Since the year of TCL's high-profile announcement of the formation of Juhua's layout printing technology, JOLED Japan has also announced the world's first medium-sized OLED panel products using "print" technology, and plans to be in the second half of 2018. Mass production, which makes printed OLED technology the next "window" of the display industry. As a different technical route from the evaporation OLED technology, although the printing display technology is still immature, it has been given more expectations by the industry, especially the panel makers in China, but also hope to realize the technology by virtue of the forward-looking layout on the printed OLED. super. However, is the evaporation of OLEDs dominated by Korean manufacturers more mature? Is printing OLED the future direction? Different technical routes have made large-size OLED technology once again the focus of the display industry. It is very difficult to make large-size OLEDs by evaporation process. When it comes to the development of large-size OLED panels, the industry's first thought is the two giants of South Korea's LGD and Samsung. As early as 2013, LGD and Samsung successively mass-produced OLED TV panels and brought their OLED TV terminal products to market. At that time, Samsung and LGD had been arguing because of different technical routes. Among them, Samsung mainly promoted RGB OLED technology, while LGD supported the white light + CF OLED technology. One year later, due to mass production problems, Samsung unexpectedly announced its withdrawal from the OLED TV market, leaving only one LGD company to stick to the large-size OLED production. Although the yield rate has always been the biggest problem in mass production of large-size OLED panels, in recent years LGD has still chosen to bet OLED and become the world's largest OLED TV panel supplier. In the industry's general view, the biggest bottleneck of large-size OLEDs is that the yield is difficult to increase, because the possibility of OLED defects is 10 times that of LCDs, and it is very difficult to use the evaporation process to make large-size OLED displays. From the technical path of view, whether it is Samsung's RGB technology, or LGD's CF + white light technology, the process of evaporation is used. Ma Songlin, deputy dean of TCL Industrial Research Institute and director of TCL Group Technology Center, told the China Electronics News that the evaporation process used in the production of OLED panels is very complicated, the material utilization rate is low, and the yield rate has not been high. Therefore, the evaporation process is not suitable for large-size OLED screens, and the industry needs to develop new technical routes. Despite many doubts, in the view of President Lu Xiangde of LG Display OLED Business Unit, it is not a big problem to improve the yield of large-size OLEDs. In an interview with the reporter of China Electronics News, he said that in general, 60% is a critical point for the climb rate of the panel, and once it is exceeded, it will increase at a rapid rate. He said that LGD spent 10 years, the LCD panel yield rate reached 80%. However, it took only one and a half years for LGD to increase the yield of FHD's OLED panel by 80%, and the UHD OLED yield rate is also increasing. Printing technology can be used as a display screen Unlike Korean manufacturers who use the evaporation process to make large-size OLEDs, the printed display is another large-size OLED technology that is expected in the industry. "In the near future, we will make the display like a newspaper." This is the expectation of TCL Group's Li Dongsheng on the printing display. Since the beginning of this year, China's panel makers have been constantly on the print display. After Shentian Ma transferred 34% of the shares of Guangdong Juhua Printing Display Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Juhua Company), which was wholly-owned by Huaxing Optoelectronics, with a total of 34 million yuan, Juhua Company announced that it has cooperated with DuPont and Sumitomo Chemical of Japan. The world's top companies such as Nissan Chemical and American Cordy signed a strategic cooperation agreement. According to the agreement, these upstream supporting manufacturers will fully support the materials and process requirements of Juhua in the development of printed OLED technology, and tailor the relevant R&D equipment for Juhua. Ma Songlin said that the large-scale printing OLED display, "single-handedly fighting" is not acceptable, and needs the entire industrial chain to do, which is the main reason for the formation of Juhua. The reason why the upstream and downstream of the industry chain are optimistic about the development prospects of printing display technology is also because it is more suitable for large-size OLED panels than the evaporation technology, which can solve the bottleneck of low vapor deposition rate. More importantly, printing technology can significantly reduce the cost of OLED panels, and even lower the cost of LCDs in the future. Ma Songlin said: "OLED printing display technology needs to change in material selection, and equipment must also change. Our goal is to make medium-sized OLED products in 3 years, mass production in 5 years, and next-generation printing. Show that the process is mature." According to the reporter, TCL has been deployed in the direction of printing and display technology, G4.5 printing and display platform, G8.5 printing and display platform. Moreover, the “13th Five-Year†national key R&D plan has already adopted printed OLED technology as one of the key support projects. Guangdong Province has also included it as a major science and technology project, hoping to achieve greater breakthroughs in policy support for printed display technology. Can China break the monopoly and become a leader? "Not only the panel manufacturers in China have printed display technology, but also global panel makers such as Japan and South Korea have been actively developing this technology. It is very difficult to make large-size OLED light-emitting layers by mask evaporation, and the prospect of industrialized devices is uncertain. This is also the main reason why international manufacturers pay attention to printing display technology." Xu Zheng, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, said in an interview with China Electronics News that "the AMOLED process is very complicated. The front part of the TFT material can be metal oxide or LTPS. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the so-called printing OLED, whether it is the whole process of printing, or part of the process using printing technology." In fact, printed display technology is not a new term. As early as the PMOLED era, there are two technical routes of OLED and PLED, and it is considered that PLED is more suitable for mass production because it can use the printing process method, and these Japanese manufacturers have been Research and development in this field. Recently, JOLED Corporation of Japan announced that it will try to make the world's first medium-sized OLED panel products adopting "printing" technology, and plans to mass-produce in the second half of 2018. If it can be mass-produced, this will become a new breakthrough in printing OLED panels. . For Chinese panel makers, they also hope to seize the opportunity of printing display to achieve "curve overtaking." Li Dongsheng said: "If we can take the lead in printing display technology, we can break South Korea's monopoly position in the large-size OLED field and become a leader in new technology." In the research and development of printing display materials, devices and other technologies, China has explored very early. Xu Zheng said that in addition to TCL, BOE invested in the development of OLED printing preparation technology for inkjet printing equipment a few years ago. With so many years of technology accumulation and progress, it will become possible to industrialize printing technology as soon as possible. However, Xu Zheng also stressed to reporters that there must be a process for the emergence and development of any new technology. It cannot be said who will replace it. The evaporation and printing technologies can coexist. For a new technology, not only must the technology be better, but also reduce costs and form a marketable product. Only in this way can we continue to advance the technological evolution and innovation of panel manufacturing. Easy Electronic Technology Co.,Ltd , https://www.nbpcelectronicgroup.com