Yesterday LG Display announced a major focus shift to OLED displays, with plans to invest $8.5 billion in OLED expansion in the next three years. But is LG actually planning to do?
LGD is currently producing OLED TVs in a Gen-8 fab (which will have a monthly capacity of 34,000 substrates by the end of 2015), and a smaller Gen-4.5 fab that produces plastic-based OLEDs - with a monthly capacity of 14,000 substrates. LGD already announced plans to build a new 6-Gen (1500x1850 mm) flexible OLED fab in a $900 million investment. But what about the rest of the $8.5 billion?
One option is to expand the Gen-8 fab with more lines, and this makes a lot of sense of course. Korean-based D-Daily claims that LGD is also considering building a Gen-10 OLED fab. This move will hopefully result in cheaper OLED panels due to the larger substrate size - but investment will be massive and may actually be larger than the $8.5 billion already announced. The technological difficulties will be also considerable and this will be quite a risky project.
