18-20 inch medium-sized OLED panel production
Response to increased demand for IT…Mass production plan for early next year
Samsung Display is building a notebook organic light emitting diode (OLED) production line at A4 (formerly L7-1) plant in Tangjeong, Asan, Chungnam. This is to respond to the growing demand for IT products.
According to the industry on the 29th, Samsung Display plans to build a medium-sized OLED production line with a scale of 30,000 (30K) sheets per month based on the input of original plates at the A4 plant. Here, it produces OLED panels for laptops in the 18-20 inch range. It is known that Samsung Display brings’N’, which means notebook, and calls it’N Project’. The company also called the production of liquid crystal display (LCD) notebook panels as’N Project’.
It is reported that the notebook OLED production equipment of the A4 plant will be ordered this summer and will be stocked at the end of the year as early as the end of next year and at the latest in the next year. Since Samsung Display has already produced notebook OLED panels, it will not take much time to mass-produce after installation of the facility is completed.
Samsung Display has made OLED panels for notebooks by partially renovating the A2 and A3 production lines in Tangjeong, Asan. A2 mainly produces smartphones and smart watches, and A3 mainly produces OLED panels for Samsung Galaxy S and Note and Apple iPhone.
Samsung Display’s production line for medium-sized OLEDs in the 18-20-inch range is interpreted as a response to increasing demand for IT products such as notebooks that appeared after the spread of Corona 19. In the current industry, a non-face-to-face culture and demand for IT products are expected to continue.
Samsung Display has already announced that it will increase the production of OLED panels for notebooks externally. Earlier this month, the company announced that it will launch more than 10 types of notebook OLED panels by diversifying the screen size and detailed specifications from the existing 13.3 inches to 16 inches this year. Samsung Display predicted that this year’s notebook OLED sales will increase more than five times over the previous year. The’Samsung OLED’ brand was also revealed.
On the 28th, Choi Kwon-young, executive director of Samsung Display, said in a conference call after the 4th quarter of last year, “Ultra-Syn (very thin), which is the strength of OLED in an environment where non-face-to-face communication and services are increasing. , I will try to expand new applications such as notebooks, tablets, and automotive with narrow (thin) bezels.”
Currently, A4 has a 6th generation flexible OLED production line with a monthly scale of 30K. The A4 was called L7-1 when it made the 7th generation large LCD panel in the past. Samsung Display removed all LCD facilities from the L7-1 in 2017 and established a 6th-generation flexible production line in 2018. A 30K notebook production line is expected to be built in the idle space of A4.
Meanwhile, Samsung Display is in a dispute with Japan’s JOLED for a patent for notebook OLED panels. On the 8th (local time), Samsung Display, and on the 19th, Samsung Display’s subsidiary IKT (Intellectual Keystone Technology) filed a patent infringement lawsuit against JOLED and Taiwanese Asus in the Texas Western Federal Court. Samsung Display claimed that the 21.6-inch laptop OLED panel that JOLED supplied to Asus infringed its patent. Earlier, JOLED filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung Display and Samsung Electronics in Germany and the United States last year.
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