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Can LCD Panel Oversupply Drive TV Demand?

11/18/2019

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LCD TV panel capacity has increased substantially in 2019 mostly due to the expansion of Gen 10.5 fabs. After growth in 2018, LCD TV demand weakened this year caused by slower economic growth, concerns about a trade war and tariff rate increases. Capacity expansion and higher production combined with weaker demand have resulted in considerable oversupply of LCD TV panels in 2019 leading to drastic panel price reductions.

Some panel prices went below cash cost by the end of Q3, forcing suppliers to cut production and delay expansion plans to reduce losses. What will be the implications for the industry in the holiday season and 2020? Can these very low panel prices help to drive TV demand?

Intense expansion of LCD TV panel capacity
Massive 10.5 Gen capacity that can produce 8-up 65" and 6-up 75" panels from a single mother glass substrate are coming to display market in the next three years. The trend already started in 2018 as BOE started its a-Si TFT LCD Gen 10.5 fab from the first quarter. It ramped up to its full capacity in the first half of 2019. China Star (CSOT) also started its a-SI TFT-LCD Gen 10.5 fab also in the first half of this year, focusing on 65" and 75" TV panels. There were also increases in capacity from other gen 8.5 fabs. Foxconn/Sharp's Gen 10.5 fab was also expected to start in 2019, with full production ramp up in 2020, but it has been delayed now.

By the year 2021 and 2022 about eight to ten 10.5 Gen fabs with huge capacity are expected to be in production. Fear of panel oversupply is looming even larger for future years. With considerable growth in capacity and the entrance of new panel suppliers and TV brands, competition has accelerated with intense price pressure. Capacity expansion in 2019 combined with low TV demand has pushed the market in severe oversupply situation in the second half of 2019.

Fear & Uncertainty lead to slower TV demand
Fear and uncertainties due to the rade war between the US and China and an expected tariff increase in Q3 2019 pushed TV brands to move panel orders to earlier in the first half of the year. Weaker TV set sales led to an inventory build-up by the end of Q2. Also fear of TV price increases due to tariffs, reduced the second half outlook suggesting reduced panel demand and increasing inventories also on the panel side. Panel prices also started to decline.

By Q3 2019, too much capacity was chasing too little demand pushing the market to oversupply. Fierce competition has led to drastic panel price reductions, pushing prices below even cash cost for some products. Panel suppliers’ financial results suffered in Q3 as many lost money. Suppliers from China, Korea and Taiwan all started lowering utilization rates by the end of Q3 to reduce oversupply and in the hope of stabilizing panel price. Very low prices combined with lower utilization rates is making the revenue and profitability outlook for panel suppliers difficult in Q4 2019.

Suppliers forced to cut production as price dipped below cost
BOE and China Star have cut utilization rates of Gen 10.5 fabs. Sharp has delayed the start of production at its 10.5 Gen fab by six months and plans to start in 2020. LGD and Samsung display already decided to shift away from LCD more towards OLED and QDOLED respectively. Both companies are cutting utilization rates in their 7, 7.5 and 8.5 Gen fabs. Taiwanes suppliers are also cutting 8.5 Gen fab utilization rates.

According to industry data some panel suppliers are already cutting utilization rates below 50 to 60% for their Gen 8.5 fabs. And Chinese suppliers are cutting their fab capacity by 20% to 25%. Some have shifted capacity away from TV to other applications. In summary, drastic price reduction has resulted in cut in utilization rates, delay in fab construction and ramp ups and closing down of older fabs, or conversion to OLED or QDOLED fabs. This can help to reduce oversupply. Still there is a need for an increase in demand especially for larger size TV to absorb the massive LCD capacity.

The Suppliers' pain is consumer’s gain; lowered price TV
There were real concerns about TV set price rises in 2019 due to a fear of a trade war and tariff increases. Drastic reductions of panel price could help to reduce TV set price. Some indications have already been seen in early version Black Friday sales offerings in the U.S. market. Walmart started its deals early. For example, Walmart is offering a Vizio 55" class M series quantum dot 4KUHD HDR TV for a super low price of $398 pushing it below the $400 threshold.

Target is offering a Philips 55" UHD smart TV for less than $250. Best Buy is offering an LG 65-inch 4K UHD TV for less than $500. These are super low prices mostly as 'door busters' or in limited quantities. In general, black Friday TV prices seem aggressive. High inventories, oversupply and low panel prices have led to these low prices. Due to competitive pressure LG has also reduced its OLED TV price aggressively - LG 55" 4 K Smart TVs are at below $1300. Sony’s 65" UHD OLED is being offered at $2000. As it can be seen OLED is still three times higher in price compared to quantum dot TVs. Going forward, aggressive TV set retail prices enabled by low panel price could help to drive demand.

Capacity Expansion - Price reduction - Demand creation
The history of LCD industry has shown that the industry follows a strategy of capacity expansion, price reduction and demand creation to drive application market growth. This strategy has resulted in periodic cycles of oversupply (some call it the Crystal Cycle) that pushes price to below cost level. Then production cuts, investment delays and increases demand due to low prices push the industry back to tight supply and increased prices. There is a time lag between each stage and between oversupply and tight supply. That creates heavy collateral damage for suppliers leading to loss of revenue and profitability.

In extreme over-supply situation, only a few companies with strong financial strength and commitment to LCD can survive. Others have to move away to other new technologies or shift to specialty type applications away from the commodity markets. In the last 20 years, there are plenty of examples in the LCD industry of this change. This capital-intensive industry requires billions of dollar-investments with uncertain outlook.
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Implications for the Industry
Panel over-supply (by bringing down panel prices to way lower level than what is possible through cost improvement) can help to drive demand in many different ways.
  • Drive holiday sales with very aggressive black Friday deals, Cyber Monday and other holiday deals with low TV set prices
  • Low price trend can continue in Q1 for the US Super Bowl and for the Chinese New Year sales
  • Increased panel demand in the first half of 2020 due to preparation for the 2020 Olympics
  • Increased shares for Quantum dot TVs during the holidays and 2020 by bringing prices down to the mainstream consumer level
  • Increased sales for OLED TV due to lower prices
  • Increase LED LCD TV sales due to low prices
  • Shift to larger size (above 50-inch especially to 65-inch) and higher resolution (4K and 8K) and better performance (HDR, WCG) due to lower costs.​
For the industry there can be many implications.
  • Industry restructuring with change in market shares of top leaders
  • Shift in regional shares (China share increasing)
  • Suppliers moving away from TV applications more towards value-based specialty applications
  • Suppliers shifting faster to new technology - Samsung QD-OLED or QD LCD, LG shifting more to OLED, China suppliers also focusing more on OLED and quantum dots
  • Cancellations, delays in investment, and utilization rate adjustments
Lower panel prices can help TV set holiday sales demand by reducing retail prices. a trend that could even spill over to 2020. If panel capacity comes back too soon, it may reduce the opportunity to drive TV demand. Panel suppliers have to navigate a delicate balance of capacity management to capture the opportunity for higher TV demand. - Sweta Dash

Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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A Sense of Maturity at the OLED World Summit

11/1/2019

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There was a sense of maturity at OLEDs world Summit this year, which I attended in October 2019.  The exuberance that was prevalent few years back when the iPhone X was first introduced, has been replaced by a sense of maturity as iPhone X sales and demand growth for the industry didn’t meet expectations.
Equipment, material, component and panel suppliers as well as researchers are now focusing more on industry challenges, emerging developments, competition from alternative display technologies and are working on new solutions to drive future growth.

Inkjet Printing is coming soon
The OLED industry has been discussing the potential for inkjet printing for years. This year many panel suppliers were able to demonstrate inkjet printed (IJP) OLED displays in various conferences and some will start mass production in 2020. First commercialization of soluble OLED panel is expected to be from JOLED’s new 5.5 Gen fab with mass production in 2020. Sumitomo Chemical, which presented at the OLED Summit about its latest development of soluble OLED materials, will supply OLED material to JOLED. According to the Sumitomo Chemical presentation:
  • JOLED showed 21/27" 4K (LTPS backplane, 4.5Gen fab),
  • BOE demonstrated 55" 4K (Oxide backplane, 8.5 Gen fab),
  • CSOT exhibited 31" 4K (Oxide backplane, 4.5G fab),
  • AUO showcased 17.3" 4K (LTPS backplane, 3.5G fab) and
  • SDC presented an 18.2" 4K (LTPS backplane, Gen 2.0 fab) ink jet printed OLED in 2019.
Ink jet printing can potentially have several advantages over the vacuum evaporation fabrication process for OLED.
  • Production of a wide range of panel sizes and resolutions for various applications (Auto, Monitors, Medical, TVs and others)
  • Helps with flexible panel design
  • Enable effective material (ink) utilization (no waste)
  • Provides a cost effective solution due to the simple process and stack
  • Large size and Top emission OLEDs are possible
  • Enhance OLED performance
  • Enable new form factors
Kateeva, the leading suppliers of inkjet equipment for OLED, with 80% market shares in thin film encapsulation, is focusing on QD OLED and RGB OLED pixel printing for the next generation of mass production products. The company’s Yieldjet Flex product has produced more than 400 million mobile displays for smartphones. Kateeva’s presentation, quoting IHS data, showed that in the case of IJP 95% of solution material is used whereas, in VTE only 10% of source material is used. IJP can enable higher display performance by enabling top emission large panels; facilitate the 8K revolutions in OLED TV and increase optical performance.
Universal Display Corporation, the leader and provider of phosphorescent technology for OLED, proposed a new manufacturing process called Organic Vapor Jet Printing (OVJP) at the conference. They see “OVJP as the most cost effective patterning approach, a solvent-less, mask-less printing technology for depositing patterned small molecule organic materials to manufacture large area side by side RGB OLED TV using same proven material set as VTE”. Nanosys also presented that printed QDEL is one of the strongest candidates for next generation displays. The lifetime of CdSe QDEL is close to commercial requirements today and progress to commercialization will be rapid from this point on.
Suppliers are recognizing that there is a real need to reduce fixed and operating costs to make products more price-competitive to drive demand growth. Some are looking at inkjet printing as possible solutions. However, Inkjet printing process for OLED fabrication still faces many challenges such as material lifetime, efficiency issues, and limited resolutions.

Still working to improve blue materials
The current inefficient blue is still a big problem for OLED display makers. OLED uses three emitters in red, green and blue. While red and green are efficient, blue is lagging behind. According to Cynora’s presentation, low efficiency blue results in higher power consumptions and shorter battery lifetime especially in smartphones. A higher efficiency blue could reduce the organic layers in an OLED TV resulting in lower voltage being needed. For the next generation QD OLED TV (by Samsung) a high efficiency blue is essential as QD OLED devices only use blue. Cynora, is focusing on TADF solutions and created sky blue in April 2017. The company reported a display blue in 2018, and is now working as fast as it can to progress blue development.
Kyulux is focusing on TADF/Hyperfluorescence OLED emitting technology. The company presented that their materials can enable higher resolution, brighter image and less power consumption for smartphones. It can also reduce the emissive layers in OLED TV leading to lower costs (material and process) and lower power consumption. The company expects commercialization of blue in two to three years.
The industry is still working to improve blue materials. Currently none of the technologies have been able to deliver a high efficiency blue emitter with long lifetime.

Foldable form factors evolving
New designs for foldable smartphones still have many issues with foldable hinges, flexible covers, increased thickness and bulkier designs.
Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is an in-fold design while Royole’s is out-fold. Most of the foldable smartphones are currently 'book type' with Samsung’s in-folding design expected to have a dominant share in 2019. According to the DSCC presentation, starting from 2020, clamshell design could be the dominant form factor for foldable due to it having the smallest seam, hinge and foldable mark and that can translate to higher yields, lower costs, longer usable life and higher volumes. DSCC explained that “clamshells with ultra thin glass have higher hardness and better scratch resistance than cover film solutions and should also reduce risk and extend lifetime”.
The company is expecting clamshells to be the most popular type of foldable device for the next few years. Royole, the supplier of the first foldable smartphone, presented that foldable needs total solutions as module material innovations are needed at each level including cover film, touch, support layer, adhesive, polarizer and display. Strong partnerships and collaborations are needed between the display panel and system suppliers for success.
Google’s presentation focused on reliability guidelines for flexible displays to allow the evaluation of new failure modes such as crease, delamination, bucking, surface durability and mechanical impact. Intel's presentation conveyed that laptops could have two foldable form factors based on usage: 2:1 detachable for 12 to 15" size or foldable laptop for larger size (>=17") display.

New solutions for OLED TV
LG Display, the sole suppliers for OLED TV panels presented that investment, capacity and number of brands adopting OLED TVs are increasing. LG is doing a lot of promotion in conjunction with retailers to increase consumer awareness and acceptance. Several different strategies and architectures are now being considered for the production of OLED TV. Inkjet printed OLED TV is expected in the near future. Inkjet printed OLED and QLED displays were shown at various conferences in 2019.
According to DSCC's forecast, OLED panel are expected to gain share in most display application categories especially on a dollar basis with significant room for growth in most applications. If a sense of maturity will lead suppliers to focus more on new solutions and cost reductions, it could drive demand growth and increase shares in the next few years. SD 
Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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Evolving Foldable OLED Smartphone Displays

9/25/2019

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Samsung Electronics re-launched its Galaxy Fold smartphone at IFA 2019 in September. Other brands have also joined in to introduce many different design concepts of foldable smartphones with OLED display in different sizes and formats.

Foldable smartphones and 5G-technology received strong attention at IFA as high transmission speed and low latency are expected to drive innovative products and boost demand in a slow smartphone market. There are still many issues that need to be resolved before consumer acceptance – extremely high prices, no standardization in design, robustness and durability. Innovations in the display materials and processes will continue to bring better products and reduce costs.

Many designs, sizes and prices

Royole’s FlexPai has the distinction of being the first foldable smartphone to be introduced at the end of 2018 at around $1,300 price. Samsung introduced the Galaxy Fold in early 2019, but delayed shipments due to some hinge and film issues; then the firm reintroduced it again with a new version at IFA this month. Samsung’s Galaxy fold is a 5G foldable (AMOLED) product with a front cover 4.6” display and 7.3”main display and expected to be priced around $2000 (I was told €2,100 at IFA - Editor).

The Huawei Mate X is a 5G foldable OLED smartphone that has an 8” main display that can fold to 6.6” on the front side and 6.38” display on the back with an expected price of $2600. Other smartphone suppliers such as TCL, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Lenovo are expected to introduce their products in the future. Apple has not announced any plan for foldable iPhones, but is expected to make an introduction in 2020. With very high prices, a lack of standardization, and concerns about durability, foldable smartphone products will have very limited shipments in 2019.

​Higher requirements for displays

Commercialization of foldable smartphones up to now has been based on foldable AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) display technology. For a foldable display, all the layers within the panel should be foldable, durable, and transparent with a total bending radius of less than 1.5 mm. That is why new components are needed for foldable OLEDs. Foldable requirements are as follows:
  • Cover windows need to have hybrid organic/inorganic coating on transparent polyimide (PI)
  • Polarizer needs to be thin and bendable
  • Flexible touchscreen needs non ITO materials such as silver nanowire or metal mesh
  • Need for Flexible Adhesive OCA/OCR
  • Reliability (to withstand more than 200K times bending/folding).
Bendability has a trade off with durability and robustness. Bending of a very thin film after a certain point can generate a crease or lead to deformation. The display industry has developed numerous materials and processing challenges to balance bendability with durability. However significant challenges still remain.

Complexity in In-fold and Out-fold Design

New designs for foldable smartphones still have many issues with foldable hinges, flexible covers, increased thickness and bulkier designs. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is in-fold design while Royole’s FlexPai and Huawei’s Mate X are out-fold. Xiaomi’s future product is expected to be be based on a double-fold concept. Lenovo’s future product is expected to fold vertically in the middle. Samsung is apparently working on out-folding and vertically mid-folding designs to introduce in the near future.

The in-fold design has the advantage of better protection of the inner display, but there are disadvantages from having two displays, including a need for higher battery capacity, higher thickness and may be even higher costs.

Out-fold designs have the advantage of single display for both a phone cover and tablet display, but the disadvantage of the display screen being exposed to the outside, so it is easy to scratch or damage. Therefore a foldable cover window has to be integrated with a scratch or abrasion resistant function.

Balance of bendability with durability for cover window

The biggest challenge for a foldable smartphone is replacing the glass cover with plastic film. Glass is strong, durable and hard to scratch. The cover plastic film needs to be mechanically durable to withstand more than 200K times folding/bending as well as be scratch resistant. In an out-folding design, the cover film must provide protection as well as endure the highest level of tensile strain during the out-folding condition. It needs more than a 9H pencil hardness for the flexible cover film. Samsung is using transparent polyimide (PI) for the cover film instead of glass for the Galaxy Fold.

Corning is currently working on developing an ultrathin and durable glass solution for foldable displays that can bend at a tight radius - hundreds of thousands of times without significant damage at the fold. The product is still in development and company is working with customers to optimize the product for design requirements. Ultra thin glass that can get to a very thin tight radius also has to be able to survive drop and resist damage.

Asahi Glass (AGC) is also working on flexible glass for folding smartphones. Suppliers are expecting ultra thin glass for foldable products in one to two years. If a glass solution can balance bendability with robustness for foldable display, it could resolve many durability challenges.

​Different requirements for Foldable Touch Screen

Smartphone touch screens generally use glass cover lens and touch sensors made from Indium Tin Oxide (ITO). Touch sensitivity depends on proximity of the sensor to the finger and materials in the display module.

According to inputs from the Fieldscale company, glass has a significantly higher relative permittivity (ε=5-8) than plastic and adhesives (ε=3-4)). That means that a touch sensor can tolerate relatively thick glass cover up to and exceeding 4mm, but plastic covers above 2mm can experience inferior touch performance. ITO for flexible displays can create some issues - processing beyond 200 degrees temperature, ITO can display poor electrical conductivity and transmittance.

To reduce problems from this issue, touch suppliers have turned into ITO alternatives such as Metal Mesh and Silver Nanowires (AgNw). Metal Mesh has a typical bend radius of 4mm, but it can face challenges such as production imperfections (in printed metal mesh) and poor optical performance. Silver Nanowires are solution-coated on films and left to dry. After the drying process is complete, a random pattern of silver electrodes emerges. High performance silver nanowire-based devices need to optimize this pattern and that can create challenges. Silver Nanowires can provide high flexibility. Fieldscale has simulation software that can create a virtual prototype of the whole design to provide answers relating to touch sensor questions.

Foldable OLED display supply In general, foldable AMOLED display yield rates are significantly lower than general flexible OLED smartphone displays due to complex requirements. Samsung Display, BOE, Royole and LG Display are all working towards developing dedicated capacity for foldable displays in the future. As the foldable market gains momentum, other flexible OLED suppliers such as Visionox, China Star, Tianma may also join in with dedicated foldable display capacity in 2020. AUO is also expected to focus on foldable display in future. Supply will increase in the next two to three years. Improvements in yield rates and material costs can reduce costs and increase production volume in the future. High costs and complex manufacturing issues will limit unit shipments for foldable OLED displays in the near future.

The potential future of next generation foldable displays is promising, but there are many challenges including extremely high price, higher costs, design issues, durability issues, design acceptance by consumers and consumer’s willingness to pay higher prices for new designs. Innovations in materials and processes will help foldable smartphones evolve in the next few years in design, production, and shipments. - (SD)

Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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Opportunities for Flexible OLED Smartphone Displays

9/3/2019

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Flexible OLED display is considered to be the best solution for next generation smartphone market. New smartphone products with flexible OLED displays generally get rave reviews for their superior display performance. This display technology is gaining shares even in a slow demand market. New capacity is coming, production is increasing, and new products are being launched bringing in new opportunities for flexible OLED displays.

Higher costs, lower yield rates, high prices, and lack of product differentiation, seasonal demand patterns and uncertain economic outlook are creating challenges for stronger growth in demand. More focus on cost reductions, new features, increased product differentiations, new form factors and need for 5G-based models can bring more opportunities for flexible OLED in 2020.

Flexible OLED - Best solutions for next gen smartphones

Flexible OLED display provides the best solution for superior image quality with very high contrast ratio, wider color gamut; faster refresh rates and wide viewing angles. It also enables thin, light, curved, flexible, foldable form factors and design differentiation. In a mature slow demand growth market, smartphone brands are looking for differentiation to drive replacement demand. Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and Apple’s iPhones flagship products have popularized flexible OLED displays. This technology is poised to dominate the next generation smartphone market with thinner, lighter, bezel less, immersive screens and differentiating form factors. But high costs will limit adoption rates in the near term, especially when most of the growth is coming from lower priced mass-market products.

Rigid OLED and LTPS LCD - Solutions for mass-market products

Samsung, LGE and top Chinese brands are focusing on mass-market products with enhanced features and lower prices (<$500) to capture Asia Pacific and emerging market demand. Samsung Electronics reported in its Q2 2019 result that even when overall market demand for smartphones declined due to the negative macroeconomic environment and seasonal weakness, Samsung’s shipments increased QoQ led by strong sales of new Galaxy A series (mass market models). However, sales of flagship models fell QoQ on weak sales momentum for the Galaxy S10 (flagship product) and stagnant demand for premium products. In the second half of 2019, market demand is expected to stay weak due to growing uncertainties of global economy and trade. Samsung plans to continue to strengthen its flagship lineups and increase sales of new mass-market models. Flagship products are usually served by flexible OLED while rigid OLED or even LTPS LCD enables lower priced mass-market products for most brands.

Flexible OLED- Facing challenges and opportunities

IDC reported on July 31st that worldwide smartphone shipments declined 2.3% YoY in the second quarter of 2019, but it was also the strongest quarterly performance since 2Q18. According to IDC, performance in Q2 indicates demand is starting to pick up as the market begins to stabilize again. A key driver in the second quarter was the availability of vastly improved mid-tier devices that offer premium designs and features while significantly undercutting ultra-high-end price.

Samsung, Huawei, and Apple all lost share while Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo gained. Samsung, and Apple are top customers for flexible OLED displays. The adoption rate of flexible OLEDs by other Chinese brands depend on competitive panel prices. But most of the brands will focus more on lower priced mass -market products that can be enabled by rigid OLED display or even LTPS LCDs. Slower demand for high end products and higher demand for mid range mass-market consumer product will create challenges for the flexible OLED display in 2019.

IDC's forecast in May, 2019 showed that the smartphone market is facing another challenging year in 2019 with return to growth on the horizon. IDC expects slow recovery starting from 2020. The company expects smartphone shipments growth in the second half of 2019 driven by 5G acceleration, a growing selection of lower-priced premium handsets, and on-going uplifts from markets like India. It also reported that pricing remains a critical decision factor when purchasing a new handset and this is creating new opportunities for mid-range price points. The focus on mid-range price points will be a challenge but 5G acceleration and new high end product introductions will create new opportunities for flexible OLED.

Flexible OLED - Higher costs, complex manufacturing and lower yield

Flexible OLED displays currently face complex manufacturing challenges and yield management issues resulting in higher production costs. Mass production of thin film encapsulation (TFE) technology from companies such as Kateeva has enabled the elimination of rigid glass to create flexible displays. According to Kateeva’s presentation at DisplayWeek 2019, next generation TFE printing allows for narrower bezels to maximize screen-to-body ratio and supports complex fine pattern printing. The OLED industry is still searching for higher efficiency and longer lifetime materials. R and D in OLED materials and equipment are progressing.

Universal Display Corp (UDC) has been commercially producing phosphorescent OLED materials successfully for many years. PHOLED materials have enabled good power efficiency; increased lifetime and performance improvements in OLED. The industry is still facing challenges due to inefficient blue emitters. OLEDs use red, green and blue emitters. There is a race to provide the most efficient dark blue with long lifetime, which can reduce power consumption and increase lifetime. While the industry is working on better blue phosphorescence, Kyulux is working on a Hyperfluorescence solution while Cynora is working on TADF for emitter technology. Future growth is expected to come from flexible by providing thinner, lighter, unbreakable, flexible lower power and high performance products.

Higher costs, lower yield and long manufacturing times has created a surplus in the market but prices are not coming down aggressively due to custom manufacturing requirements, a low number of suppliers, and higher manufacturing costs. This results in flexible OLED meeting mostly high-end product requirements, but not mass-market consumer needs. Samsung Display dominates the flexible market but LGD and BOE are increasing production and supply. More capacity will also come from companies such as Tianma, Visionox, China Star and others in 2020. This can help to reduce costs and improve adoption rates in 2020.

Flexible OLED - Integration, innovation, and differentiation can help adoptionIn a slower smartphone market flexible OLED growth was delayed due to high pricea. Market demand for flexible OLED display-based products from Samsung and Apple are slowing down. This has resulted in lower utilization rates for flexible display and surplus. More shift into foldable display will reduce surplus plus increase demand even though there are still many challenges for foldable smartphone market. Major brands including Samsung and Apple are planning new product launches, which will increase demand.
The introduction of 5G-based products needing slimmer displays to accommodate 5G enabling components will increase flexible OLED demand. Integration of new technology such as fingerprints under display, in cell touch display, hole on display, camera under panel, sound on display, haptics on display, chip on film (COF)/chip on plastic (COP) to reduce border & increase screen to body ratio and foldable display can open up new opportunities for flexible OLED driving growth in demand and increasing adoption rates.
Flexible OLED display will be the best solution for next generation smartphone market with superior image quality, design differentiation, and integration of new features. Manufacturing complexity, lower yield, higher production costs may limit its adoption in the near future especially in slow market in 2019, but 2020 can bring lower cost, higher productions and increased opportunities for flexible OLED display. (SD)
Sweta Dash, President, Dash-Insights
Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com

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New Solutions for Next Generation OLED TV Display

7/30/2019

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OLED as an emissive display is at the forefront of next generation TV technology due to its superior performance compared to traditional backlight based LCD technology. But its adoption rate in the TV industry has been limited due to higher cost, low production volume and other challenges. LCD still has the dominant market share.
The mature TV market needs lower price, larger screen sizes, higher resolution and higher performance products to drive replacement demand. OLED display technology is evolving with new materials, new equipment and new solutions to reduce cost and increase adoption rates.

White OLED TV - Current leading solution
White OLED TV technology with RGB color filter is in production today with LG Display being the only panel supplier. This technology still uses an evaporation process (without shadow mask) which requires many layers deposited by vacuum thermal evaporation driving higher cost for both equipment and materials. It also has higher capex costs and material cost resulting in high manufacturing cost for large size TV. White OLED self emissive TV technology delivers super performance, vivid colors, higher contrast, a true black color, energy efficiency and a thinner flexible form factor. However, it also suffers from lifetime issues especially for blue emitter, peak brightness, higher cost and lower production volume.
LG Display has been the only supplier for white OLED. It has started working on RGB IJP (ink jet printing) technology and presented a paper at Display Week 2019 with Nanosys on ELQD. LGD recently announced that it will invest an additional 3 trillion KRW into a Gen 10.5 (2,940mm x 3370mm) OLED production line, mainly producing 65-inch and above super-size TV panels. It will start producing 30K sheets/m from the first half of 2022 and an additional 15K sheets/m will be produced from the first half of 2023. LGD will use the MMG (Multi Model on a glass) method where it will combine different sizes on one mother glass to improve profitability.

RGB OLED TV - Potential future wave
RGB OLED technology has been successfully produced and used for smartphone and other smaller size displays. But it has been a great challenge to produce RGB on larger glass for TV application. Also new OLED TV technology is needed to overcome the higher cost structure of white OLED. RGB OLED has a simple device structure leading to potentially lower cost. But large-scale manufacturing is still immature and IJP and OVJP (Organic Vapor Jet Printing) technology are still developing. Short material lifetimes and device challenges may still exist for this technology butRGB OLED may be the future wave. According to Applied Material’s presentation at DisplayWeek 2019,
“RGB OLED TV can achieve LCD cost parity and mass adoption with material improvement (ink jet) and/ or equipment innovations (evaporation)”.

RGB OLED TV -  Inkjet printing (IJP) solution
Inkjet printing can have cost advantages compared to the VTE (Vacuum Thermal Evaporation) techniques currently used. According to Kateeva’s presentation at the Display Week 2019 Business Conference, the VTE process uses only 10% of source materials whereas inkjet printing uses 95% of the solution materials. Ink jet printing‘s additive manufacturing technique ensures material efficiency and allows for soft mask designs with fewer lithography and mask requirements. With more efficient use of RGB materials, and no color filter or shadow mask, IJP should be scalable to large glass sizes. It has the potential for producing higher brightness and lower cost TVs. Companies such as Kateeva can enable lower cost OLED TV production with ink jet printing for RGB pixel printing. Production of top emission OLED panels can facilitate the 8K revolution in OLED by increasing the optical performance. RGB OLED for IJP is still under development. It can provide many benefits for panel makers by reducing manufacturing cost, and enhancing OLED performance.

RGB OLED TV – Organic Vapor Jet Printing (OVJP) Solution
RGB OLED organic vapor jet printing is being developed as a mask-less, solvent-less printing technology for side-by-side RGB displays. According to Universal Display’s presentation at Display Week 2019, the emissive layers are dry printed using OVJP and there are no fine metal masks (FMM) and no solvent. Other layers can also be printed by OVJP or VTE. The OLED materials are the same as are currently used in standard VTE deposition. OVJP can be scaled to Gen 10 and beyond. Historically over-spray has been an issue with OVJP but new processes such as directed spray could eliminate or reduce these issues.

QD OLED TV - Quantum Dot Color Conversion Solution
Quantum dot (QD) technology can enable great increases in color gamut (supporting more of the BT 2020 gamut), higher brightness (4000 cd/m² and above) and purer colors by bringing LCD performance closer to OLED level. It can even exceed OLED in certain areas such as brightness. QDs are going from improving backlight of LCD to shifting to self-emissive display by eliminating backlight.  Samsung Display is building a pilot production facility for QD OLED (with QD Color Convertor), which will start production in 2019. It simplifies the panel structure and fabrication process and eliminates shadow mask patterning. However the process needs highly efficient blue OLED materials with a long lifetime. This could open up new opportunities for QD.  Blue OLED with a quantum dot color convertor layer should increase brightness efficiency, especially compared to the white OLED architecture used by LG Display. It can provide better material lifetime and lower costs due to the simpler structure. But the technology is not yet in mass production and it may still face issues in materials and Ink jet deposition.

Next Gen OLED TV – Needs new solution
OLED TV has secured a strong presence in the premium TV market because of great picture quality, design differentiation, perfect black and infinite contrast ratio. LG Electronics is the most successful brand using LG Display’s OLED TV panels. Other brands such as Sony, Panasonic, Skyworth, TPV, Hisense, Konka and others have joined in using LG Display’s panels. LGD is converting LCD TV capacity to OLED TV and accelerating its plans to develop 10.5G fab capacity. Ink jet printing (IJP) can offer lower manufacturing cost due to lower capex, lower material cost from the simple structure and color filter elimination. But the lifetime of soluble blue OLED needs improvement.

Summary
LG Display is increasing its 10.5 Gen OLED production capacity with additional investment. BOE, and CSOT are planning to bring in OLED capacity in future years. Many suppliers including Universal Display, Cynora, Kulux and others are working towards improving the efficiency, resolution, lifetime and costs of materials. Companies such as Applied Materials and Kateeva are developing new equipment for better cost and higher efficiency. LG Display is also working on RGB IJP (ink jet printing) technology and presented a paper at Displayweek 2019 with Nanosys. Samsung Display is building a pilot production facility for QD OLED (with QD Color Convertor).
New OLED TV technology solutions (RGB OLED, QD OLED,..) combined with printed manufacturing capabilities have the potential to enable lower-cost solutions and higher adoption rate. (SD)
Sweta Dash, President, Dash-Insights

Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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Renewed Interest in Rigid OLED Smartphone Displays

7/3/2019

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Rigid OLED smartphone display fab utilization rates are increasing and the technology is starting to receive renewed interest in the market. Several factors have contributed to this shift including price reductions, a lower price gap with LTPS LCD, availability of larger size display, new designs, a need for mid-range OLED products and slow sales for flexible OLED displays.
This is not a new trend. In 2018 there was also renewed interest for rigid OLED around Q3, after slow sales of iPhone X products. The interest went down again around Q4 2018. This trend may have several implications for the industry such as price pressure for LTPS especially in a declining smartphone market, pushing LTPS products more towards the low end and reducing the opportunity for future miniLED based products.

Higher Utilization Rates for Rigid OLED

DSCC reported in its June blog that rigid OLED fab utilization rates stayed at more than 80% level in March, April and May, up from 60% in February. According to DSCC, rigid OLED demand drivers included a reduced price gap with LTPS LCD, larger screen sizes for 2019 models such as the Galaxy A series, and multiple Chinese brands' aggressive pricing for new smartphone models to boost growth and increase market share.
Rigid OLED display first came to smartphones through Samsung, and was chosen because they had a thinner, lighter form factor, better viewing angles, higher contrast and faster response time than the LCDs previously used. OLED served mostly the high-end and mid-range markets with limited market share. But the demand changed with introduction of flexible OLED displays.
Flexible displays gained higher acceptance with Samsung’s Galaxy products with the new curved design (Edge design). It reached the highest level of interest with Apple’s decision’s to use flexible OLED display for the iPhone X in 2017. All other smartphone brands also wanted to emulate Apple and focused their design on flexible displays. Most of the new suppliers from China decided to focus on flexible OLED production. Market interest shifted from rigid to flexible and demand also shifted.
After lower than expected sales of the iPhone X especially in early 2018, the industry’s interest shifted to rigid OLED displays.  By the end of 2018 Q4 demand and fab utilization rates went down again. According to DSCC information in June 2019, “flexible OLED fab utilization continues to lag, but we expect a modest uptick in June to 42% utilization rates after four months in the 30s”. Similar trends of renewed interest in rigid OLED have been seen again in 2019 after weaker demand for Apple iPhones. According to some industry news sources, the supply of rigid OLED panels for smartphones are getting a little tight due to the integration of in-display fingerprint sensors.
Slow Sales for Flexible OLED display
Samsung’s Q1 2019 result showed a quarterly loss in the display panel business due to decreased demand for flexible displays and increasing market supplies of large displays. The company planned to focus on improved earnings by boosting sales of rigid OLEDs and offering differentiated products featuring new technology such as Infinity Display and fingerprint-on-display. In a slow smartphone market, higher priced products with flexible OLED displays are facing demand challenges. Samsung as well as many China brands are looking at rigid OLED displays to meet lower price point midrange market demand.


Reduced Price gap with LTPS LCD

Rigid OLED display cost has the potential to come closer to LTPS LCD’s cost level, especially for Samsung Display. But new suppliers will face cost challenges. The possibility of a lower price gap with LTPS LCD combined with the advantages of OLED is bringing renewed interest in rigid OLEDs. According to industry estimates, the price gaps with LTPS LCD are expected to decline to $4 to $6 in 2019, down from $9 to $10 in 2018.
Samsung Display has increased its utilization rates in recent months bringing in higher production volume. Samsung Display is the largest supplier of rigid OLED displays with a majority share of the market and Samsung Galaxy products are the biggest consumer of rigid OLEDs. Suppliers from China such as Tianma, EDO, and Visionox are starting to increase production.
Still, there exist many challenges such as: not enough suppliers are focusing on rigid OLED and most of the new planned capacities from China are for flexible displays. There is very little design differentiation between LTPS LCD and rigid OLED smartphones due to 18:9 full active bezel-less screen designs.


New designs and features for Rigid OLED

LTPS LCD is facing price pressure due to slower demand and rigid OLED price reductions, but makers are still pushing the technology to add new features and capabilities. Suppliers are working on full screen in-cell fingerprint LTPS LCDs as well as hole in-cell touch capability to compete with OLED in the smartphone market. Rigid OLED is also using in-display finger print sensors for premium models. Flexible OLED is shifting to blind hole and hole through architectures. Chinese brands are planning to adopt blind hole or hole through designs using LTPS LCDs. Apple is adopting COF (Chip on Film) for LTPS LCD and flexible OLED. Chinese brands are adopting COF for both LTPS LCD and rigid OLED.

Reducing opportunity for future miniLED based products 

​MiniLED backlight options are coming to LTPS LCD, offering higher contrast (by using local area dimming), faster response times, and reducing the performance gap with OLED. That is why suppliers such as AUO, BOE, Tianma and many others showcased prototypes of miniLED-based products at Display Week 2019. In spite of display performance advantages, miniLED based products still face cost challenges to make them competitive in the smartphone market. In the near term, suppliers are focusing more on value-based applications such as gaming monitors, automotive and VR. LTPS LCD with miniLED backlight’s price points need to be between rigid OLED and regular LTPS LCD to be competitive. The reduced price gap with rigid OLED in 2019 is reducing the opportunity for a miniLED entrance in smartphones this year. If costs can be reduced in the future, the technology may offer strong competition to rigid OLED in the next few years.


Slower smart Phone market needs mid range products

According to IDC’s press release in May 2019,  “global smartphone shipments will face another challenging year in 2019 with volume forecasted to decline 1.9% from 2018. This will mark the third consecutive year of market contraction driven by highly saturated markets in developed countries and slower churn in some developing economies”. IDC also reported, “In all markets, pricing remains a critical decision factor when purchasing a new handset, and this is creating new opportunities for mid range price points”. Samsung and other Chinese brands have been introducing models with mid-range price points and rigid OLED panels meeting those price point requirements. LTPS LCD is mostly focusing on mid-range and lower end products. With more price pressure LTPS may have to compete with a-Si LCD at the low end.
Lower prices, lower price gaps with LTPS, larger sizes, new designs, and meeting mid-range price requirements will bring new opportunities for rigid OLED. But challenges such as tight supply, not enough fab capacity, very little design differentiation with LTPS LCD, and the future entrance of miniLED backlight may lead to limited demand for rigid OLED in future years.

Sweta Dash, President, Dash-Insights
Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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DisplayWeek 2019 – The Race for Next Generation Innovation

6/5/2019

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Display panel and component suppliers showcased next generation product innovations for MicroLED, MiniLED, OLED, Quantum Dot and LTPS LCD at DisplayWeek 2019 at San Jose in May. As application market growth-rates are slowing down suppliers are rushing to find the 'next big thing' that will drive demand growth. Generally, technology prototypes take years to be commercialized and reach mass production.

MicroLED:  Shifting from concepts to prototypes
PlayNitride showcased 7.5-inch RGB full color, transparent MicroLED display with LTPS TFT backplane, 720x 480 resolution, 114 PPI pixel density, >600 nits brightness, >60% transparency and <0.7mm border width (developed in collaboration with Tianma). Both Tianma and PlayNitride received SID award for this very impressive product. This product is geared for applications such as automotive, industrial control and home furnishing. PlayNitride also showed an extremely thin (28um) flexible MicroLED display and a 1.25-inch 458dpi MicroLED wearable display. PlayNitride expects mass production at the end of 2019.  Glo demonstrated their InGaN based 1.8-inch LTPS based color RGB MicroLED display in partnership with Kyocera. Company is focusing on smart watch products and expects mass production in 2020.

Plessey showed GaN-on-Silicon monolithic MicroLED technology (DisplayWeek award) that can enable brighter, smaller, and higher performing solutions for AR/MR headsets, smart glass, pico-projectors and HUDs. Plessey has been working with Jasper Display Corp’s silicon backplane and Aixtron's MOCVD reactor as well as Nanoco’s QD technology.

MicroLED technology has the advantage of a simple structure, very low power, higher resolutions, high brightness, high stability, longer life, high transparency and narrow borders. This technology still has many challenges especially manufacturing yield issues. Even though many industry observers are concerned about the long path from prototypes to commercial mass production, suppliers are still optimistic and expect many products to come to market in the next few years.

MiniLED:  New products emerging with cost challenges
Tianma received best new display component award for LTPS miniLED HDR LCD smartphone display, that features local dimming (with up to 4600 partitions), >1,00,000:1 contrast ratio, >1,000nit brightness, high color gamut, (DCI-P3) and wide viewing angles. CSOT showed a 5.99inch LTPS display (1080x2160), 500nits, >1,00,000:1 contrast ratio with miniLED backlight. For smartphones, MiniLED backlight can empower LTPS LCD by offering higher contrast, higher brightness, faster response time and increase in color gamut. In spite of display performance advantages, MiniLED based products still face cost challenges to make them competitive in the smartphone market. In the near term, suppliers are focusing more on value-based applications such as gaming, automotive and VR.

CSOT showcased ultra slim MiniLED 15.6-inch notebook based on LTPS TFT, 3840x2160 resolution, 1000 nits brightness, 20000:1 contrast ratio and NTSC 100% color gamut.  AUO showed a 17.3-inch UHD 4K HDR LTPS LCD with MiniLED backlight, >1000nits brightness, >1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, for gaming and professional notebook PCs. BOE exhibited HDR notebook featuring 15.6-inch oxide display and MiniLED backlight with very high refresh rate of 240Hz.

CSOT also showed 12.3-inch automotive narrow border MiniLED display based on LTPS TFT, 2880x1080 resolutions, 650nits brightness, and >200,00:1 contrast ratio. AUO showed 12.3-inch curved cluster auto display with MiniLED backlights. The company also showcased 2.9-inch LTPS TFT LCD, ultra high resolution (3456x3456), 1688PPI, >1,000,000:1 contrast ratio with MiniLED backlights (2304 zones) for virtual reality application. TCL/CSOT showed a 65-inch RGB AM MiniLED BLU TV with 3840x2160 resolutions, 2000 nits brightness, 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, BT2020: 90%, DCI-P3 100% color gamut, with >5000 backlight zones.

MiniLED backlight can enhance luminance and HDR in a LCD TV by increasing the number of LEDs and improving the picture performance. A higher number of MiniLED chips can enable better picture quality but may lead to higher costs. MiniLED TV is expected to come in 2019, but it may be 2020 or even later before significant cost reductions can be achieved. If customers can see a substantial difference in picture quality, MiniLED can drive replacement demand.

Flexible Display (AMOLED, OTFT LCD, Reflective):  Differentiation through design innovations
BOE and Visionox showcased many innovative designs for flexible AMOLED displays including automotive (transparent pillars, rearview mirrors), smart speakers, smart lamps, smart monitors and art frames as well as foldable phones. CSOT showed a demo of a 7.2-inch AMOLED foldable display with static & dynamic in-folding and out-folding. BOE showed a 7.7-inch foldable OLED display - QXGA 2480 x 2160, 1,00,000:1 contrast ratio, which can bend 100K times. It also showed a 12.3-inch FHD rollable AMOLED display with bending radius of <R5, thickness <1mm, contrast ratio 1,00,000:1 with 100K times bending capability, which can be rolled out and rolled back.  

Factors that can enable the success of foldable phones are durability/reliability, mechanical performance, adhesion, sensitivity, thickness, quality, visibility of creases, and the user’s experience. Foldable display creates new challenges in reliability, manufacturing and yield. The cover window needs both hardness and flexibility, a tricky combination. There have been discussions about plastic vs. glass for foldable applications. Schott, Corning and AGC are all working on developing ultrathin high strength bendable cover glass for foldable phones that can improve durability, optical clarity and scratch resistance compared to plastic. But plastic can provide a better bending radius and higher flexibility.

Foldable can be considered as the starting point for many other new form factors such as rollable, stretchable and others. Foldable can be applicable to other applications beyond smartphones such as notebooks.

BenQ Materials showcased an impressive advanced color shift solution for foldable AMOLED display. It also showed an automotive display solution to improve visibility including anti-reflective solutions and efficient light control.

LG Display showed its 65-inch rollable OLED TV and a very impressive 88-inch 8K OLED TV (People Choice award), which offers fine details, an immersive experience and depth due to the deep black color. LGD also showed a 6-inch, light field OLED display which creates a volume image by using light fields, high angular resolutions, and a perfect black creating floating effect.

LG Display, BOE and others showed many different options for automotive applications with a focus on design flexibility, a curved form factor and transparent display. LGD showed a more than 12.3-inch size automotive POLED for cluster and CID.

JOLED showed 21.6-inch 4K flexible printed OLED with plastic substrate and LTPS backplane. The company has constructed a production line for printed OLED with target for mass production in 2020.

FlexEnable showed a larger than 8-inch flexible organic TFT LCD plastic display that is conformable, free form, lightweight and enables new product designs in smart home, automotive, signage and other applications.

E Ink showcased full color reflective (e-paper) display in 26-inch and 13.3-inch with less than 3 second update time for new color image. Both displays are in production.  It also showed a 32-inch foldable display targeted for architecture and construction, featuring a-Si TFT on PI.

Quantum Dot:  Offering multiple solutions
Nanosys received a DisplayWeek People’s Choice award for showcasing varieties of QD displays including a Hisense ULED XD TV (using a dual cell LCD panel and Nanosys QD technology). The product is expected to be available in 2020. BOE and CSOT both also showed dual cell LCD panel technology where a monochrome LCD is placed directly behind a color LCD resulting in larger number of dimming zones and higher contrast. Nanosys showed a Vizio P series Quantum X, 3000 nits TV, Samsung 82-inch QLED 8K QD TV, BOE’s QD notebook and HP’s QD gaming monitors. The company is working with highly efficient InP QDs in collaboration with LG Display to develop emissive QD display and presented a paper at the conference.

CSOT showed an LCD display with a 'QD polarizer' (although I struggled to find out exactly what that was - Man. Ed.), a  65-inch Q-cell and with a quantum dot display with high efficiency QD polarizer, which provides ultra wide viewing angle. NanoPhotonica presented its emissive EL-QLED technology at the investor conference.

LTPS LCD:  Pushing the technology to new limits
While next generation technology such as MicroLED, OLED and QD are bringing new innovations, LTPS LCD is still pushing the technology for new features and capabilities. AUO showed a 6-inch full screen in-cell fingerprint LTPS LCD prototype at the conference. AUO and others also showed hole in-cell touch capability for LTPS LCD to compete with OLED in the smartphone market.

LTPS LCD is also expanding its presence in automotive, notebook and other medium size display market. The automotive market is moving towards electric, connected and autonomous vehicles where the display requirements are shifting towards high resolutions, low power, higher performance and design flexibility (example: ultra wide pillar-to-pillar display, reconfigurable dashboard). JDI has been designing and producing concave-curved 12.3 (R1500mm) 1920 x 720 and 15-inch (R3000mm) 1920 x 720, LTPS TFT LCD modules for which it has received the Display Application of the Year award from the SID.
​
The DisplayWeek 2019 conference covered an extensive array of new prototypes including many different products in 8K ranging in sizes from <5-inch to above 100-inch. BOE showcased series of 8K products (3.5-inch, 13.3-inch notebook, 27-inch monitor and 50-100-inch TVs. In recent years, application markets such as smartphones, notebook, monitor and TVs having seen growth rates slowing down considerably. Next generation technology innovations are essential to drive replacement demand and create new markets. (SD) 
​
Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com


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65-inch & Larger TV Display - Ready for Strong Growth

5/7/2019

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Massive LCD capacity is coming into production in the next three years optimized for 65-inch and 75-inch TV. Most of the capacity is coming from 10.5 Gen fabs especially from China. There is a race for revenue and profit growth as competition is accelerating and price pressure is increasing.
Higher resolution and high performance capabilities such as wide color gamut (WCG) and high dynamic range (HDR) combined with technology development, lower cost and competitive pricing will drive 65-inch and larger TV display growth.

​Massive 10.5 Gen LCD capacity coming
Massive 10.5 Gen LCD capacity is coming in over the next three years. Gen 10.5 fab can produce 8-up 65-inch or 6-up 75-inch panels from a single mother glass substrate, enabling higher efficiency and lower cost. Suppliers are hoping to replace 55-inch TV sales with 65-inch, driving replacement demand growth. BOE started its a-Si TFT LCD 10.5 Gen fab from the first quarter of 2018 and also is ramping up to full capacity in 2019. China Star (CSOT) has started its a-Si TFT LCD 10.5 Gen fab in the first half 2019 and is expected to ramp up even further in 2020. Foxconn/Sharp's 10.5 Gen fab in China is also expected to start in the second half of 2019, ramping up to full production in 2020. By the year 2021 and 2022 about eight to ten 10.5 Gen fabs with huge capacity are expected to be in production. That will include LG Display’s 10-5 Gen oxide based AMOLED fab. Will there be enough demand for this huge capacity of 65-inch and higher size TV panels?

Race for revenue and profit amidst intense competition
With the growth of massive capacity, the entrance of new panel suppliers and TV brands, competition is accelerating and price pressure is increasing. In the last few years a slower growth rate, higher capacity, over-supply and low open cell prices have already resulted in low profitability. A fear of panel oversupply is now looming large over future years. Over-supply could lead to faster price reductions, delays in fab construction or ramp ups, cut in utilization rates and the closing down of older fabs. Some suppliers may also convert older LCD fabs to make OLEDs or QDOLEDs. TV size growth is essential to drive area growth to absorb the massive capacity.

After TV unit shipments declined in 2017, the market experienced growth in 2018 due to consumers upgrading their sets to watch World Cup soccer games and enabled by lower retail prices for large screen UHD TVs.  Major brands such as Samsung reported strong sales for premium TV such as QLED TVs and ultra large size models. The 60-inch and higher panel market previously dominated by Samsung Display, LG Display, Sharp, AUO and Innolux. Now, BOE and China Star are bringing high volume capacity in 65-inch and 75-inch based on 10.5 Gen fab production. Competition will intensify leading to aggressive panel price reductions. Top TV brands such as Samsung LGE, Hisense, Sony, TCL and others will see intense competition.
Despite uncertainties, top brands are expecting demand for premium TV to grow including UHD, 8K and ultra large TV. Technologies such as 8K, OLED, Quantum Dot still carry premiums providing opportunities for higher revenue and profit.


Advanced TV technology can drive replacement demand
Product differentiation, technology innovations and cost reductions are needed for survival and growth. Large screen size, high resolutions (4K and 8K), HDR (High Dynamic Range), WCG (Wide Color Gamut), miniLED, QD and OLED are needed for product differentiation.

8K TVs with higher transmittance enable the display of sharper images with higher perceptual depth creating a more immersive experience, but 8K content is really lacking in the industry. Samsung’s machine learning system automatically up-scales 4K content for 8K TV. Consumers generally shift to higher resolutions to “future proof” their purchases. The Tokyo Olympics (2020) being broadcast in 8K combined with the development of 5G networks is expected to help 8K TV adoption rates.

HDR gives TV sets an ability to display a wider richer range of colors, much brighter white and much deeper black. HDR gives better color and better contrast. To drive HDR there is a need for higher peak brightness. WCG brings in a wider range of colors giving a more realistic experience.

Quantum Dot (QD) technology enables higher brightness, and better HDR and WCG. It can bring LCD TV performance closer to OLED and can even exceed it in certain areas (brightness). QD can empower LCD TV by enabling higher brightness (4000 cd/m² and above) and a significant increase in the color gamut (supporting more of BT 2020). Samsung QLED TVs have been in the forefront, with many different options including 65-inch, 75-inch size and 8K resolution. In 2018, QD TV prices have come down. Other brands have joined the market including Vizio, TCL, Hisense and others. Very high capacity from 10.5 Gen fabs in 2019 should help to reduce QD-based LCD TV costs, leading to higher adoption rates. QD TV gained stronger market share in 2018 and is already seeing major growth in 2019. Samsung Display is working on QD OLED is expected to start pilot production in 2019. It simplifies the panel structure and fabrication process and eliminates shadow mask patterning. However the process needs highly efficient blue OLED materials with a long lifetime. This could open up new opportunities for QD.

MiniLED backlight can enhance luminance and HDR in a LCD TV by increasing the number of LEDs and improving the picture performance. However, it has to provide a cost effective solution to be successful. LCD TV with MiniLED backlighting is expected to appear in the market in 2019. If customers can see a substantial difference in picture quality, MiniLED can drive replacement demand.

MicroLED self-emissive TVs from Samsung, LG and others will increase sales in future years, although technology challenges will confine it to a niche market in the near term.
​
OLED has secured a strong presence in the premium TV market because of picture quality, design differentiation, perfect black and an infinite contrast ratio. LG Electronics is the most successful brand expoliting LG Display’s OLED TV panels. Other brands such as Sony, Panasonic, Skyworth, TPV, Hisense, Konka and others have joined in, using LG Display’s panels. LGD is converting LCD TV capacity to OLED TV and may be accelerating its plans to develop 10.5G fab. Ink -jet printing (IJP) can offer lower manufacturing cost due to lower capex, lower material cost from simple structure and color filter elimination. But the lifetime of soluble blue OLED needs improvement.

Competitive Pricing will drive Super Size TV growth

In 2018, 65-inch UHD 4K TV prices reached $1100-1200 in North America and less than $1000 in China. This month, 65-inch 4K TVs from LG and Samsung are available for $600-$700 and Vizio’s 65-inch Quantum Dot TV is available for less than $1500. With more aggressive price reductions, 65-inch and above size TVs are expected to take a larger share of the TV market. TV brands are also starting to market 8K TV aggressively in 2019. Samsung’s 8K QLED 65-inch TV is in the market for less than $5000.
The new 65-inch and higher size TVs will have strong growth in 2019 and beyond due to the following factors:
  • Massive capacity from Gen 10.5 fabs optimized for 65-inch and 75-inch display
  • Increase in production efficiency and cost reductions
  • Race for higher revenue and profit amidst fierce competition.
  • Product differentiation using advanced TV technologies
  • Thin bezel enabling larger screen size in the same form factor
  • Over-supply driving panel price reductions
  • Aggressive retail price reduction
Advanced TV technologies combined with larger screen size displays (65-inch and higher), lower costs and more competitive prices will lead to stronger growth in the next few years.

Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com

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MicroLED: Emerging as a Next Generation Display Technology

4/8/2019

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MicroLED is emerging as next generation display technology because of its potential to be a thinner, brighter, lighter, and low power display. It combines the best features of LCD and OLED. It is considered by some to be the fourth generation flat panel display technology after, Plasma, LCD and OLED.

It is not yet commercialized or in mass production.  But working prototypes are showing up this year, as seen at CES 2019. Many companies are also working within the MicroLED display supply chain to resolve manufacturing issues, improve yields and reduce costs to enable volume productions for consumer products. There are still many challenges to be solved. Can MicroLED compete with LCD and OLED?

Simple structure but complex manufacturing process
MicroLED is a self-emitting display which consist of arrays of microscopic LEDs each forming a pixel. It is simple in structure compared to OLED and LCD but has a complex manufacturing process. Display integration of MicroLED can be generally of two types.

One is heterogeneous integration, where MicroLED arrays use pick and place process, and chips are transferred from an epiwafer or carriers to the display backplane.

The other one is monolithic integration where process involves MicroLED arrays and backplane hybridization.

According to industry estimates, more than 130 companies are working in the MicroLED display supply chain including Apple (LuxVue), Oculus (InfiniLED) Samsung, LG Display, AUO, Sony, eLux (integrated with Foxconn group), Aledia (Intel), Lumens, Lumiode, Jade Bird, Mikro Mesa, Play Nitride, Plessey, Glo (Google), X-celeprint, Rohinni, Sony, Visionox and others. MicroLED display has many advantages such as high brightness, ultra low power consumption, fast response time, very high contrast rate, wide color gamut, long lifetime, environmental stability, high resolution, the option of flexible backplanes and integration of sensors in the display. Its main challenges are manufacturing complexity and yield issues.

On the way to resolve manufacturing issues and improve yield
Manufacturing and yield issues can become an issue in epitaxy, chip, and mass transfer, bonding, driving technology, backplane, inspection and repair. The industry is working towards resolving each of these issues. MicroLED chips need wavelength uniformity and thickness uniformity for display applications. Solutions from MOCVD suppliers such as Aixtron, Veeco and others are helping to resolve such issues. For example Veeco is collaborating with Allos (provider of GaN epiwafer technology) to achieve extremely good emission wavelength uniformity, which eliminates the need, to test and sort individual MicroLED chips.

Aixtron is collaborating with PlayNitride for the manufacturing of GaN-based MicroLED. The Aixtron MOCVD solution is enabling high volume manufacturing of products with high-level wavelength uniformity. The system allows for lower defects and particle level, due to in-situ cleaning technology and a cassette-to-cassette handler, which enables higher yield. IP activities have seen strong growth in the last few years - mass transfer technology and chip manufacturing process technology are among the top topics for patents. News sources have reported that PlayNitride’s MicroLED chips were transferred to a glass backplane using Samsung’s mass transfer technology to create the 75-inch MicroLED TV that was shown at CES this year.

MicroLED companies also need to use mass testing and repair methods to reduce the cost and time of assembly. Companies such as Toray are working on equipment for MicroLED wafer inspection, repair and transfer. Laser repair equipment can remove defective MicroLEDs and then selectively transfer good MicroLEDs to complete the repair process.

Producing an RGB (Red Green Blue) MicroLED also has many challenges, as each color MicroLED chip is different. Different colors of LED need slightly different voltage and drive currents. Mechanical placement of these three-color chips is very difficult. Color conversion by Quantum dots or by phosphor provides another alternative. Using single-color (blue) MicroLED chips and color converting them with Quantum dot layers can help in the manufacturing process. Nanosys has demonstrated a photo lithography-patterned cadmium free color conversion layer for MicroLED.

MicroLED display prototypes coming to market
At the DisplayWeek 2018 conference last year, we saw some actual prototypes of MicroLEDs including from companies such as
  • Hong Kong Jade Bird Display (active MicroLED with 5000PPI, 1million cd/m² brightness),
  • Play Nitride (transparent RGB MicroLED),
  • glo and Jasper Display (who together created a high brightness 10 micron silicon backplane for watch, HUD, AR and other applications) as well as
  • AUO (8-inch full color, 169PPI, LTPS backplane MicroLED).
  • Samsung showcased its 75-inch true MicroLED TV this year at CES.
  • Plessey, PlayNitride, Lumiode, and Lumen showed new MicroLED display prototypes at CES.
  • Plessey was awarded as a CES 2019 Innovation Awards Honoree for its GaN-on-silicon monolithic MicroLED that can be used for AR/VR and HUDs applications. It has been working with Vuzix to develop MicroLED-based AR smartglasses.
  • Glo showed a prototype of a 1.5-inch 264ppi RGB wearable display with LTPS backplane and a 0.7”1000ppi RGB display for AR/HUD on CMOS backplane.
As I have written in a previous Display Daily article, glo uses existing commercial LTPS glass backplanes and existing volume LED-manufacturing equipment and capacity. With highly selective direct wafer transfer capability glo technology can scale to all size and resolutions (micro display, mobile display and large display) on either a CMOS or LTPS backplane. According to the company, leveraging existing LED and LCD industry infrastructure glo’s micro LED display can be cost competitive with high end OLED and expected to have even more competitive cost curve going forward.

Opportunities for wide range of applications
MicroLED’s ability to create high brightness and high resolution images with low power consumption gives it certain advantages over current display technology in applications such as wearable (smart watch and fitness trackers) and AR/VR. MicroLED-based display devices for wearable and AR/VR are expected to be available in the 2019-2020 timeframe.

Smartwatch displays are small in size but they need high resolution and higher brightness for outdoor use with longer battery life. MicroLED will be able to meet these requirements and it is expected to exceed OLED in terms of brightness and power efficiency. Apple is reportedly working on MicroLED after acquiring LuxVue. Oculus has acquired InfiniLED to incorporate MicroLED into VR headsets for high resolutions and immersive experience.

Companies are initially targeting wearable, AR/VR, digital signage, public display and automotive (HUD) applications. High-speed transfer, assembly technologies, yield and defect management are still under development before large volume commercialization in consumer products such as smartphones or TV.

Implications for the display industry
LCD and OLED technology are moving targets, both still improving in performance and reducing their costs. Can MicroLED potentially match the price and performance of LCD and OLED? In theory, it can. But as history has shown, theoretical potential takes years to be realized and sometimes never gets there. MicroLED with its exceptional potential faces many challenges (manufacturing yield issues and high cost) and industry suppliers are all working to bring MicroLED potential to reality, but it will take time. Success will depend on its ability to scale up for volume production with competitive price performance - SD

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Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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Foldable Smartphones: Can They Reach The Mainstream Market?

3/12/2019

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Foldable smartphones are finally here after years of expectation and anticipation The biggest potential advantage of foldable smartphone is that it can offer “thin, light, unbreakable larger display for smartphone in a smaller form factor”.
 
In a slowing demand market, foldable phones offer potentially higher growth, ASP, revenue and profitability opportunities for panel and smartphone suppliers. Samsung and Huawei have already unveiled foldable smartphones in February (In, Out, In, Out and Shake it all about!) with plans to ship products in the next few months. Other vendors are already starting to join in or expected to enter in the near future. In spite of innovative designs and differentiating form factors, foldable smartphones still face many challenges including extremely high prices, design issues, durability issues, lack of acceptable industry standards and uncertainties about consumer acceptance. Can foldable smartphone reach the mainstream mass market? 

Foldable design revolution

Royole’s FlexPai was the first foldable smartphone to be introduced, at the end of last year. Samsung introduced Galaxy Fold, an inward folding (AMOLED) product with a front cover supporting a 4.6” front display (1960x840, 21: 9 format) and a 7.3”main display (2152x1536, 4.2:3 format). Samsung replaced the cover glass with a flexible polymer cover film, used new types of adhesive, and a hinge mechanism that has multiple interlocking systems.

Huawei unveiled the Mate X, a 5G foldable (foldable OLED) smartphone at MWC with an outward fold and a 8” (2480x 2200, 8:7.1 format) main display that can fold to 6.6” (2480x1148, 19.5:9 format)) on the front and 6.38” (2480 x 892, 25:9 format) display on the back. Other smartphone suppliers such as Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Lenovo are expected to follow them in 2019. Xiaomi has shown a video of a dual folding phone prototype. Apple has not announced any plan for foldable iPhones, but expected to introduce one in 2020. It has already many patents including designs showing ways to reduce display-folding issues. Many more companies are expected to enter the foldable 5G smartphone market in 2020 with new designs.

Hope for higher fab utilization

Industry reporting from DSCC showed a sharp drop in flexible OLED utilization rates in Q1 2019. Production is impacted by lower than expected sales for the Samsung Galaxy and Apple’s iPhone products based on flexible OLEDs. According to DSCC's recent data, OLED fab spending is expected to drop substantially (59% year over year) in 2019 due to poor mobile fab utilization rates.

Foldable smartphone can offer new opportunities for OLED fabs utilization rates due to an increase in the number of displays, increases in display sizes and display area. After the introduction of foldable smart phones in MWC 2019, Chinese OLED panel suppliers such as BOE, Tianma, Visionox and TCL stocks surged on foldable hopes. New flexible OLED capacity is coming from China. BOE is the supplier for Huawei’s Mate X and Visionox has also shown prototypes for foldable displays.

Samsung Display in Korea is the panel supplier for the Galaxy Fold and is the dominant supplier for flexible display (Galaxy, iPhone and other products). Samsung has already expanded its capacity. BOE, Tianma and Visionx are increasing production in China and LG Display is doing the same in Korea. Taiwan is lagging behind Korea and China. But AUO is expected to focus on flexible display for foldable after focusing on wearables. Panel suppliers such as Sharp, Japan Display, Royale, and EDO are advancing their commercialization initiatives. Foldable display yields are lower both on panel side and OEM side due to complexity and new requirements in manufacturing, materials, process and design. Challenges and opportunities are bringing high hopes for higher utilization rates, but high costs and complex manufacturing issues will limit unit shipments.

Opportunity for replacement demand

The smartphone market has already started on a declining trend after years of growth. It appears as if the smartphone market is reaching a saturation point. Longer replacement cycles, increasing penetration in many large markets, the political and economic environment and growing consumer frustration around rising price points contributed to the decline in growth rates in 2018.

In recent years, Apple and Samsung’s new flagship flexible OLED smartphones have seen substantial price increases and replacement cycles are getting longer as new products are not making innovative leaps, and the cost to upgrade is substantially higher. Apple is starting to offer better trade-in and lower cost incentives to drive demand. Samsung is also planning market-targeted lower-priced products to meet emerging market need. At the same time, smartphone vendors are introducing foldable 5G models and the latest technologies with astronomically high prices ($1980 to $2600 starting) in the hope of increasing replacement demand.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the revolution in design and form factors is increasing smartphone vendors’ expectation for growth in replacement demand. But astronomically high prices and design issues will limit growth in unit demand especially in 2019.

Challenges limiting opportunities

The new designs of foldable smartphones  are starting a revolution. First generation products have many issues with foldable hinge, flexible cover, increased thickness and bulkier designs. The handset industry still doesn’t have a perfect solution. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is infold while Huawei’s Mate X is outfold. Xiaomi’s future product is expected to be double-fold. Lenovo’s future product is expected to fold vertically in the middle. If folded outward, there is no need for external display. But an external display is easy to scratch or damage.

If folded outward, the inside display is protected but the thickness increases. Some news media are reporting that Samsung is also working on out-folding and vertically mid-folding designs to introduce in the near future. The industry still doesn’t have any design standard. These first generation foldable phones are using flexible polymer plastic cover films instead of glass. These solutions have challenges in terms of robustness, clarity and durability. Corning is working on extremely thin flexible glass solutions for foldable applications. However, it may take another few years before it can be commercially available. Repeated folding and unfolding is also creating creases in the display due to issues with touch integration and folding designs.

The small bending radius of foldable display modules faces challenges in both materials and process technologies. All the layers of a foldable display (panel, touch sensors, polarizer and cover plate) need to be foldable, durable and transparent. It will need flexible OLEDs, with touch sensors such as AgNW or Metal Mesh, flexible adhesives, bendable thin polarizera and flexible window covers. All the layers need to be durable and be able to withstand multiple bending. The foldable design revolution is still facing high cost, high price, design complexity and a lack of standardization, limiting the ability to create consumer-acceptable solutions.

 Design revolution needs years of evolution
​
The potential future of next generation foldable displays is promising, but there are many challenges including extremely high price, higher costs, design issues, durability issues, design acceptance by consumers and consumer willingness to pay higher price for new designs. Foldable smartphone design is starting a revolution but it will need years of material, process, and technology evolution to gain higher adoption rates. For now, foldable smartphones can provide opportunities for niche markets but not for mainstream mass market. - Sweta Dash
 
Sweta Dash, President, Dash-Insights
Sweta Dash is the founding president of Dash-Insights, a market research and consulting company specializing in the display industry. For more information, contact sweta@dash-insights.com or visit www.dash-insight.com
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