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Company News >> OLED panel printing out of the key step in OLED popularization 23th,March,2019
                                         LG and Samsung will invest in the construction of "printed OLED" panel demonstration line in 2017. If this plan is implemented, this will be a key step for OLED to achieve mass adoption...

But wait a minute! Why did you come up with a new thing called "printing OLED"? Is this a new display technology? In the past five years, the OLED "coming soon" declaration has heard the ears long! Can we still believe in this news? And with new technology, what should be done with the original production line and the production line that is currently under construction?

There are too many problems! However, let's first take a look at what the latest news says: According to Korean media reports, Samsung Display and LG Display are preparing to go through equipment factories such as Kateeva and Tokyo Electron, and In cooperation with materials companies such as Merck and Idemitsu Kosan, inkjet printing processes have been introduced on the A3 and M2 lines. The timetable is 2017.

Among them, Samsung A3 production line is 6th generation line, the target product is flexible OLED, the scale is 15,000 pieces of substrate input per month; LG M2 line is 8.5 generation line, the target product is rigid OLED, the current technology is white light oled+ color filter film, full-width steaming Ferry, the scale of the monthly substrate is 26,000. Samsung A3 is the world's first pure flexible OLED line, focusing on small and medium-sized applications such as mobile phones and RGB oled products; LG M2 is the world's first large-size OLED production line, focusing on large-size applications such as TV. ——The two lines are the most advanced flat panel display panel production line!

According to media reports, Mitsubishi Chemical has already provided several potential users with "OLED materials" for inkjet printing in the first half of this year; domestic TCL-led Juhua Printing also signed printing display materials with Merck and other German companies. Cooperation agreement.

In summary, it seems that “printing” + “OLED” has become the “core direction” for the progress of the new generation of flat panel display technology in the first half of the year. However, I believe many people have a question: There are already large to small OLED mass production technologies. Why is printing technology so popular? There are four reasons for this:

First, printing is a low-cost way. Just the OLED material itself, using the printing process saves 90% compared to the current steaming process.

Secondly, although the steaming process solves the problem of the entire steaming from the 3rd generation line to the 8.5th generation line, the RGB three primary color triple steaming cannot be realized in a large size. The existing 8.5-generation wire evaporation process has been greatly reduced in the production of RGB OLED three primary color panels.

Third, the effects of evaporation and inkjet printing on the lifetime characteristics of OLED materials are significantly different, and the latter is beneficial for long-life OLED display products. Life is very important for large size applications.

Fourth, the current trend of the panel industry is to concentrate on large-scale lines, that is, the new investment production line is basically based on the 6th generation line, which makes the steaming process that is more conducive to the lower generation line, and has encountered the problem of “upgrade”. And printing technology is just more suitable for high generation lines.

Together, these reasons are enough to make printed OLEDs a trend of the times. However, the biggest bottleneck in printing OLEDs – the differential control between each tiny print point, and the development of equipment for very small sub-pixel units. The former is a key bottleneck in the entire print display industry, while the latter is mainly a problem for small and medium size display products. - Or, for printing OLEDs, ink stability is not final

Big problems, equipment accuracy and stability are the real test. The latter, precisely, must be solved in engineering after the establishment of a demonstration production line.

"Solving the problem of printing precision and process stability under specific engineering practice and scale conditions" - this is the real bottleneck of OLED printing display. This is also the problem that Samsung, LG, Juhua Printing and other companies are working hard to solve.

Is this problem solved? Certainly someone has to ask this. However, in contrast, the problems encountered with steaming technology in the manufacture of large-size OLED panels can also be summarized as "accuracy and process stability." In other words, printing OLEDs and steaming OLEDs, the core problem after the large size is the same - who can win in the future depends on which technical route is easier to solve this problem.

In other words, the OLED printing technology in 2016 can be understood as the essence: it is a little more difficult to steam a large-size OLED, so you choose to change another way - try to print OLED. However, this is also a relatively large impact on color TV. For the OLEDization of mobile phones, there is no printing technology, and it will not cause changes in the process of industrial popularization.

"Don't be too happy too soon!" Because of the OLED, consumers have been putting too many pigeons. Since 2012, Samsung and LG's "OLED TV has come" Chengnuo has been postponed.

The reason for this is not that manufacturers do not work hard, but because "the choice is too much", the energy is scattered, and the technical difficulties are relatively large. The combination of these factors has caused the "Samsung, LG" to continually renege.

From a technical point of view, Samsung's earliest route is "low temperature polysilicon, steam, RGB OLED". However, the fact is that the low-temperature polysilicon TFT is difficult to be large-sized, the steaming process is not difficult to be large-sized, and the RGB OLED evaporation is large-sized, and it is almost impossible to achieve an economical yield. Later, Samsung proposed the "laser thermal transfer" printing OLED, but it did not succeed. It is LG smart, using a metal oxide TFT + half-distillation + WOLED + color filter film route. This route bypasses several of the most difficult cuts, such as RGB technology, and is the first to introduce large-volume production.

These technical analysis, we can see that the OLED roadmap is not easy: there are glass substrates, flexible substrates on the TFT, there are two technical routes of low temperature polysilicon and metal oxide; OLED coating has half a steaming, full steaming There are at least four technologies for laser thermal transfer and inkjet printing; there are also two major differences between WOLED+ color filter and RGB OLED in the final product selection.

So, the conclusion is that there are too many possible choices, which increases the likelihood of going in the wrong direction. This is the key “opportunity risk” that OLED has not arrived yet. If the entire industry and all power resources are concentrated on inkjet RGB OLEDs at the beginning, perhaps the entire industry process can be much faster.

In 2016, the next generation of flat-panel displays the best news - manufacturers finally really think that "inkjet printing" is the most critical process point, even the electro-optic QLED, which Samsung used to "anti-OLED" technology, All must be built on the "inkjet printing" process. Once the OLED, QLED display industry, this unprecedented consensus on "inkjet printing", then, the arrival of OLED acceleration will become possible.

"Difficulty is relatively large," but "the industry has an unprecedented consensus" and a common force point, and years of industry efforts have made OLED materials, OLED ink formulations, TFT process materials and other key links have been "quite mature". This is the biggest good news in the OLED industry.

At this point, the article is basically over, but the first question needs to be supplemented: Printing OLED is coming, what about the existing OLED line and the line under construction?

First of all, the small and medium size line does not have to be imported into the printing process. The steaming is now also very good. The built-in product will continue to be used. Secondly, the production line is under construction, and the large-size line is only the LG 9th generation line. This line will be mass-produced by 2018, that is, his technical roadmap can be determined after the M2 line test in 2017. Thirdly, other small and medium-sized lines under construction can be scientifically adjusted with reference to the demonstration results of LG and Samsung; Fourth, the difficulty of steaming OLED lines and changing the OLED lines is not very large, mainly due to cost issues. Fifth, the large-size OLED lines that have been mass-produced are only LG's M1 and M2, and the scale of the two lines is not large. The cost of retrofitting into a printed line is acceptable.

Therefore, there is no need to worry too much about the impact of new technologies on existing OLED lines. Because OLEDs are not far behind, even if they all come back and go back, it is not a big problem. Moreover, the proportion of steaming links in OLED panel equipment is less than 30%.

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