China strongly supports the development of large-size OLEDs

In June this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the results of the electronic information industry development fund's bid for the AM-OLED (Active Active Drive Organic Light-Emitting Diode) project. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gave Visionox, BOE, and Hongshi 3 respectively. Corresponding financial support for home companies. The government's strong support for the new flat panel project will become a new opportunity for China to develop large-size OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology. In the third-generation display technology, China's OLED industry is almost at the same starting line with foreign countries. At present, it is rare to develop the OLED industry. With the joint efforts of government, industry, research, and research, the development of China's OLED industry will be possible to surpass the curve.

Strive for display domain initiative

AM-OLED is more expensive than liquid crystal display, but the gap is not obvious. For special application groups such as high-end mobile phones, the market space of AM-OLED is still relatively large. From an international point of view, to really surpass Japan and South Korea in display technology, China must develop emerging technologies, and OLED is the best opportunity.

Ouyang Zhongcan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with reporters: “If China only develops LCDs, it is problematic. After all, LCDs are relatively mature technologies in Japan and Korea. We have always been catching up. We have developed our own flat panel display. Technology, AM-OLED is worth a try.From the development of the flat panel display industry in China, OLED is on the same starting line with the international level; from the perspective of strategic development, we can now only strive to take the initiative in the future by developing OLED."

Xu Wei, an Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices of South China University of Technology, said in an interview with reporters that in recent years, liquid crystal technology has developed very fast. Relatively speaking, the advantages of OLED in application are not obvious. At present, OLEDs have just developed, and they are basically on the same starting line at home and abroad. The development of LCD technology abroad has been relatively mature. We are in the catch-up phase of the LCD industry. The development of the OLED industry in China must be linked up and down. The upstream material is the bottleneck of the development of the OLED industry. If there is a breakthrough in the upstream materials, it will promote the OLED industry in China.

The three companies that won the Electronic Development Fund this time can be said to have different characteristics. BOE has the TFT technology foundation, Visionox has PM-OLED production experience, and the development of Hongsi in recent years is obvious to all. If three companies can jointly develop, China's OLED industry will have more opportunities to take the initiative in the future.

In this regard, Academician Ouyang suggested that although Visconnano has experience in PM-OLED, AM-OLED technology is not yet mature. In this case, it is possible to conduct research through the introduction of a pilot line, master the technology, and form its own core competition. force. BOE has experience in TFTs. How to apply TFT technology to OLEDs? To overcome material bottlenecks, especially low-temperature polysilicon technology is worth studying.

AM-OLED pioneered breakthrough

From a market perspective, the OLED market is a promising market. AM-OLED has a strong dependence on TFT-LCD, and there is no basis for TFT-LCD. It is very difficult to develop AM-OLED.

Hu Jun, presidential assistant of Truly Semiconductors, believes that the OLED industry will certainly grow up, but it will not necessarily develop in the way of replacing TFT-LCDs as previously expected, but will coexist in various application areas. From the perspective of industry maturity, the OLED industry has matured much more than two years ago. At present, apart from South Korea’s Samsung, there is no second company capable of stable, mature, and large-scale supply of products. At present, terminal vendors including Nokia and Apple have not dared to use a large number of products on their own products. If there are second and third companies that can achieve the same level of supply as Samsung, then the application of OLED in the current market will certainly expand. And it will expand by an order of magnitude. At present, the OLED market demand is very large. As far as the domestic market is concerned, mobile phone front-line brands have the desire to apply OLED, but all suffer from not having sufficient supply. From the viewpoint of OLED product and industry maturity, the product is mature, but the industry is not mature. One of the reasons is that OLED supply is highly concentrated. 95% of AM-OLED products come from Samsung. In fact, this is an industry. Very immature performance.

Peng Hongbing expressed that he hopes to make breakthroughs in OLED core technology through the funding of the Electronic Development Fund, especially in the AM-OLED field. To form a certain pilot capacity, a certain production line can be built in the next few years. He hopes to produce products for small and medium-sized applications in the future. "This is a clearer near-term goal," he said.

Wang Dayuan, director of the technology management center of BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., believes that TFT-LCD and AM-OLED have great industrial commonality and acceptance. In the field of TFT-LCD, China already has a certain industrial base. To carry out the forward-looking technical layout of AM-OLED, on the one hand, we must continue to pay attention to the development of technological development and have a clear grasp of the trend of technological development; on the other hand, we must pay attention to the continuity and inheritance of technology and industrial development, and actively use existing technologies. Foundation, joint upstream and downstream resources of industrial chain, and find breakthroughs in technological breakthroughs.

Japan and South Korea are still developing OLED

When a new product comes out, it can be the key to promoting prices. Vinta Jakhanwal, principal analyst of small and medium size displays at iSuppli, once stated that although Samsung is still promoting AM-OLED products, LCD technology has been rapidly developed and its product performance has improved rapidly. Currently, it is away from AM-OLED on various indexes. The gap is getting smaller and smaller, but due to the high price of AM-OLED products, she feels very confused about the future of AM-OLED. Perhaps it is this large investment and high cost of OLED that has caused twists and turns in its development.

In recent days, the news of Japan’s advancement of the OLED industry has been heard. In this regard, Ouyang Zhongcan said in an interview with reporters that Japan has always been at the leading position in OLED research and development. It is only in the industrialization of large-size products because the yield is too low. The cost is too high to be able to compete with LCDs (the current LCD production rate is above 90%). Japan's so-called "retirement" does not stop research, but the pace of mass production slows down, only temporarily "exit" In an interview with reporters, Peng Hongbing, chief of the Division of Basic Products of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, emphasized that Japan has never given up its research on OLED technology, but has only slowed down due to cost and other reasons in industrialization. On the whole, OLED technology research in various countries is continuously advancing, and no one has announced that they will give up, but there is only a slight difference in the technical line and the promotion strategy is different. This needs our special attention.

By analyzing the development of the OLED industry in Japan and South Korea, it is not difficult for us to find that Japan does not have South Korea’s dedication to the development of large-size AM-OLEDs, or that South Korea does not dare to invest. For OLED technology, Japan did not give up. Many core technologies, raw materials, and equipment are actually controlled by Japan. Once the market demand is amplified and the industrialization of its technology is further improved, Japan will certainly enter the OLED production field. South Korea has not yet fully matured its technology, or began to make significant investments at the beginning of technology development. Korean companies may have more experience in the industrialization of technology. In the development of OLED in Japan and South Korea, South Korea depends on government support and Japan depends on corporate alliances. In our country, government support is limited and companies are reluctant to unite. In this regard, Peng Hongbing said that companies are not strong and government support is not strong. The two do not add together. In the future industry commanding heights, the competitive disadvantage is very obvious, not to mention the advantages, so we have hidden dangers in the development of the OLED industry. of.

How to eliminate hidden dangers and realize leapfrogging development of China's OLED industry, on the one hand, it is necessary to increase government support. This kind of support is not only financial support but also policy support. On the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the cooperation and cooperation between upstream and downstream industries. Only in this way can China achieve a turn in the third-generation display technology.