Will Dowooinsys expand UTG lines to prepare for the foldable phone market?

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The cover window material of Samsung Electronics ‘Galaxy Z Fold 2’ which will be released in the second half of this year, is UTG like ‘Galaxy Z Filp’. The reason why Samsung Electronics prefers UTG is analyzed for its sense of luxury, differentiation, and sensitivity for the touch pen expected to be applied in the future.

In 2021, the market for over 10 million foldable phones is expected to expand, and the main cover window material of Samsung’s foldable phones will be UTG. To respond to this, Dowooinsys should increase their capacity.

Dowooinsys’ capa is estimated to be 250K/month for 6 inch cells and 375K/month for 7 inch cells. Even if the 6 inch line will be converted to a 7 inch line in the future, it will be 500K/month. Considering the yield of Dowooinsisy and Samsung Display’s Vietnamese module line, more than 4 to 5 lines should be expanded.

Currently, Samsung Display’s Vietnamese module line is assumed as 450K/month considering the yield, but the Vietnamese module line is continually being converted into a foldable line. Even in response to the current situation that Samsung Electronics prefers UTG, Dowooinsys is expected to expand more lines in the second half of this year, and its location is also expected to be considered near Samsung Display’s Vietnamese module line.

With the expansion of Dowooinsys’ additional lines, the market of cover window materials for foldable phones is expected to change in the future. At UBI Research’s ‘Next-Generation Display Technology and Industry Outlook Seminar’ held in mid-July, it is predicted that UTG will lead the future market at a ratio of 7:3 with colorless polyimide.

LPKF’s laser glass processing technology, makes a cover glass thicker than UTG be folded.

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It was expected that the S Pen would be applied to Samsung’s ‘Galaxy Z Fold2’, which will be released in the second half of this year, but it has passed the year.

UTG, the cover window material currently applied to Samsung Electronics’ ‘Galaxy Z Filp’, is 30 um thick and is 1/10 thinner than 300 um, the thickness of commercially available cover glass.

It was possible to have flexibility by using UTG into a foldable phone, but due to the film-like characteristics, there was an issue that durability was insufficient to apply the S Pen.

In order to handle this issue, a technology that increases the thickness of UTG and secures flexibility will be needed. A typical method is processing the folding part of the glass to get flexibility even at a thick thickness.

LIDE (Laser induced deep etching) technology, developed and patented by German high-tech company LPKF, is expected to be a good example. It is known that this technology is a two-step process called micro-region transformation and chemical treatment using a laser, and can process glass of various thicknesses from 30 um to 900 um without micro crack.

LPKF explains that the part where the cover glass is folded is finely processed with a laser to give flexibility to the glass, and it is possible to design the pattern to be invisible using a polymer having same reflectivity as a cover glass.

If you look at Vitrion’s YouTube video (https://youtu.be/Vh3rU4LRHaw), a separate brand related to LIDE, in LPKF, you can see that a cover glass with a thickness of 500 um was patterned to secure bending radius of 1 mm.

<LPKF foldable OLED cover glass, Source: LPKF>

With this glass processing technology, attention is paid to whether a S-pen can be supported as a thicker cover glass is applied to a foldable phone in the future.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 2 image leak, internal and external displays become bigger

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<The first supposed official render of Galaxy Z Fold2, Source: twitter.com/ishanagarwal24>

On 21 July, information leaker for IT new product, Ishan Agarwal, released an image presumed to be a rendered photo of ‘Galaxy Z Fold2’ on his Twitter.

Galaxy Z Fold2 will be released at the end of September, about two months after it was unveiled at the Galaxy Unpack event on the 5th of next month.

Inside the Galaxy Z Fold2, a 7.7-inch foldable OLED that is larger than the previous Galaxy Fold’s 7.3-inch screen is used, and the cover window material of the foldable OLED is UTG. The size of the external OLED is 6.23 inch, which is 1.63 inch larger than the previous one.

The rear camera is equipped with a 1,800-megapixel main camera, a triple (three) camera and a flight distance sensor (ToF), and the internal camera is known to be located in the center of the right screen in the form of a punch hole, but can’t see in this image.

Expected touch pens do not apply to this model. The shipping price is expected to be 2.3 million won, which is about 100,000 won cheaper than the previous one.

Published The Chinese OLED Industry Trend Report for The First Half of 2020

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UBI Research published a report on trends in China related to the OLED industry at the end of the first half of 2020.

In 2020, 1Q China’s OLED sales were $842 million, despite a Corona 19 crisis, up 1.7% QoQ and 59.4% YoY. China’s OLED shipments are 23% of the total market as of 2020, and it is expected to expand to 45% in 2025.

This report includes product launch trends of OLED-related Chinese set makers during the 2019~first half of 2020, business and investment status by major panel manufacturers, supply chains for major products, various performance analysis and forecasts, and includes the trend of recently announced exhibition products.

This report will provide guidelines for people engaged in various tasks such as OLED-related panel manufacturing, parts/materials, and equipment fields to understand and forecast the Chinese OLED industry.

Material Science Co., Ltd. develops high-purity blue light-emitting material with a half width of 11 nm

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In OLEDs which are currently leading the display industry for mobile devices and TVs, blue material is still using fluorescent material unlike red and green.

Currently, a lot of light emitting material companies are trying to improve the efficiency, lifespan, and color purity of blue light emitting materials, also next-generation materials such as phosphorescence, TADF, and hyper-fluorescence as well as actively developing luminous efficiency by controlling emission wavelengths.

Material Science (hereinafter referred to as MS), a Korean company that has been developing blue light emitting materials since 2015, has recently focused on realizing high color purity and successfully developed high color purity blue light emitting materials with a light emission wavelength of 460 nm and a half width of 11 nm. Considering that the emission wavelength of the currently commercially available blue material is about 20 nm, the blue material of MS is expected to receive great attention.

The full width at half maximum (FWHM) is an expression of the extent of function given by the difference between the two extreme values of the independent variable at which the dependent variable is equal to half of its maximum value.

And the narrower the half width, the higher the purity.

A typical example is Samsung Electronics’ QLED TV, which has significantly improved color reproduction by applying a QD sheet to the LCD back light.

The blue light emitting material developed by MS is expected to be applicable not only to fluorescent materials but also to hyper-fluorescence, which is attracting attention as a next-generation blue material according to emission wavelength control.

<Comparison of the half width of the existing blue dopant with the half width of the blue dopant developed by MS, Source: Materials Science>

Announcement of sale of Samsung LCD P8-2 line

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Recently, Samsung’s announcement of the sale of the P8-2 LCD line in Tangjeong was posted (announced on June 29).

Samsung has been steadily selling the old LCD line until recently, but since it has never posted a sale announcement, it is unusual to post a notice on the sale of this P8-2 line.

Prior to this, some facilities of the P8-1 line were converted to the newly invested QD display line, and only about 30K of TFT and 200K of CF out of all 200K-scale process equipment were sold to companies in China.

Shenzhen EFONLONG OPTRONICS DISPLAY CO., LTD, which acquired Samsung P8-1 line equipment, was founded in 2008 as a manufacturer of LCD modules , located in shenzhen, China. Hefengtai is known to attract investment from the government of Zhejiang, China, and install and operate a relocation facility in Zhejiang.

On the other hand, this P8-2 is known to sell the entire 200K-scale facility, and it is known that Samsung C&T is in charge of it, and the sale amount reaches 500 billion won.

Samsung is known to preferentially convert existing LCD facilities in line with the investment of QD Display, but due to the announcement of the sale of all volumes, it is expected that most of the investment facilities will be newly purchased in the future.

In view of this information, it is possible to carefully predict the possibility of a delay in the investment schedule of an additional 90K scale after the current QD display 30K investment or a change in the investment direction associated with QNED development status.

Jiangsu LEMENG (江苏乐萌) invests 200 million yuan for OLED metal mask project

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On June 18, 2020, Jiangsu Lemeng Precision Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (江苏乐萌精密科技有限公司, hereinafter Jiangsu Lemeng) invested 200 million yuan to sign a project contract to confirm the OLED metal mask. It was held in the state-of-the-art new district of Changzhou, Changzhou, Jiangsu Province.

Jiangsu Lemeng (江苏乐萌) secured 77,000 m2 new plant site for expand the OLED metal mask production line. Based on the existing G6 and G5.5 Mask Frame production lines, it will expand production capacity and secure large-scale production capacity of CMM. After the project is completed, Jiangsu Lemeng (江苏乐萌) can produce 8000 Mask Frames and 1000 CMMs annually, and the production sales are expected to reach 500 million yuan. Metal masks are core consumable parts required for OLED production, and have been exclusively supplied by Japanese and Korean companies for a long time.

Jiangsu Lemeng(江苏乐萌) is a subsidiary of Lemeng, Changzhou City, invested 120 million yuan from OLED business unit of Lemeng, Changzhou City, the predecessor, and related to OLED metal mask industrialization from 2017 Technology has been developed. Started mass production of Mask Frame from October 2019 and has a production capacity of about 1000 pieces per year. Jiangsu Lemeng is known to have already secured CMM industrialization technology, and is expected to secure 1,000 CMM production capacity annually from June 2021, when the new facility is completed.

Source: OLED Industry June 19