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BOE’s Board Approves 12” Silicon Line for Micro Display Backplanes
January 10, 2020


BOE’s board approved a new framework agreement with a number of entities for a three phase project to build a 12” silicon wafer line for the production of OLED micro-displays.  The company has been operating an 8” line for a number of years, but has not been able to move to mass production.  Two of the five participants in the 8” project, both of whom are government entities, will provide the additional capital, along with BOE, although Kopin, a participant in the 8” project, will not be adding capital to the new project.  The total expected capex for all three phases is expected to be 3.4b RMB ($486m US), with 60% of that amount scheduled for phase 1. The line, which is expected to have a capacity of 10,000 12” wafers/month when fully built out, will begin phase 1 production in 2021, with phase 2 and phase 3 in 2022 and 2023 respectively, and will focus on micro-displays between .99” and 1.31” using OLED materials.  BOE is moving to 12” silicon so they can improve the efficiency of their OLED process by 2x to 3x and will be able to compete more effectively with other micro-display producers.