink used in the process remains in the nozzles and cannot be used. This new technology will enable SDC to make its QD-OLED panels more competitive with other large-area panel technologies.

In 2022, Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has developed a "historic breakthrough in display technology" - a new OLED deposition process which they refer to as eLEAP, that is said to be cost effective and can be used to create freeform OLEDs that are brighter, more efficient, and longer lasting compared to OLEDs produced using mask evaporation (FMM).

JDI is building a small-scale 6-Gen eLEAP production line in Mobara, Japan, with plans to begin production before the end of 2024. The company is also planning to establish a 8.7-Gen eLEAP fab in Wuhu, Anhui Province, China, and in April 2024 it said it hopes to sign the agreement with Wuhu's Economic and Technical Development Zone (WEDZ) by October 2024. Now JDI has made a rather confusing announcement, saying that while it decided not to extend its current MOU with the WEDZ.

TCL CSoT has announced several times in the past that it plans to start producing OLED display using an inkjet printing process by the end of 2024, and a new report from Korea updates the latest status from the company.

TCL CSoT originally said it will produce OLED TV panels, but later updated its plans to produce IT displays. According to the Elec, the company has decided that its first panel to be produced is a 21.6" monitor displays for medical devices. The company has unveiled this panel in SID 2024 - it has a 4K resolution and a peak brightness of 350 nits.