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LG Display Opens 2015 Tech Forum in Collaboration with Other Companies

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출처 : LG디스플레이

Source : LG Display

 

LG Display set out to discover new technology through open innovation in collaboration with other companies.

 

On September 15, LG Display invited top global display material and component companies to Paju factory and opened 2015 LG Display Tech Forum. The invited companies included Merck, Asahi Glass, and Sumitomo.

 

Under the heading of ‘OLED, New Opportunity and Challenge’, 13 key collaborating companies in material, process, glass, and circuitry sectors participated. They promised to share market trend, and LG Display’s OLED and LCD technology development direction and cooperate regarding future technology.

 

LG Display increased emphasis on OLED; LG Display revealed detailed business strategy for large and small size OLED, and discussed technology and products that should be developed together in collaboration with companies in each stage.

 

Additionally, LG Display newly established Technology Innovation Award for collaborating companies that contributed to LG Display’s product improvement with innovative technology. The award was presented to Asahi Glass for developing glass light guide panel used in thin panel actualization, and display material companies Merck and Nitto Denko.

 

LG Display’s CEO Han Sang-beom explained that LG Display could pave the way for OLED with world’s first technology due to much effort and enthusiastic corporation from R&D partners. He also entreated each company to continue to change and evolve through their own R&D competitiveness and creativity and lead the future display market.

General Class AMOLED Panel Estimated to be Extensively Supplied. How Will it Affect OLED Industry?

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Only 2 models of smartphone with the general class AMOLED panel were released in the first 2 quarters of 2015. However, as 5 more models were revealed until August in the third quarter, it is expected that demand for general class AMOLED panel will gradually increase.

 

Currently 7 companies, including Samsung Display, are mass producing or aiming to mass produce small to medium-sized AMOLED panel of rigid type. China’s EDO or Taiwan’s AUO are believed to be producing in small quantity for samples. Other Chinese companies are also aiming to mass produce AMOLED panel but satisfying the current demand is analyzed to be difficult. At present, Samsung Display is the only panel company that can meet the demand for general class AMOLED panel by set companies. There is much interest in whether AMOLED industry can rebound with the Samsung Display’s movement in the second half.

 

It is expected that Samsung Display will increase operation rate of A1 and A2 rigid lines in the second half in order to meet the demand for general class AMOLED panel. Following this, emitting material companies’ sales increase is also anticipated and positively affect management of AMOLED industry’s ecosystem.

 

If the demand for general class AMOLED panel is higher than expected, there are some who believe that additional investment for A3 line could be for hybrid structure that can switch between rigid and flexible rather than flexible exclusive line.

 

There is much focus on how Samsung Display’s mass production and supply plans for general class AMOLED panel will affect the AMOLED industry growth.

 

General Class AMOLED Panel Applied Smartphone Released Until August 2015

General Class AMOLED Panel Applied Smartphone Released Until August 2015

OLED TV, Pay Attention to China and UHD

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IFA 2015 that opened on September 4, closed its curtains on 9. This year’s IFA was similar to IFA 2014 in terms of diverse OLED TV exhibition, but when analyzed in detail there were several differences.

 

First, the emphasis on UHD TV greatly increased. The percentage of UHD resolution of exhibited OLED TV was approximately 71% in IFA 2013, and 70% in IFA 2014. However, in IFA 2015, the percentage increased to approximately 92%. If the main theme for IFA 2014 was curved OLED TV products, UHD was the keyword for IFA 2015.

 

Another important factor is increasing participation by Chinese companies. In IFA 2013, only Haier exhibited OLED TV but this increased to 2 companies, Changhong and TCL, in IFA 2014. In IFA 2015, 3 companies, Haier, Changhong, and Skyworth, presented OLED TV. It is estimated that the OLED TV exhibition attendance by Chinese electronics companies will continue to consistently increase.

 

There is much attention on how many more Chinese companies will participate with OLED TV in IFA next year, and whether a new keyword following UHD will appear. Although IFA 2015 ended, OLED TV market continues to move.

 

uhd china graph 1

 

uhd china graph 2

 

uhd china graph 3 2

Minus Growth for H1 OLED Material Market with Mere US$ 564 Million*

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According to UBI Research, the 2015 H1 OLED material market recorded approximately US$ 564 million; this is a 14% increase compared to 2014 H2, but a 24% decrease against 2014 H1.

 

Despite reports that Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are selling much larger volumes of flexible OLED applied Galaxy S6 Edge and OLED TV respectively compared to last year, the OLED material market is gradually stagnating.

 

The main reason for this OLED material market’s downward turn is Samsung Display’s operation level which remained stationary at 50% in H1. This led to stationary material usage compared to the year before. LG Display is producing flexible OLED and large size OLED panel for TV. However, approximately only 100,000 units of OLED panels were sold in H1 and material usage was also lowl. The current capa. is 34K but as the OLED material cost spent in H1 is approximately US$ 36 million, the operation rate is analyzed to be only 30% of the total capa.

 

The OLED material market is decreasing because the supply price is rapidly falling without increase in production volume. OLED material companies are frustrated at the 10-15% price decrease per quarter. At present, as the only clients are Samsung Display and LG Display, material companies are compelled to reduce the price as the failure to do so could lead toward the termination of business. OLED material companies spend several thousands of millions of dollars annually on development to meet constant improvement demanded by clients. There is much difficulty for OLED material companies as display companies continue with one-sided demands without compensation regarding development cost.

 

For OLED industry to maintain its continued growth, it requires more than success of panel companies. Material companies that play a pivotal part within the industry have to continue development and production of quality materials in order to create a healthy growth cycle. However, display companies are destroying the ecosystem.

 

What OLED material companies currently crave is for Chinese display companies to mass produce OLED panels as soon as possible.

 

* 1 USD = 1,100 KRW

 

OLED Material Market Revenue 2014 H1 – 2015 H1

OLED Material Market Revenue 2014 H1 – 2015 H1

[IFA 2015] OLED TV’s Advantages from Skyworth’s Point of View

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In IFA 2015 (September 4-9), Skyworth exhibited 65inch 4K OLED TV in 3 curved and flat sets each in order to emphasize OLED TV’s advantages. Skyworth presented an interesting booth by providing a large screen in the middle of the booth for the visitors to experience OLED TV playing the F1 racing game.

 

OLED TV is the best TV to show video with fast movements as it has fast response time of u/sec. As the video is not delayed, the viewers can enjoy the contents without afterimage. This fast response time cannot be actualized in LCD TV.

 

Skyworth booth, IFA 2015

Skyworth booth, IFA 2015

[IMID 2015] UDC Develops OLED Patterning Technology with Less Masks

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At present, FMM (Fine Metal Mask) is considered the main method for large area RGB OLED panel production. However, due to shadow effect, mask total pitch fluctuations, and mask slit tolerance issues, there is a yield limitation to this technology. This limitation increases as the resolution becomes higher; minimizing the number of FMM during the OLED panel production has been a key issue in RGB OLED production.

 

In SID 2014, through a paper titled “Novel Two Mask AMOLED Display Architecture”, UDC revealed a technology that can reduce the number of masks used in RGB-FMM method to 2 from previous 3.

 

Source: UDC, SID 2014

Source: UDC, SID 2014

 

As shown above, this technology coats yellow and blue subpixels using 1 mask each. Following this process, green and red color filters are applied above the subpixels. Pixels are formed as illustrated below.

 

Source : UDC, SID 2014

Source : UDC, SID 2014

 

UDC explained that this technology improves lifetime of the display overall and reduces energy consumption as blue voltage can be lowered. Additionally, tact time can be reduced through this technology, and increase the yield.

 

In IMID 2015, UDC presented research of the same title. However, the content of the presentation unveiled more developed research compared to 2014. First of all, in 2014, UDC announced that the panel’s lifetime could be improved by 2 times compared to the RGB method. In IMID 2015, UDC’s announcement changed the figure to 3.3 times increased lifetime.

 

UDC also revealed that the technology can be actualized through printing method, and has the advantage of being able to print 2 rows of pixels at once. UDC announced that this is most suitable when OVJP (Organic Vapor Jet Printing) applies the printing method.

 

A new technology called SPR (Sub-Pixel Rendering) was also announced by UDC in this paper. The 2014 SID paper included a method that did not uses SPR. As shown below in figure 1, 4 subpixels of RGY and B are used per pixel.

 

[Fig. 1], Source: UDC, IMID 2015

[Fig. 1], Source: UDC, IMID 2015

During IMID 2015, UDC presented APR technology applied pixel structure. Figure 2 shows 3 subpixels per pixel.

 

[Fig. 2], Source: UDC, IMID 2015

[Fig. 2], Source: UDC, IMID 2015

In this case, as the pixels can be arranged as shown in figure 3, smaller number of subpixels can be used.

 

[Fig. 3], Source: UDC, IMID 2015

[Fig. 3], Source: UDC, IMID 2015

UDC announced that because APR technology allows the number of subpixels per pixel to be reduced to 3 or less, the number of data lines and TFT per pixel can also be reduced together.

 

UDC explained that this technology can be applied regardless of the display area or resolution, and will be able to be applied to different types of panels.

 

Hyundai Motors's Munhyun Kim, IMID 2015

[IMID 2015] Hyundai Motors, “OLED Application of Automotive Display, Soon to be a Reality”

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On 19 August at IMID 2015 (August 18 – 21), a keynote speaker Munhyun Kim of Hyundai Motors forecast that automotive display market will become more active, digitalized, and simplified. Kim categorized automotive display applied sectors into 4: cluster, HUD (head-up display) and CID (central information display), and RSE (rear seat entertainment).

 

Kim revealed that technological trends of cluster are full color, high resolution, and customizability, particularly it can be customized to suit the user through diverse modes. Full color, high resolution, and AR (augmented reality) are the main trends for HUD. Distance guide, direction guide, and lane guide were suggested as examples of AR. CID’s main technological trends are integrated display and insertion of diverse functions. OLED applied CID is being researched. Enlargement, individuality, and mobility were mentioned as technological trends of RSE.

 

Kim revealed that compared to automotive market which records 3-6% of growth each year, cluster and CID are forecast to grow by 10% a year. He added that although the weight of automotive LCD within the total LCD market is slight, the automotive OLED’s importance is forecast to grow to record 30% or over in 2017.

 

In the past, 4inch or larger display were mainly installed in vehicles, but it is estimated that small display of less than 4inch will be increasingly introduced. Kim also added that he expects automotive display in diverse shapes and forms will be applied in future.

 

In CES 2015, Hyundai Motors exhibited AR grafted HUD, 3D-gesture control technology, wearable devices connected to the vehicle, next generation infortainment technology, and ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems).

 

Kim expected the OLED display application will actively occur in the order of cluster, HUD, CID, and entertainment display. He also evaluated OLED panel that can easily actualize flexibility higher than LCD panel.

 

Hyundai Motors's Munhyun Kim, IMID 2015

[IMID 2015] LG Display Reveals Detailed OLED Plans

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During the keynote session of IMID 2015 (August 18 – 21), LG Display’s Sang Deog Yeo, the head of OLED division revealed LG Display’s intention to change the world with OLED together with everyone and strength in OLED industry expansion. Yeo explained that the most important factor in the success of large area OLED is strong conviction in OLED’s success and courage; he also announced further investment for OLED as future growth stimulus.

 

Yeo reported that TV’s first revolution was a change from black and white TV to color. The second revolution was the appearance of flat panel display and that the third revolution will be OLED. He explained that the key factors in TV panels are design and picture quality. He evaluated that these factors are advancing separately in other display while OLED is improving these issues together.

 

Explaining in more detail, Yeo reported that OLED has high design freedom as OLED structure is simple, a self-emitting light without BLU. Additionally, each pixel of OLED can operate independently and actualize true black, leading to differentiated picture quality.

 

In the beginning, LG Display struggled in applying WRGB technology and oxide TFT to OLED TV, which resulted in almost 0% of yield. Even within the company, there were opinions that oxide TFT application to Gen8 panel or larger will be almost impossible. However, the effort including introduction of external compensation circuit and coplanar structure, and compensation algorithm application to brightness and color brought LG Display’s current success of OLED TV mass production.

 

Yeo announced that much like how LG Display solved OLED TV’s technological problems of the past, they will improve the oxide TFT mobility to 50. He also revealed that LG Display is searching for a method of applying top-emission technology to mass production in order to improve transparent and flexible OLED technology, and researching light shutter technology and improved plastic substrate application technology.

 

LG Display recently announced their decision to invest approximately US$ 9,300 million centering around OLED. During the keynote session, Yeo reported that LG Display will increase the large area OLED panel’s production rate through investment, specifically from current 600 thousand units to 2 million units in 2017. He also announced that they will expand Gumi Gen6 line which will be used to increase production rate of small to medium-sized OLED panels and plastic OLED panels.

 

Although there has been speculation regarding this investment, through this keynote speech, it can be forecast the investment will be used in specific roadmap of large and small to medium-sized OLED. For the progress of OLED industry, which is growth stimulus of the future, Yeo emphasized the need for closer cooperation between materials, components, manufacturing equipment, and set companies, and laboratories and universities.

LG Display’s Sang Deog Yeo, IMID 2015

LG Display’s Sang Deog Yeo, IMID 2015

Encapsulation Technology That Can Greatly Increase OLED Lifetime Unveiled

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On July 29, at Chungcheong Display Forum held in Hoseo University in South Korea, an encapsulation technology that can greatly increase OLED lifetime was revealed.

 

Encapsulation technology prevents permeation of oxygen and moisture from affecting OLED panel’s performance and increases lifetime. As it is also the last process that decides OLED panel yield, OLED panel manufacturing companies are focused on finding the most optimal encapsulation technology.

 

The flexible OLED panel that is currently being mass produced uses hybrid structure of encapsulation where gas barrier cover plate is applied to the organic and inorganic stacks of passivation.

 

During this process, because cover plate with gas barrier characteristics is the key factor in deciding encapsulation performance the materials and technology are very important. The level of encapsulation that OLED panel requires is approximately 10-6g/m2day. The unit signifies the amount of permeation for 1m2 area a day. This amount is same as 1 drop of water in an area size of 6 World Cup stadiums.

 

Generally sputtering technology is used to form gas barrier layer. Sputtering technology is an evaporation technique where ions of the target material is coated to the substrate as noble gas, ionized via high voltage, collides against coating material.

 

This type of sputtering technology creates particles and defects during process. As such, in order to be applied to OLED, multilayer is required leading to a decrease in productivity and increase in production cost.

 

However, at the Chungcheong Display Forum, Professor MunPyo Hong of Korea University, revealed that defect that occurs during the existing sputtering process can be reduced by stabilizing target layer through installing reflector which induces neutral beam to be released.

 

According to Hong, this technology is sufficient to achieve the OLED level encapsulation standard of 10-6g/m2day even using a single layer. He revealed that this technology will be able to reduce the production cost and increase the productivity.

 

(a)(a)Device Immediately After Production (b) Device with Insufficient Encapsulation with Insufficient Encapsulation (dark spot and pixel shrinkage occurs after certain amount of time) Source: UBI Research

(a) Device Immediately After Production (b) Device with Insufficient Encapsulation with Insufficient Encapsulation
(dark spot and pixel shrinkage occurs after certain amount of time)
Source: UBI Research

Korean Government, Will It Give Up Its Top Spot in Display Industry?

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Recent Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics’ TV and smartphone performance results are causing experts to be concerned over degrowth.

 

The axis that is centering Korean industry is dependent on these 2 companies and Hyundai Motor Company. In the 20th century when technology skills were lacking, Korean government and these 3 companies closely cooperated and coordinated product development and market cultivation. The low value of KRW invigorated the 3 companies’ export business. Strong government support allowed development of products that could compete against Japanese products occupying the international market. The potential that allowed the companies to overtake Japanese firms that were dominating electronics industry and increase the international market share was based on Korean government’s diverse interest and enthusiastic backing.

 

Japan’s display industry collapsed due to several reasons. Their pride that that latecomers including Korea will not be able to catch up to their technology, the discontinuation of investment by overlooking the need of the 21st century of information for display market, and the disregard of latecomers’ price competitiveness can be attributed to the collapse.

 

Korean display companies gave up on Gen10 investment in LCD business and began localization in China though establishing Gen8 LCD factory in China. However, Chinse display companies, with the backing of their government in large scale, continue to invest despite the deficit.

 

If BOE’s Gen10.5 LCD factory is complete, China will lead the global industry in terms of yield, and overtake Korea through China’s domestic market and price competitiveness. Now there are only 2 years left. It is only a question of time before Korea’s LCD industry falls apart.

 

The only thing that is left for Korean display industry is OLED. As Korean display industry plays an important role in Korean economy, the decline of display industry will have direct impact on employment, export, and domestic market.

 

However, Korean government is currently ignoring display industry. LCD and OLED have been excluded from WTO’s tariff elimination. China, which is rapidly becoming a new contender in display industry, has agreed with the U.S. to exclude LCD and OLED advocating protection of Chinese market and industry, and other countries followed. China is adding 5% tax for 32inch products or larger; Samsung Display and LG Display are operating LCD factories in China in order to be exempt. The labor force is moving away from Korea to China. Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is overlooking the importance of Korea’s display industry.

 

To make matters worse, Korean government has no tax regarding manufacturing equipment. When display companies import expensive manufacturing equipment, no tax is added. Recently, due to a low exchange rate of the yen, Japanese companies’ price competitiveness is 1.5 times higher than several years ago. At a time when Korean manufacturing equipment companies are losing heavily in the competition against Japanese, Korean market is actually giving up the market to Japanese companies.

 

For example, if Samsung Display and LG Display have saved 10,000,000 USD on the purchase of manufacturing equipment, the result is Korean companies’ loss of 100,000,000 USD. Although 10,000,000 USD is a large amount of money to Samsung Display and LG Display, the consequential loss of 100,000,000 USD for Korean manufacturing equipment market is even more immense.

 

The Korean display ecosystem that has been carefully established is being destroyed by its own government.

 

Although Korean government is paying lip service to build strong small and medium-sized businesses, in actuality, it is giving small amount of money to large companies and continuing to ignore smaller Korean manufacturing equipment companies. For the future of the smaller Korean manufacturing equipment companies struggling against the weak yen, a system of where they can at the very least survive in domestic market is needed.

 

Job creation for the young engineers requires more consideration for small and medium-sized businesses rather than large companies that can thrive without any help.