Competing for the 8th generation OLED production line, a new battlefield for IT panels has emerged

Recently, it has been reported that BOE plans to build the 8.6th generation OLED production line for IT in Chengdu, and is expected to start mass production at the end of 2024. In response, BOE responded on the investor platform that it is evaluating strategy, market, technology and other aspects. At present, with the continuous penetration of OLED panels in the IT product market such as tablet computers, the 8th generation OLED production line has become a new battlefield for the panel industry.

2024 may become the 8th generation OLED production line mass production time

With the growth of mobile phone product applications, OLED panels will quickly expand to the application of MOBILE products such as IT in the future, and the 8th generation (8.5/8.6 generation) OLED technology for IT has become a new battlefield in the panel industry.

In response to the news of the construction of the 8.6th generation OLED production line for IT applications, BOE responded in the investor relations activities that the company's plan in this regard is pre-researched on the basis of full communication with customers, and the project team is currently evaluating strategy, market, technology, finance and other aspects, and is still actively studying.

Driven by Apple and other terminal manufacturers planning to apply OLED panels to IT products such as tablets and laptops, and expected to launch products in 2024, the timing of mass production in 2024 pointed out by BOE's proposed production line news is basically the same as that of South Korea's Samsung display and LG display.

Liu Yushi, senior analyst at CINNO Research, pointed out that LG display and Samsung display have G8.5OLED production capacity planning based on Oxide substrate and IT product layout, and the landing time is from 2023 to 2025.

It is reported that both Samsung Display and LG Display currently plan to produce the first iPad OLED on the 6th generation line, which is expected to be launched around 2024, but then the OLED panel used in Apple's IT products will be produced in the 8.5th generation line.

From the process, according to Liu Yushi's analysis, the 8.6th generation OLED production line usually needs to use the Oxide substrate instead of the LTPS substrate commonly used in the 6th generation line, and the 8.6th generation OLED production line for IT products will still use the RGB evaporation process, which is more mature than the printing OLED or QD-OLED method.

According to the reporter's understanding, in the choice of evaporation process, the 6th generation OLED production line facing smart phones mainly uses semi-cut horizontal evaporation technology, while the 8.5th generation line, which has greatly expanded economy and adopted full-cut vertical evaporation technology, is the best choice, but at present, in order to cope with uncertainty, horizontal evaporation technology is also likely to be developed at the same time.

It is reported that BOE will also choose the semi-cut horizontal deposition method as the 8.6th generation OLED deposition technology. LG Display is also developing the 8.5th generation semi-cut horizontal deposition technology, and Samsung Display is developing the 8.5th generation full cut/vertical deposition technology.

The 8th generation line production has a stronger competitive advantage

In THE IT application of OLED panels, the 8.5 generation line is more economical than the 6th generation line production. Taking the 13.3-inch panel as an example, the 6th generation line (1500x1850mm) can make 48 pieces, and the 8.5 generation (2200x2500mm) can make 96 pieces.

BOE also pointed out that the design capacity of the 8.6th generation OLED production line is certainly not the 15,000 pieces / month indicated by the news, which is uneconomical.

From its own point of view, BOE said on the interactive platform that boulevard Chengdu and Mianyang two AMOLED production lines have reached a production capacity of 48,000 pieces / month and a design capacity of nearly 48,000 pieces / month, respectively.

Taking the LG display 8.5th generation OLED production line in Guangzhou under construction as an example, the first phase of the planned production capacity is 60,000 pieces / month, the second phase of the planned products of 30,000 pieces / month, the total production capacity has been nearly 90,000 pieces / month.

Therefore, the news said that BOE's proposed production line capacity planning of 15,000 pieces / month is usually only a one-phase capacity level, and the complete capacity plan usually includes 2 to 3 phases. Chen Hui, general manager of Aowei Ruiwo, told reporters that according to the industry situation, the best economy should be 60,000 pieces / month.

In addition, some voices pointed out that the 8.5th generation OLED production line currently under evaluation and construction is not only used for the production of IT products, if there is a possibility of switching to THE production of TV panels, it will be of great benefit to enhancing the competitiveness of large-scale OLED in the mainland. In this regard, Liu Yushi told reporters that the 8.6th generation line only represents the size of the glass substrate, due to the size limitations of the evaporation machine used in the evaporation plating and the high-precision metal mask template, it is difficult for the PRODUCTION line for IT to have both TV product production capacity. Even with production capacity, medium and large size collinear production requires frequent adjustment of equipment parameters, which is not conducive to yield improvement and equipment life.

The investment direction of OLED production line will change

The reporter learned that since December last year, LG showed that it began evaluating the evaporation equipment for the 8.5th generation OLED production line for IT at its partner Sunic System's Paju plant in Gyeonggi Province. Samsung shows that it began evaluating the 8.5 generation OLED deposition process earlier and is testing the Gen 8.5 full cutting/vertical deposition device in collaboration with Japan's Ulvac.

In terms of Chinese manufacturers, in April 2021, TCL Huaxing plans to demonstrate the construction of an 8.5-generation flexible windable OLED panel production line (t8 project) with a monthly processing of about 60,000 pieces, which is expected to become the world's first high-generation line printing OLED production line, mainly producing and selling 32-inch-95-inch 4K/8K ultra-high-definition large-size printable coilable OLED TV, IT and high value-added commercial display products. However, due to the immaturity of printing equipment, material systems, and oxide backplane technology for the 8.5 generation high-generation line, mass production conditions are still lacking.

Therefore, industry insiders judge that Samsung Display and LG Display may be faster in building 8.5-generation OLED production lines.

Comprehensively judging the investment trend of the global panel industry in the OLED production line, Qunzhi Consulting research believes that the pace of investment in the new LCD line of global panel factories has slowed down significantly, and the investment in OLED remains positive, but the direction of OLED investment will change significantly.

First of all, the original panel manufacturers for small size, especially flexible OLED investment is very active, the future investment strategy will be from small size to medium and large size, from the low generation (6 generations) to the high generation line transformation, it is expected that by 2025 there will be three 8.5 generation OLED production lines to usher in mass production.

At the same time, the change in the direction of OLED investment will also change from the original Flexible OLED to multi-technology, WOLED will continue to expand production, QD-OLED production capacity will continue to increase. Hybrid OLED's investment enthusiasm is currently the most active investment in Korean panel manufacturers. It is expected that by 2025, the global OLED display panel production capacity area will still maintain more than 10% growth, especially the gradual mass production of high-generation OLED production lines, and it is expected that QD-OLED, HybridOLED, etc. will play an increasingly important role in the global OLED panel market from 2023.