Korean media: TCL Chairman Li Dongsheng visited the Korean equipment factory this month to learn about the 8th generation OLED technology
July 7, 2022
Core Tip: The Korean industry estimates that the purpose of Chairman Li Dongsheng's visit to Korea this time is to understand the technological trends in the 8th generation and other organic light emitting diode (OLED) fields, and to request expansion of cooperation. TCL has grown to threaten LG Electronics, the second largest player in the global TV market. CSOT has established a strong system with BOE in the liquid crystal display (LCD) display field, but it still has a long way to go in the OLED field.
TCL Chairman Li Dongsheng plans to look for Korean display equipment manufacturers at the end of this month. It is expected that Chairman Li Dongsheng will visit several Korean equipment manufacturers one after another a few days before his visit to Japan's JOLED to learn about technological trends.
The Korean industry estimates that the purpose of Chairman Li Dongsheng's visit to Korea this time is to understand the technological trends in the field of 8th generation organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and to request expansion of cooperation. TCL has grown to threaten LG Electronics, the second largest player in the global TV market. CSOT has established a strong system with BOE in the liquid crystal display (LCD) display field, but it still has a long way to go in the OLED field.
BOE OLED entered Apple's iPhone supply chain very early, but CSOT has not yet entered Apple's OLED supply chain. In Samsung Electronics' smartphone OLED market, BOE is also larger than CSOT. In the past, BOE has accumulated technology in this field by stably supplying flexible OLEDs for smartphones to leading mobile phone manufacturers in mainland China.
In particular, Li Dongsheng is expected to pay close attention to the development trend of the 8th-generation OLED technology for IT products being developed by Samsung Display and LG Display. In the recent display industry, the most attention is the 8th generation OLED technology for IT. With the saturation of the existing 6th generation OLED line, the 8th generation OLED technology for IT products is expected to become the next generation growth engine.
Currently, Samsung Display, LG Display and their equipment partners are working to ensure a chamfer ratio suitable for the production of 10-inch or larger panels using Gen 8 glass substrates, and to develop vapor deposition machines, masks and frames optimized for this purpose. It is known that although it is difficult for CSOT to invest in the 8th generation OLED in the IT field, Li Dongsheng's visit to Korea will help realize long-term business plans.
At the same time, Li Dongsheng is very likely to ask South Korean display equipment manufacturers to supply equipment in a timely manner. The supply and demand for materials and parts needed to make equipment is disrupting as COVID-19 continues. And Huaxing Optoelectronics is about to order the 6th generation T5 production line equipment.
After that, it is reported that Li Dongsheng plans to visit JOLED in Japan. JOLED is a company that cooperates with Huaxing Optoelectronics in inkjet printing OLED. Previously, CSOT announced that the target time for mass production of the T8 project of the 8.5th-generation printed OLED line in Guangzhou is 2024, but Korean industry insiders believe that it will be difficult to proceed according to CSOT's original plan.
On the other hand, inkjet-printed OLEDs form red (R) green (G) blue (B) OLED subpixels by spraying liquid organic materials onto a substrate using nozzles. Compared with organic vacuum evaporation, which is mainly used in mass-produced OLED products, the inkjet printing process is simpler and has less material loss. However, when printing inkjet materials, the OLED's brightness can drop off in the process of modifying the material's properties to make it evenly distributed.
On the other hand, OLED vacuum evaporation technology deposits organic materials on a substrate by heating them to a high temperature in a vacuum state. For large-scale OLEDs used for televisions, the tandem method is used to emit light, in which three to four light-emitting layers are stacked and colors are achieved through color filters or color conversion layers. Small and medium OLEDs used in smartphones etc. achieve light and color by depositing RGB sub-pixels adjacent to each other in the same layer. The vacuum deposition method for small and medium-sized OLEDs using a fine metal mask (FMM) has particularly large material losses during the vaporization process, but its mass production has been proven.
OLED formation methods (from left) are roughly divided into △ Japan JOLED professional inkjet printing method △ LG Display and Samsung Display mass-produced large OLED vacuum evaporation method △ Small and small OLED vacuum evaporation method
Small and medium OLEDs use a fine metal mask (FMM) to deposit red (R) green (G) blue (B) subpixels adjacent to the same layer during organic material deposition. Small and medium-sized OLEDs are sometimes referred to as "RGB OLEDs" to distinguish them from large-scale OLEDs that have a tandem structure that uses only an open metal mask (OMM) to deposit organic materials and stack light-emitting layers into multiple layers.