Oxide TFT - Page 10

A couple of weeks ago we reported that LG Display will make a final decision on its OLED TV panel production capacity investment by early February. According to KoreaTimes, LGD has decided to go ahead with an ambitious plan (an "all-out effort") to dominate the OLED TV market. This new report correlates with earlier KoreaTimes reports.

LGD's 2013 investment will be 3.8 trillion won ($3.6 billion USD), and most of it will be used to increase LG's OLED TV capacity and improve the technology, followed by investments into Flexible OLEDs and Oxide-TFT LCDs. The investment amount is about the same as in 2012, but this time the focus is different.

Back in June 2012 I posted about the new Chinese "Stimulated Blue company" and its AMOLED project. Now I got some new details and corrections for my original story.

First of all, the company's name is AIV-BEX,and not Stimulated Blue. The holding company is Aivtech International Group, a NASDAQ-listed (ticker:AIVI) Shenzhen based maker of audio&video products. The Henan provincial government will provide some of the funding for this project. In fact in November 2012 company official met with Representatives from the Henan government and it seems that the project is progressing smoothly and is actively being supported by the government. In fact they regard it as one of Xinyang Industrial City's key projects.

BOE Display developed a 17" Oxide-TFT AMOLED prototype that was produced in an ink-jet printing process. They say that this is the first time these an Oxide-TFT OLED panel was ink-jet printed successfully, but I'm not sure if that's actually true because I think Panasonic's printed 56" OLED TV shown at CES also sports an Oxide-TFT. Still this is a great achievement by BOE.

BOE Ordos 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab

A few months ago we reported that BOE started construction of their 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab in Ordos (Inner Mongolia) which will produce 54K substrates a month. According to earlier reports, the fab cost is estimated at $3.44 billion. BOE's plan is apparently to first start with LTPS LCD and only in 2014 start producing AMOLED panels as well. It's probable that the ink-jet based process is even further away...

Sharp is showing flexible 3.4" IGZO-based flexible touch OLED prototypes at CES. These panels seems to be the same ones shown at SID back in June 2012 - and if so they have a resolution of 540x960 (326 ppi).

Sharp wouldn't say whether they intend to start producing such panels, but they did say that they have the technology to produce such panels in sizes up to 10". They say the image quality and resolution is the same as in their non-flexible OLEDs.

Panasonic unveiled a 56" 4K (3840x2160) OLED TV panel prototype that was produced using an all-printing method. Panasonic calls this the "RGB all-printing method" and they say that all the organic materials were deposited using ink-jet printing. Panasonic says that their OLED panels deliver superb image quality, high contrast and fast response rate. The panels are efficient, ulta-thin and light weight. Panasonic considers OLED as a "promising option for next-generation displays".

Panasonic's panel uses a top-emission structure with a transparent cathode, which results in a more efficient panel (Sony's OLEDs use the same structure, this may be Sony's technology). The panel's TFT substrate was supplied by Sony (so it's probably an Oxide-TFT based panel) as part of the two companies collaboration. Interestingly, even though it seems that they use red, green and blue sub-pixels, Panasonic applied a color filter layer as well - to tune the emission color and achieve high color purity and "superb color reproduction".

So, the rumors were accurate - Sony has actually developed the world's first 4K2K (3840x2160) OLED TV panel, and unveiled a prototype unit. The panel is 56" in size and uses an Oxide-TFT and Sony's own "Super Top Emission" OLED technology.

Sony wouldn't reveal any technical specification - they only said that this panel "delivers all the features expected from OLED TVs, such as high contrast, brightness, rapid video image response time and rich images produced even at wide viewing angles". But that's just as well - Sony wouldn't say anything about a release date (or expected price) of this display either. They just said that "Sony will continue to research OLED technology with the goal of commercializing its new 4K OLED televisions".

LG Group will invest a record amount this year (20 trillion Won, almost $19 billion - a 19% increase from 2012). Most of this money will go into new manufacturing lines (about 14 trillion won, or $13 billion), R&D and acquisitions. LG will be "banking heavily" on OLED displays and LTE technology and devices.

Officials from LG say that the huge investment in OLEDs will help LG gain a competitive advantage over Samsung in a "number of markets". Obviously OLED TV is one of those markets, but I'm not sure which other markets is LG hinting at. Perhaps the mobile display market, which LG aims to tackle with flexible plastic-based OLEDs.

Display Central posted an interesting article (update: it is no longer available, sadly) discussing Samsung's Gen-8 AMOLED fab plans. They say that the company is still on track with their original plan - to start with LTPS production and later on switch to Oxide-TFT (IGZO). Samsung seems to think that IGZO is not ready yet for OLED mass production.

The article quotes Barry Young from the OLED Association saying that Samsung has managed to scale up LTPS for their Gen-8 pilot line and have now ordered high-volume Gen-8 production tool from APS.

Applied Materials announced two new film deposition systems, used to make high definition televisions and high-resolution mobile device displays - both OLEDs and LCDs. First up is the AKT-PX-PECVD system (shown below) that can be used to deposit LTPS films on large glass substrates (sized from 1.6 m² to 5.7 m²).

The second system, the AKT-PiVoT PVD system is used to deposit metal oxide-based TFTs (IGZO in particular). Applied says that this new system is capable of overcoming "mura effects" that reduce the quality of the display. It also offers "breakthrough" stability which makes is suitable for OLED displays and TVs.

AUO had to delay AMOLED mass production to 2013, but the company is still developing the technology. Today they unveiled a new 4.65" AMOLED that features 317 ppi (so the resolution is probably around 1280x720). This is quite an improvement over AUO's current 4.3" qHD (257 ppi) panels.

AUO also unveiled some other new technologies today: A 4.46" LCD with the "World's thinnest bezel" at 1mm, New AHVA (Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle) panel technology and a 10" 2560x1600 IGZO based LCD aimed for tablets that is only 1.5mm thick. This is the size and resolution of Google's upcoming Nexus 10 tablet - and perhaps the new device will use this display and not a Super AMOLED as some leaks suggested. Update: the Nexus 10 is official, and it uses a PLS LCD...