China's development of TFT-LCD material bearing

Global competition: a situation of tripartite confrontation

Into twenty-first Century, flat panel display (FPD) is gradually replacing CRT display (CRT) has become the mainstream of the display industry. In FPD, LCD, PDP, OLED and other applications are more extensive, especially the largest proportion of LCD. LCD in the TN, STN, color STN phase, has now developed to the TFT-LCD (thin film transistor liquid crystal display) stage, and the size of the continuous expansion. TFT-LCD has accounted for more than 87% of the entire LCD industry revenue, while in TFT-LCD and more than the size of more than 10 inches, accounting for 74%.

TFT-LCD is mainly used in desktop monitors, notebook computers, televisions, car monitors, mobile phones and other electronic display products, other applications include small size TFT-LCD panels and industrial applications.

Global display industry is mainly concentrated in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and mainland china. From the point of view of shipments, China has overtaken South Korea to become the largest supplier of TFT-LCD trend in Taiwan, but some key technologies also rely on Japan and South korea. With the vertical integration of Chinese enterprises in Taiwan increased, and accelerate the pace of absorbing foreign advanced technology, the technology gap is gradually narrowing. Japanese industry is declining, but still holds the key material for manufacturing technology and equipment, some high-end LCD panel, is not easy to be made of the essential electronic material is still mainly lies in its hands, Japan is the advantage of this segmentation Chinese LCD industry cake. South Korea's rapid technological progress, in some areas has exceeded Japan, and is expanding to the global market, Samsung and LG Philips two manufacturers in the global market ahead. China mainland BOE and SVA only two TFT-LCD five generation production line, but because the upstream key raw materials are essential to Japan and Taiwan of our country have had to take, and the upstream raw material production enterprise alliance as a means of reducing the cost of raw material purchase. Although China's TFT-LCD industry is relatively backward, but it has a broad downstream user market.

From the point of view of the effectiveness of TFT-LCD companies, in the first quarter of 2005, in addition to South Korea's Samsung, SHARP,, other manufacturers of basic loss, the competition in the market has been filled with smoke. Careful analysis, TFT-LCD profit or not, in addition to price fluctuations, the key lies in the cost, while the largest proportion of the cost, the largest elasticity is the cost of raw materials, accounting for about 60%-70%.

TFT-LCD main materials and components of liquid crystal materials, glass substrate, color filter, polarizer, backlight module, driver IC, PCB and other supplies, some of the chemicals used in the production process there are still others (such as high purity reagent, photoresist, etc.). TFT-LCD use, generation, quality, procurement sources, etc., are affecting the proportion of raw materials accounted for the overall cost.

April 2005, Samsung Electronics and SONY joint seventh generation panel factory has begun production. With the development of the TFT-LCD panel to the large size, the proportion of the cost of the material will be more and more big, it will become a crucial part of whether the enterprise can make a profit.

In mainland China: industry chain imbalance of raw materials industry lags behind

The TFT-LCD industry chain includes three parts: liquid crystal display material, middle panel and component, downstream electronic products. The mainland of China downstream electronics market is huge, and has great potential for development, the middle panel and the components are catching up, but the upstream material industry is obviously lagging behind, some key materials yield little or zero, the whole industry chain has a serious imbalance. The following are the main materials used in the localization of TFT-LCD.

1 LCD

Liquid crystal material refers to a certain temperature range, from the appearance of liquid is a liquid, but at the same time is the optical birefringence of the crystal. At present, the world's major manufacturers of liquid crystal materials, there are three, that is, the German Merck, Japan's Chisso and Rodic company. China's mainland enterprises can only produce TN, STN liquid crystal materials, high-grade TFT liquid crystal materials still need to import. 2003 Shijiazhuang yongshenghuatsing liq.crystal Co. Ltd. (formerly Shijiazhuang slichem), Xi'an richlink four liquid crystal material enterprises to sell a total of 80 tons of liquid crystal (containing monomer and liquid crystal mixture), to meet the basic needs of enterprises, domestic TN STN. But because the TFT device on material performance requirements are higher, more stringent requirements, not only has the mixed liquid crystal light and heat, high chemical stability, good charge retention and high resistivity, also called mixed liquid crystal has low viscosity and high stability, the appropriate optical differences and threshold voltage, therefore, our country TFT with the LCD industry there are certain difficulties.

2 glass substrate and conductive glass

Glass substrate and conductive glass (ITO) is also an important structural material of LCD. Glass substrate has the characteristics of high transparency, good chemical resistance, certain mechanical hardness, easy processing, and so on. The utility model is mainly used for protecting the main luminous monomer of the display and the space required to form the pixel, and is used as a support of the display. ITO glass is made of a thin layer of ITO film on glass is formed by sputtering or other deposition techniques, therefore, used in the production of raw materials mainly has two parts of the glass substrate and the sputtering of the two materials in China basically rely on imports. In short, China's LCD glass substrate has not yet formed the ability of industrialization, the raw materials of conductive glass production enterprises should also be imported from abroad, which is very unfavorable to the downstream LCD panel and components. Currently, the supply of glass substrates mainly by Corning