Mass production of printed OLED in the second half of next year

On December 7, the annual 2023TCL Huaxing Global Display Ecology Conference (hereinafter referred to as DTC2023) was held in Wuhan.

On the same day, TCL Huaxing released a number of new printed OLED products, including the world's first 65-inch 8K printed OLED curved display and the world's first 14-inch 2.8K printed Hybrid OLED pen screen.

At the meeting, Zhao Jun, senior vice president of TCL Technology (3.960, -0.04, -1.00%) and CEO of TCL Huaxing, announced that IT will mass-produce printed OLED panels in the second half of next year, and take the lead in applying them to IT and medical display fields to accelerate the commercialization process. The Times Weekly reporter learned that TCL Huaxing will rely on the JOLED production line being introduced to carry out technology and product development to achieve small-scale mass production.

At present, TCL is promoting upstream and downstream cooperation in the industrial chain, including the localization of upstream raw materials, the reshaping of the midstream industrial chain pattern and the joint application development of downstream partners, and strives to create an ecological closed loop of the industrial chain and build its own "screen universe".

Wang Cheng, COO of TCL Technology, said that in the future, TCL Huaxing will make efforts in four directions, including strategy, layout, technology and concept.

Introduce JOLED production line for small-scale mass production next year

In 2017, Japan's JOLED launched the world's first printed OLED panel, and took the lead in launching products applied to medical displays and high-end displays, SONY medical Display and Asus Display respectively used JOLED 21.6-inch printed OLED and 27-inch printed OLED.

Before the appearance of printed OLED panels, the production technology of OLED panels was mainly the "evaporation type" used by Korean factories such as Samsung and LGD: in a vacuum state, the red, green, blue and other F-luminous materials were vaporized and attached to the substrate.

At this meeting, TCL Huaxing also demonstrated printed OLED technology through the video, that is, through inkjet printing technology, the red, green, blue light source of the light material, accurately printed on the OLED display, the OLED panel produced by such a process, known as printed OLED.

The printing technology does not require vacuum equipment, so the production cost is reduced, and the size of the substrate is not limited, which also helps the high precision, low cost, and large-scale OLED panels.

Zhao Jun said that in the field of large-size display, compared with traditional OLED screens, printed OLED screens have a longer life, clear text display and stable high color gamut. TCL Huaxing's printed OLED screen will take the lead in IT and medical applications, and it is expected that products equipped with its printed OLED screen will go to the market and consumers in the second half of next year.

There have been rumors in the market that TCL Huaxing Optoelectronics intends to introduce JOLED production line equipment. Time Weekly reporter also confirmed the news with relevant people of TCL Group.

Relevant people of TCL Group said that the subsequent TCL Huaxing will rely on the JOLED production line currently introduced to carry out technology and product development to achieve small-scale mass production. According to the progress of technology development, after ensuring that the maturity of technology and products can meet the requirements of the market and customers, TCL Huaxing will promote technology and products to customers in the fields of IT and medical specialized display. When customer recognition and market demand have been fully demonstrated, TCL Huaxing will consider the new production line in the future.

At the ecological conference, TCL Huaxing exhibited seven first printed OLED products, including the world's first 31-inch 4K dome printed OLED game display and the world's first 31-inch 4K 480Hz printed OLED display.

Yan Xiaolin, CTO of TCL Huaxing, said at the meeting that the PPI (pixel density unit), color gamut and life of printed OLED are better than WOLED (white light OLED) and QD-OLED (quantum dot OLED) of the three technical routes of medium and large size OLED display.

He believes that if the same OLED panel production line of more than 8 generations is done with printed display technology, the investment cost and material cost are expected to be optimized.

Financial data show that in the first three quarters of 2023, TCL Huaxing semiconductor display business achieved operating income of 61.20 billion yuan, an increase of 17.5%, of which the third quarter to achieve operating income of 25.68 billion yuan, an increase of 73.0%, an increase of 25.8%, net profit of 1.82 billion yuan, a single quarter to turn a profit.

However, it is understood that the mass production of TCL Huaxing printing OLED technology next year should still be small batch, and the optimization of its materials and costs may be limited.

Create a "screen universe" ecology

TCL Huaxing was established in 2009. At the early stage of its business development, it was resource-driven and cost-oriented. In recent years, with the development of technological innovation and industrial layout, TCL Huaxing has focused on application driven and product technology value as the development orientation, and gradually completed the construction of production lines and product expansion.

In terms of products, TCL Huaxing has basically completed the strategic layout of full-size and full-category products, extended to system integration, and supported full-scene applications.

In terms of large size, TCL Huaxing has completed the layout of TV, notebook computers, monitors and other applications. In terms of commercial display, it has covered a variety of large, small and medium-sized panel technologies such as interactive electronic whiteboards, digital signage, and splicing screens. In terms of emerging applications, the car screen provides customized services for tier1 and Oems, and also has a corresponding layout in the field of smart wear such as AR/VR and smart watches/bracelets.

Time Weekly reporter learned from TCL Huaxing that in the future, TCL Huaxing will extend from "panel manufacturer" to "scene display solution provider".

In order to complete this transformation, TCL Huaxing has also further promoted the "screen universe" ecological construction.

In the past two years, TCL Huaxing has invested more than 3.5 billion yuan to build a diversified supply chain with more than 1,000 supply partners in the field of upstream materials and equipment.

At the ecological conference, TCL Huaxing also said that in order to respond to the requirements of the panel industry for AI large models, TCL Huaxing jointly with TCL Industrial Research Institute, Tsinghua KEG team & Zhipu AI team, and the National New Display Technology Innovation Center team developed the first display industry vertical large model - "Star Intelligence X-intelligence". At present, the large model of "Star Intelligence X-intelligence" can be privately deployed.

Liang Yali, vice president of Intel's marketing group, said that with the rise of large models and AIGC, various digital formats are constantly being subverted and restructured, and TCL Huxing and Intel will continue to work together to promote the development of display ecology in the future.