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Motorola Replaced AUO with BOE & CSoT as Folded OLED Source for new RAZR
December 15, 2019
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AU Optronics failed to produce enough displays to satisfy Motorola and the company is switching to foldable displays from Chinese suppliers BOE and CSoT.  While Motorola sells between 8.5m and 10m smartphones/quarter, the new RAZR sales will be much lower, however, AUO was unable to meet Motorola’s production goals. AUO was one of the first panel producers to show very early small panel OLED demo displays, but financial and resource allocation issues took the company in and out of OLED R&D a number of times over the years.  Currently they produce flexible OLED small panel displays for smart watches at their L4B Gen 4.5 fab in Singapore, which they share with LCD production. AU Optronics has neither commented on the Motorola project. 
 
CSoT produces small OLED panel on a Gen 4.5 pilot line and at their T4 fab, which they share with LCD production. CSoT just started production at a Gen 6 fab in Wuha (T4). BOE has a number of options as to where they would produce such OLED displays, at their G6 Chengdu fab or their Gen 6 Mianyang fab, and while foldable displays are new to all producers, BOE has considerably more experience with OLED display production than either CSoT or AUO, and should be able to move up the foldable learning curve relatively quickly. However, BOE flexible OLED yields have been very low and they recently indicated a production level of 20m displays compared to an original plan of 50m.