China Making Major Investments in OLEDs but Still Way Behind in Flexible OLEDs

September 04, 2017
​
Despite extensive investment being made in flexible OLED panels, a supply shortage for the flexible displays is likely to continue for at least the next couple of years, according to Chinese research firm Sigmaintell. “Chinese display makers are preparing to produce POLED panels from 2018, but it’s going to take around five years to stabilize production procedures and optimize yield rates to get ready for mass production. This means global supply is likely to stay put for the time being,” said Vicky Chen, an analyst from the Chinese research firm, in a news conference held in Seoul.  Vicky is clearly “China Centric” as she seems to be ignoring the Gen 6 fabs under construction by Samsung and LG, which will add 6th Gen capacity of ~400K substrates/month in 2018 an increase of 58%. Given the changing trends, display makers such as Samsung Display, LG Display, BOE, and Tianma are investing in OLED technology, including POLED. For the next three years, these firms are planning to spend a combined 600 billion yuan to build new display manufacturing lines in China -- a third of which is to be spent for the construction of POLED facilities, according to the research firm. But because it will take longer for the mass-producing Chinese manufacturers to jump on the bandwagon, Samsung and LG will dominate the sector. Sigmaintell forecasts that the move among smartphone makers to adopt full-screen OLED displays would bring breakthroughs in design and hardware, as manufacturers are pushed to come up with better ways to place fingerprint sensors. The Chinese research firm also said an under-display fingerprint scanner, which enables fingerprint scanning at the bottom of the screen, will likely be introduced next year while an in-display fingerprint scanner, which allows users to scan their fingerprints anywhere on the screen, could be commercialized in 2019.

Vertical Divider