"Technology Age: Telling the Stories of 100 People" is an annual feature launched by Ray Technology, produced by Ray Technology Deep Team. In the era of science and technology, not only industry giants are "heroes", but also many participants. This feature focuses on the amazing civilian heroes around you and me, presenting the truth of technology from an alternative perspective through their deeds and through their perspectives.
In 2006, People's Daily published an article titled "Screens Surround Our Lives." Today, the development of mobile Internet and smartphones has allowed almost everyone to have a 24-hour screen - in the subway, on the road, and in bed late at night. The screen has become a part and extension of our life instead of enveloping our lives.
Naturally, when the screen becomes the key window of modern life, everyone hopes to use a better screen, consumers, display terminal manufacturers, display panel manufacturers and more supply chain enterprises together to push the display of the screen to a new height. But in the end, all this is inseparable from people, both the mass user in front of the screen and everyone behind the screen.
One person and one industry
"Is OLED a detour in the display industry?" Just after I threw the problem to the screen panel engineer Wu Ming, the news of the iPhone 14 Pro Spirit Island burning screen was on the hot search again during the 315. As early as January this year, some users found that in less than half a year, the iPhone 14 Pro/Max in their hands appeared near Lingdong Island. In the past few years, the news of OLED screen burning has been endless, and the doubts about OLED among digital enthusiasts have always existed.
But on the other hand, in smart watches, laptops, monitors, TVs and other major display devices, OLED is continuing to squeeze the market share of LCD LCD screens, especially mobile phones that used OLED screens on a large scale earlier, and now not only flagship machines are standard, even thousands of yuan machines are increasingly using OLED screens.
Wu Ming told us that the characteristics of OLED organic light-emitting materials determine that the problem of life cannot be solved, and can only be continuously optimized, "but even if OLED is a detour, it is also a necessary path." Although he did not respond positively to our questions, he emphasized that in the case that a new generation of display technology such as Micro-LED is far from close to landing, OLED has an absolute advantage over LCD technology in terms of screen thickness, color and brightness:
It is not necessary and impossible to circumvent.
OLED directly lacks backlight modules and color filters, Figure / EIZO
LCD LCD screen is generally composed of three main components: panel, backlight, and driver IC chip, but OLED (organic light-emitting diode) does not need the backlight of LCD screen due to its self-illumination characteristics. Directly remove the backlight layer, so that the display device can become thinner or cram more and larger components. This, combined with higher brightness and outdoor availability, is one of the key reasons why small-form devices such as smartwatches and flagship smartphones used OLED earlier and on a large scale.
At the same time, because each pixel (including three subpixels) can be independently controlled on and off, OLED can also achieve purer blacks and higher contrast, showing a more vivid and immersive visual effect, and the difference is more obvious in darker scenes, which is also impossible to compare with gray LCDs.
Behind a better screen is also more complex technology and higher costs. Wu Ming said that although OLED is simpler in structure, it is also higher in technical complexity, Samsung led the industrialization of the entire OLED technology earlier, once monopolized the entire market, when his work just switched from LCD to OLED.
In the years when Wu Ming rushed to OLED, domestic panels stepped on a lot of technical and patent pits in order to catch up, and only today dare to say that they have caught up, and even surpassed Samsung's top OLED screens in some indicators. But the success of domestic screens is neither achieved overnight, nor is it just a great undertaking for a few people. On the duty record that Wu Ming showed us, there were a lot of night shifts and overtime.
Recalling the time when he worked overtime on the production line in the past few years, Wu Ming used "pain" and "pride" to describe those days, although it was only a small link in the huge industrial chain, he still experienced and witnessed the tide of the industry, and how China's display panels were on the cusp of the tide again and again.
This was something he didn't anticipate at first.
From LCD to OLED
Whether it is an LCD or an OLED panel, it is divided into a front-end Array, a mid-section Cell, and a back-end Module in the process. Before 2017, Wu Ming was also an engineer on the LCD production line of a domestic panel factory, where he was responsible for circuit design, yield and other Array related issues. Nevertheless, Wu Ming thought about switching to OLED earlier.
Wu Ming knows that the next generation of LCD display technology development must be OLED, the latter in the panel performance lead is too big, only in addition to "service life" and "high cost" two difficulties, but with large-scale mass production, these two problems will continue to improve. At the same time, compared to other stages, the transformation of the Array process will be easier, from LCD to OLED, although it still has to invest a lot of learning, but his years of experience and knowledge accumulated on LCD can be directly brought to OLED.
Therefore, Wu Ming actually did not feel too much anxiety about the "LCD decline theory", "It's a big deal, compared to the Cell stage, my transformation cost is indeed relatively low." ”
Of course, there are concerns. Before Wu Ming decided to switch from LCD panel production line to OLED panel production line, Samsung has released the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge with OLED screen, and the screen testing agency DisplayMate is also amazed at the screen display effect of Galaxy S6 and believes that OLED screens will become mainstream in the future. But at that time, Wu Ming did not know whether it was the right time to jump to OLED.
On the one hand, limited by the development of domestic OLED production lines, the production capacity and market share of domestic panel manufacturers before 2017 determine that they can only accommodate fewer job opportunities. On the other hand, South Korean manufacturers such as Samsung and LG have misjudged the OLED commercial time node, and also missed the time of rapid LCD development after 2011.
The misjudgment of Korean panel manufacturers not only leaves a greater market demand, but also objectively shortens the catching time of domestic panel manufacturers. When Samsung, LG and other Korean panel manufacturers prematurely stepped into the commercial stage of OLED and reduced LCD capacity investment, BOE, Huaxing Optoelectronics, Huike and other Chinese panel manufacturers began to collectively "go against the trend" to increase the production of LCD panels, in Wu Ming's words, "just learned to walk not long after running." ”
Wu Ming has not experienced the most difficult period of domestic panels, but in the first few years of work, he has witnessed how the Chinese LCD industry seizes the opportunity to achieve a counterattack in the global market. When South Korean panel manufacturers react back and resume investment in LCDs, they can no longer stop the footsteps of Chinese opponents. By 2017, Chinese companies officially squeezed Korean companies out of the top spot in the global panel market, and since then they have continued to expand their advantages and establish a new generation of supremacy in the LCD field.
However, in 2017-2018, "the overall situation of OLED has been decided." Wu Ming said. First of all, the application of OLED in the smartphone market ushered in an outbreak, especially the adoption of iPhone X has driven the confidence of the entire industry. At the same time, Chinese panel manufacturers are not satisfied with the success of the LCD panel market, represented by the official mass production of BOE's first 6th generation flexible OLED production line, and domestic OLED has also ushered in a new round of outbreak.
PHOTO: WINSTAR
The outbreak of the market and production line made Wu Ming really determined, and finally came to the OLED production line. And this is just the beginning, represented by the three masters of domestic panels - BOE, Tianma, and Huaxing Optoelectronics (TCL), everyone involved in it has not relaxed their catch up in the OLED field.
In Wu Ming's recollections, everyone was amazed at that time, and the countless overtime and night shifts in the duty record were not only painful and anxious, but also eager to learn and catch up, in order to improve a process, he also took only 1 day off in 1 month.
By last year, according to CINNO Research survey data, in the third quarter of 2022, the market share of domestic smartphone OLED panels had accounted for 30.4% of the global market, an increase of 10% compared with last year's 20% market share. Specific to the ranking of manufacturers, BOE is second only to Samsung with a 13% share, and five of the world's top ten are domestic manufacturers.
Photo: CINNO Research
At the same time, an obvious change is that more mid-to-high-end models have begun to use domestic OLED screens, and the newly released Honor Magic5 uses domestic OLEDs from BOE, Tianma and Visionox, as well as the previous release of OnePlus Ace 2/2V, Nubia Z50 Ultra, realme GT Neo5, etc.
But what makes Wu Ming more concerned is that the market evaluation of domestic OLED screens is also rapidly approaching Samsung OLED, and even performs better in high-frequency PWM dimming and other fields, and consumers are no longer only "Samsung OLED" for high-end mobile phones.
In fact, South Korea's "Chosun Ilbo" also warned the South Korean OLED industry in 2021, although South Korean manufacturers are still dominating the OLED panel market, but the story of Chinese manufacturers on LCD panels is likely to be re-enacted on OLED panels, and even surpassing Korean manufacturers only takes 5 years.
Why is domestic OLED okay again?
In October 2018, Huawei released its annual flagship - Mate 20 Pro, which is equipped with OLED screens from BOE and LG, of which the LG version has encountered a serious "green screen" problem, but the BOE OLED that "debuted" for the first time shows high quality.
"Frankly speaking, everyone was quite excited at that time, Huawei and BOE made a good start, and it also made other domestic OLEDs in the follow-up a lot less resistance." Wu recalls that there was both encouragement and pressure, but everyone understood that technological catch-up and cost control were still key. With the progress of domestic panel manufacturers, the price of OLED panels has dropped significantly, but the performance continues to improve.
Due to professional habits, Wu Ming usually pays more attention to the evaluation and changes of the screens used by the people around him, and occasionally has a little joy when he sees products equipped with his own company's screens. Especially in the past two years, domestic OLEDs are getting better and better at the same time, and they are more common, which always reminds him of solving one technical and engineering problem after another with colleagues.
In fact, this year, domestic panel manufacturers have caught up with the world's leading players in many aspects, and even have the technology and confidence to challenge the route. For example, in the key brightness of OLED, domestic panel manufacturers improve material properties and evaporation processes, so that the light-emitting layer of OLED has higher work efficiency when the current increases, so as to achieve higher brightness.
Microprism Technology, Figure/Proceedings of the Society for Information Display SID
In contrast, when Wu Ming saw Samsung adopt microprism technology on the E5 (light-emitting material) generation, he thought that "the direction was wrong." Samsung's original intention in using Microlens Array technology is to better concentrate light on the front through lenses to achieve higher brightness at the same power consumption, and the array of millions of miniature lenses is also micro-prism technology. The problem is that microprism technology increases brightness while sacrificing the viewing angle of the screen.
Not only is the problem of gain outweighing, the improvement of micro-prism technology is not large, even if the second-generation microprism technology on E6 has made up for a certain degree in terms of viewing angle and color, it is still not as good as the direct improvement in materials and evaporation.
In terms of high-frequency PWM dimming, domestic manufacturers have taken a leading position in the industry. Compared with conventional 480Hz PWM dimming, domestic OLED PWM high-frequency dimming has broken through to 2160Hz, higher than Samsung's highest 1920Hz. In today's domestic mobile phone market, PWM high-frequency dimming has become one of the common concerns of online users, including the recently released Honor Magic5 Pro, realme GT Neo5 all support PWM dimming up to 2160Hz.
The progress of domestic OLED screens is also obvious to all. Wu Ming also believes that limited by the substrate, although the domestic top OLED still has a certain gap with Samsung E6/M12 in terms of brightness and color, such as viewing angle, color uniformity, color accuracy and brightness uniformity, but overall:
"I think it's already stronger than the Samsung E4, and the gap with Samsung has also been pulled down by only one position."
Success is not an inevitability
Display technology is a cruel industry, and no progress means regression. In it, Wu Ming also often feels the cruelty of the industry - the panel production line cannot be stopped, and the people around the production line cannot be broken; And the fluctuating industry cycle is also affecting the lives of countless people. Last year, there was a collective huge loss in the panel industry, and Wu Ming not only heard about the layoffs of other factories, but even witnessed the departure of colleagues around him.
In such an environment, it is difficult for individuals not to fall into confusion about their own value. Wu Ming told us that he was able to get out of the confusion is not solved, but after seeing another round of discussion of domestic screens in the digital circle recently, he figured out one thing - although he is just an ordinary engineer in a domestic panel manufacturer, in the process of the rise of domestic screens and the popularization of better screens, he thinks that he still has a meager strength, enough.
In the story of telling the contrarian trend of China's panel industry, a popular saying is "international industrial transfer", which refers to the cost changes brought about by the degree of social development, the center of the panel industry shifted from the United States to Japan in the eighties and nineties of the last century, and then transferred from Japan to South Korea, Taiwan, and then Chinese mainland.
However, the development and rise of an industry is not a fluttering "international industrial transfer" that can be easily summarized. The success of Chinese panels is not an inevitability, from 2003 BOE to build the 5th generation LCD production line to open the first year of China's LCD industry, to 2022 panel production capacity of 200 million square meters, accounting for about 60% of the world, Chinese panel manufacturers with nearly 20 years to prove that the success of domestic screens is not enough to sit on the sofa can get, but to solve one technical problem after another in the production line, as well as the firmness and implementation of the strategy.
This is the result of the joint efforts of a group of panel manufacturers and countless people behind it, and they deserve to be recorded and remembered.
*Wu Ming mentioned in the article is a pseudonym.
This content is the author's independent opinion, may not be reproduced without permission, please contact [email protected] for cooperation
![New quantum dot LED technology made of rice husks non-toxic and environmentally friendly[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)