Future star OLED cost should be much lower than TFT-LCD

Shuiqingmuhua, published before 2009 global OLED and China Industry Research Report, the self luminous OLED display technology, the theory on the costs should be far lower than the TFT-LCD, because of its no polarizing plate, a backlight module and a color filter, and raw material costs at least 70% lower than TFT-LCD. But OLED has been unable to grow in an awkward position. 2009 onwards, the initiative began to emerge OLED, OLED TV has also begun to show up, OLED began to accelerate the pace. But there are still bottlenecks.

OLED bottleneck lies in its luminescent material electricity antioxidant ability is poor, need to vacuum glass seal to prevent oxidation, which is the same with TFT-LCD. Because OLED is a current mode device that requires relatively high current drive, it is required that the LTPS TFT substrate.

LTPS determines the high cost of OLED, but also the investment in OLED production line is not inferior to the traditional TFT-LCD, stage OLED is sold at a loss, even if the production cost, and is still not traditional TFT-LCD than cost. TFT-LCD most panel plants have completed some of the old production lines, while the production of huge. LTPS TFT technology is only in a few large TFT-LCD manufacturers, these large TFT-LCD manufacturers attitude is critical to OLED. Unless these manufacturers have fully mastered the OLED production know-how, otherwise they will not easily invest, which determines the current OLED is limited to a few manufacturers, such as samsung. Basically a dominant Samsung, which is detrimental to the development of the industry.

OLED must get rid of the LTPS TFT substrate, otherwise it is very difficult and the traditional TFT-LCD competition cost. Then there is the resolution of the problem, the same size OLED resolution is not easy to do compared to traditional TFT-LCD. That is, the number of pixels OLED is not high, so OLED is more suitable for a slightly larger size, such as 3 inches or more, but the size is too large, the cost advantage is worse.

Because SMD occupy the dominant position in the field of small size OLED, other manufacturers and more development of large size OLED, large size OLED to apply LTPS technology, but because the highest LTPS 4.5 generation line. And even if the 6 generation or the generation of higher generation, the cost is also very poor competitiveness.

Due to resource mostly lies in the Samsung SMD a hand, OLED display only Samsung a push, so the future of small size AM OLED won't have much room for development. In addition to Samsung mobile phone manufacturers do not have the upper reaches of the resources of AM OLED, while the price of OLED is slightly higher than TFT-LCD. It is estimated that by 2012, mobile phone OLED screen accounted for only 5% of the mobile phone market.

On OLED TV commercial, currently only SONY 11 inch and 15 inch LG, its price is very expensive, because the rate of finished products is very low (less than 30%), while TFT-LCD can reach more than 99%. Has the ability to manufacture OLED TV manufacturers and the potential is no exception is TFT-LCD large manufacturers, these manufacturers in the TFT - LCD investment will not be fully recovered before the whole OLED tv.

OLED limitations in terms of equipment is big, the current OLED production equipment only TOKKI and ULVAC two. TOKKI is the main, its glass substrate size is only 370mm*470mm. The luminescent material is mainly DuPont, BASF and Idemitsu Kosan, these chemical giants on this scale is only TFT-LCD 1% of the market is not too much interest.

OLED compared with TFT-LCD, TFT-LCD 75% of the cost of raw materials. No matter how big the size of the production line, the proportion of raw materials will not decline in TFT-LCD, while the cost of raw materials accounted for less than 25% OLED. TFT-LCD development today, has been unable to further reduce costs effectively. Once the OLED yield increased to 70%, TFT-LCD will have no place to go. OLED has been identified as a future star.