tandem architecture

In this article, we examine the theoretical question of whether or not it makes sense for LG Display and Samsung Display to merge, into one company.

Note that we have no indications that such a merger is even considered by the two companies, but we feel this is a fascinating topic that should be explored, and is supported by several strong arguments.

We'll start with a short introduction to the two companies, then see why there are many reasons to pursue a merger, then explain the reasons against a possible merger, and finally detail the current financial situations of both companies.

Samsung Display and LG Display

Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) is a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. SDC is a leader in OLED production, with a market share of over 40% in the small OLED display market (the second largest player, BOE, holds a market share of around 15%). SDC produces over 300 million AMOLED displays per year - supplying them to Apple's iPhones and tablets, Samsung Electronics Galaxy phones, and many more. The Company also produces larger-area QD-OLED panels for TVs and gaming monitors, and has a capacity of producing around a million TV panels per year. SDC no longer produces any LCDs. SDC does produce microLED displays (but on a very small scale, this is currently a strictly next-gen display technology), and the company develops OLED microdisplays (and also holds OLED microdisplay producer eMagin which it acquired in 2023 for $243 million).

During the company's 2024 Innovation Partner Conference, BOE unveiled its latest OLED microdisplay. The display is a 0.9" 4K (6020 PPI) panel, that is based on a tandem OLED architecture. It achieves a maximum brightness of 5,000 nits.

BOE has also unveiled ultra-light (150 grams) VR glasses based on these displays. It is not clear whether this is a product that BOE aims to commercialize, or a reference design, or a product produced by one of its partners.

During the company's Innovation Partner Conference, BOE demonstrated a new 6.55" OLED panel prototype that utilizes TADF-sensitized materials and a tandem stack architecture. The company says that the TADF materials offer significantly improved color gamut, and it achieve 95% BT.2020 coverage, this in addition to the high power efficiency and long lifetime. 

It is our understanding that BOE's TADF-Sensitized material platform combines a deep green Hyperfluorescence emitter and a standard deep-red phosphorescence material. The blue emitter is likely a standard fluorescence bluet emitter.

During iMID 2024, Samsung Display's eVP Yi Chung said that the company plans to reduce the power consumption of its OLED panels by over 50%. SDC is developing several technologies, each contributing to the same efficiency goal.

SDC did not detail its plans exactly, but it did mention some of the new technologies it is working on - polarizer-free OLEDs (these have been commercialized already), multi-frequency driving (demonstrated by other OLED makers), tandem OLED architecture and the adoption of high efficiency blue PHOLED emitters.

A report from Korea says that LG Display has successfully developed an OLED panel that is based on a blue phosphorescence emitter. The blue PHOLED, provided by Universal Display, offers 100% IQE, up from 25% used by current fluorescence emitters. This will result in around 20-30% power saving for the display itself (depending on the images shown).

UDC has been developing blue emitters for many years, and recently the company said that the development will take a few more months and won't be ready in 2024. The main challenge is increasing the lifetime of the materials. However LG Display has adopted a tandem design to enable a commercially ready display, perhaps even sooner than UDC planned.

Korea's The Elec reports that Apple is planning to release an OLED iPad Air device in 2016. The leading display producer will be Samsung Display.

According to the report, the iPad Air AMOLED will be a single-stack LTPS AMOLED device, unlike the tandem OLEDs used in the 2024 iPad Pro devices. The report also suggests that the same AMOLED displays may also be used in the 2026 iPad Mini devices - as Apple aims to adopt OLEDs in all of its iPad devices in the future. But Apple hasn't fully decided on its iPad Mini OLED adoption roadmap yet.

According to reports, Apple has cut its total 2024 OLED iPad Pro panel orders from Samsung and LG to around 7-8 million units, down from its planned 9-10 million units, as the demand for Apple's new iPads is not as high as expected.

Apple has also increased LG Display's order share, at the expense of Samsung Display. The company asked LGD to produce about a million more 11" panels compared to its previous orders. 

According to a new report by Business Korea, LG Display is finalizing the development of its 3rd-gen tandem-stack automotive OLED technology, and aims to start mass producing these panels by 2026. LGD believes the new panels will improve the brightness and efficiency of its OLEDs by 20% (compared to its current 2nd-gen tandem OLEDs).

LG Display believes it is leading the industry with its tandem OLED technology (and we tend to agree) and it hopes to accelerate its technology development to widen its lead. LG Display is enjoying a lead in the automotive display market with its OLED solutions and has already achieved design wins with many companies, including Genesis, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac and GM.

DSCC says that the OLED materials market will reach $2.12 billion in 2024, rising 24% over 2023. The market will continue growing at a 6% CAGR until 2028, reaching about $2.7 billion. DSCC details the revenue split between single-stack, tandem and multi-stack panels, saying that materials used in tandem OLED panels will grow at a fast rate of 30% CAGR from 2024-2028. 

The leading materials makers by revenue in 2024 will be UDC, DuPont, LG Chemical and Samsung SDI, holding a market share of 51% together. DSCC says that Chinese materials makers will increase their market share in the future. 

OLED displays have been gaining popularity rapidly, and are already the dominant smartphone display technology. OLEDs are also the display technology of choice in the smartwatch market, making inroads into the TV, monitor, laptop and tablet markets. The future of the OLED industry looks bright.

In recent years, the focus of the industry, beyond increasing capacity and reducing production costs, has been improving the performance of OLEDs in the areas of display brightness, efficiency, and lifetime. Brightness is required in many applications - from TVs (for HDR and to view in ambient lighting) through smartphones (outdoor viewing) to automotive, and efficiency is a plus in any scenario (but mostly in mobile displays). Display lifetime is already good enough for many applications, but in some cases (like automotive, and IT displays) it is critical. These three properties usually go together - if you can make more efficient OLED displays, you can drive them at a lower current to achieve the same brightness, and so lifetime increases, or you can achieve higher brightness, etc.