Chineses Gen8 LCD Line, Exceeding Korea…“Complementary Investment is Most Reliable”

Chinese and Taiwanese Gen8 line is higher than Korea’s Gen8 LCD capa. (Source = BOE)

Hyunjoo Kang / jjoo@olednet.com

In order to respond to the outpouring Chinese large area LCD, it is analyzed that carrying out investment to turn large area LCD line into OLED is the most reliable method.

According to 2016 OLED Manufacturing Equipment Annual Report, recently published by UBI Research, Chinese and Taiwanese panel companies’ Gen8 or higher LCD mass production line is 690K in total as of Q1 2016. This is higher than Korea’s Gen8 LCD capa.

Even now, China is showing active movements in additional establishment of large area LCD mass production line. UBI Research forecasts that in 3 years, China and Taiwan’s new large area LCD mass production line will reach up to 80% of the Korea’s current mass production capa. The report emphasizes that to fight against this great supply volume from Great China region, Korean panel companies should change the large area LCD line to OLED.

In case of Gen8 line, unlike small-to-medium size line, the LCD line can be cost effectively transformed to OLED line. As such, it is considered to be the main object for the complementary investment.

Particularly, if oxide TFT, which has few photomask processes, and WRGB+CF technologies are applied, existing large area a-Si LCD line’s manufacturing equipment can continue to be used.

UBI Research explained that an advantage of complementary investment is the fact a-Si LCD line’s backplane equipment and color filter equipment can continue to be used. He further added that in order to maximize a-Si line’s capa., development of TFT process with few photomask processes is a necessity.