China's OLED display supporting key material technology and industrial development challenges. Organic light emitting diode (OLED), also known as organic light-emitting display, organic light-emitting semiconductor. OLED technology was discovered by Dr. Deng Qingyun of Kodak in 1979. Because of its self illumination, infinite high contrast, wide viewing angle, low power consumption, extremely fast response speed, flexible display and other characteristics, OLED technology has been regarded as a new generation of display technology since its discovery.
OLED organic materials are key materials for OLED display panel. Based on the introduction of OLED industry status, this paper will focus on the technology and industrial development challenges of OLED organic materials.
1、 Overview of OLED industrial chain
The upstream of OLED industrial chain includes material manufacturing, equipment manufacturing and parts group, the middle reaches include panel manufacturing, module, driver chip, etc., and the downstream includes various terminal applications.
1. OLED upstream
Due to the high technical threshold, the supply right of OLED upstream industry is basically in the hands of overseas manufacturers, and there are few domestic upstream enterprises that can achieve large-scale production. In the field of equipment manufacturing, Japanese manufacturers Canon Tokki and ULVAC are absolutely leading in the field of key equipment such as evaporation and plating. At present, there is no manufacturer of complete OLED production equipment for industrialization in China. The key equipment and systematic technology of complete equipment are all in the hands of Japanese, Korean and European enterprises.
At present, the field of OLED upstream materials is the world of Japan, South Korea and Europe and the United States, mainly in the hands of Japan's kazuoka Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "kazuoka"), baotugu Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., the United States UDC company and some Korean companies. Japanese and Korean manufacturers mainly produce small molecule luminescent materials, European and American manufacturers mainly produce luminescent materials with high patent barriers and some high-end process materials, among which Japanese and Korean manufacturers account for about 80% of the market share. Japan is an important supplier of OLED panel materials, among which Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. and Showa Electric Co., Ltd. produce polymers which are the basic materials of OLED process, while shinko and Mitsui Chemical Co., Ltd. mainly produce small molecular light-emitting materials.
OLED materials account for 30% of the total cost of OLED screen products, while LCD products, materials account for 70% of the total cost. After overcoming the low yield of OLED products, OLED has enough space for cost reduction to make its cost lower than LCD panel.
2. OLED midstream
In the field of midstream, Samsung Group (hereinafter referred to as "Samsung"), LG Group and other giants control the direction of midrange panel. South Korea is the main production area of OLED display panel in the world, and Samsung is the largest manufacturer of small and medium OLED panel in the world. LG display (LGD) is the first to focus on large-scale OLED. In view of the development trend of small screen electronic products, LGD gradually increases the code of small and medium-sized OLED.
3. OLED downstream
OLED technology has gradually become a popular trend of downstream terminals, with a huge market growth. IPhone x uses OLED display, which brings strong demonstration effect to the whole smartphone sector. In 2017, LG, Samsung, Huawei, oppo, TCL and other domestic and foreign electronic product manufacturers stepped up the layout of OLED related industries. In addition, OLED still has great growth potential in television, automobile and aerospace, wearable equipment and industrial applications, with broad prospects for development.
The new generation shows that OLED has broad prospects and numerous opportunities at home and abroad. Most of the upstream materials and accessories, such as driving IC, conductive glass, packaging glass, organic materials, precision mask, etc., need to be purchased from Japan, South Korea and other countries. Relatively speaking, domestic manufacturers are mostly concentrated in the fields of middle and lower panel and module.
2、 Global OLED display panel industry status and forecast
1. Rapid growth of income and increased investment by all countries
In recent years, with the continuous maturity of OLED technology, the application scope is more and more extensive, OLED display industry has a rapid growth situation, and the market scale growth is very fast. According to the OLED shipment market (Figure 1), OLED display revenue reached US $24 billion in 2017, an increase of 44.8% compared with 2016. IHS forecasts that the OLED display panel market scale revenue will reach US $68 billion in 2021. As enterprises realize that OLED panel profit is more significant than LCD panel, and OLED panel demand is strong, display enterprises in various countries have increased OLED investment layout. According to the global investment situation of AMOLED (Table 1), there are 18 published flexible active organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) production lines in the world. Samsung, a South Korean panel company, will make a substantial investment and increase its production capacity. LGD is also investing to build a six generation production line in pozhou. China's new display panel industry has shown a good development trend in recent years, and the industrial scale continues to expand. Although the OLED industry is in the initial stage of development, China's manufacturers' new line is developing very fast. The Chengdu production line of BOE is officially put into operation, and the mass production line of Mianyang and Chongqing is being laid.
Wuhan production line of Tianma Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tianma") has entered the production period. Vicino is also not willing to lag behind. In addition to the g5.5 generation line that has been mass produced in Kunshan, Gu'an cloud Valley production line has been capped in advance by the end of September 2017, and is constantly accelerating the mass production process. At present, the mainland China display panel has been built with multiple generation lines and its capacity is expanding. Under the multiple roles of multiple production lines and huge downstream markets, China's mainland will continue to increase its influence on the development of new global display industry. China's new display industry will still maintain high growth, and its capacity is expected to rank first in the world in 2020, and OLED's investment has been Into a frenzied race
