IHS Markit sees inkjet printed OLEDs to rise 12-fold from 2020 to 2024
Following a high-end forecast scenario, IHS Markit expects global capacity for inkjet printed OLED displays to increase to 1.3 million substrates in 2024, up from 105,000 in 2020. Measured in terms of area, this capacity would amount to 7.3 million square meters in 2024, up from 209,000 in 2020.
According to the recent report “Inkjet Printing for AMOLED Technology and Market Report 2019” The starting gun for the IJP OLED market will sound next year, when Japan-based JOLED Inc. becomes the first suppler to make the switch from trial manufacturing to full mass production. Chinese manufacturers will quickly follow suit, investing in volume manufacturing lines in 2020 and 2021, while other panel manufacturers will join the IJP OLED party in 2021 and beyond.
“In recent years, IJP has attracted the attention of panel makers due to its strong potential to reduce the cost of OLED production,” explains Chase Li, senior analyst at IHS Markit. “Despite years of competition with LCDs in the market for high-end displays of all sizes, OLED market penetration remains limited because of its expensive production costs.
However, IJP has the potential to dramatically reduce manufacturing expenses, making OLEDs more cost-competitive with LCDs in products including televisions and displays for computers and tablets.”
Large print areas
In large-sized display applications like televisions, IJP OLED production is expected to be much cheaper than conventional white OLED (WOELD) manufacturing. For example, when producing a 65-inch, 4K TV on a Gen-10 line, IJP can cut costs by 15 to 25 percent compared to WOLED.
Meanwhile, the competitiveness of IJP OLED also extends to the small- and mid-size display market. IJP OLED can reduce production costs by about 20 percent compared with the fine metal mask (FMM) OLED method used in the production of 13.3-inch panels on Gen-6 production lines.
Comparing IJP with WOLED and FMM OLED, analysts find it requires lower initial investments in machinery and fab construction. It also boasts a high material usage of 95 percent or better and has lower operating costs during production.
IT equipment first, TV last
Although IJP was initially targeted at the production of TV panels, inkjet technology is making inroads into the mid-size display market first—particularly in information technology (IT) applications. That is because IJP OLEDs don’t perform as well as WOLEDs, especially in terms of lifetime and brightness. Though they may be good-enough for IT panels, including monitors, notebook PCs and tablets.
“Active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) shipments for tablet PCs, notebook PC and monitors are still lower than LCD shipments because of the challenges involved in stabilizing yields,” notes Li. “Therefore, IJP OLEDs may be a good alternative for the IT segment because the technology can achieve 80 to 200 pixels per inch (ppi) with an RGB side-by-side layout, or even 400 ppi and significantly higher.”
Beyond advantages like lower initial investments, adopting IJP OLED for mid-sized panel production presents fewer challenges in terms of equipment supply. Moreover, yields and panelization can be higher compared to the FMM approach. In the meantime, the disadvantages of IJP OLED products—like lower lifetimes, less luminescence and inferior color performance—can be compensated for by adopting larger aperture ratios and by adding color filters on the top of printed OLED devices.
Chinese panel makers in line for IJP
Until 2019, seven companies had initiated investments in IJP OLED display production, building several pilot and R&D lines during the past two years. Among those companies, Chinese panel makers have been the most motivated, with these suppliers striving to surpass their rivals in South Korea and take the lead in IJP OLED technology.
There are two major motivations for Chinese panel makers. The first is the fact that making investments IJP OLED fits in with China’s long-term national strategies. The second is that Chinese panel makers are trying to find a profitable technology that will ease the financial pressure involved in competing in the heavily oversupplied LCD market.
The IHS Markit Inkjet Printing for AMOLED Technology and Market Report 2019 features technology backgrounds, supply-chain analyses, capacity forecasts and competitive breakdowns for the IJP OLED display segment, based on technological maturity, market development and estimates of manufacturing costs.
IHS Markit – www.ihsmarkit.com
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