Competition & Differentiation
Competition in the OLED display space goes far beyond product specifications and styles.  Each panel producer must find a way for display differentiation to secure a significant market presence.  Brands capitalize on these technological differences to demonstrate expertise.  While CE brands have their own focus on differentiation, if they can generate a more distinct product at the basic level they can use it to point out how different their technology is from others.  Samsung Display (pvt) is among the biggest proponents of this concept, years ago ending all LCD display production and focusing almost exclusively on OLED displays.  This has served them well as they have been able to dominate the OLED display space for years, but over time it is inevitable that other producers make inroads and that difference is no longer unique.
As the display industry looks toward shifting focus away from a heavy reliance on TV panel production, the necessity for more specialized Gen 8.6 OLED display fabs that can produce OLED IT products (Monitors, Laptops, and Tablets) in a high volume setting becomes essential.  Instead of substrates that are 2.775 m2 (Gen 6), these new fabs use substrates that are 5.65 m2, twice as large in area, not only more than doubling the unit volume per sheet but improving the efficiency (Glass Usage/Glass Area) of the substrate..

The Players
There are four such Gen 8.6 OLED fab projects at various stages of development across the display industry.  Both Samsung Display and China’s BOE (200725.CH) are heading toward the last stages of equipment installation, while Visionox (002387.CH) is still in the construction phase and Chinastar (000100.CH) broke ground on their project in October of this year.  These are large and expensive projects.
Samsung Display – Their Gen 8.6 fab, designated A6, is built on the site of a former LCD fab.  It is expected to cost between $3 billion and $3.1 billion US and has an expected capacity of 15,000 sheets/month
BOE – BOE’s Gen 8.6 fab in Chengdu, designate B16, is expected to cost between $9.0 billion and $9.9 billion, with an expected capacity of 32,000 sheets.
Visionox – The Visionox Gen 8.6 fab project in Hefei, is expected to cost $7.7 billion and have a total capacity of 32,000 sheets/month.
Chinastar – Chinastar’s Gen 8.6 fab, dubbed T8 (Guangzhou) is expected to cost between $4.1 billion and $4.5 billion with an expected capacity of 22,500 sheets, although the company has hinted it could be doubled to 45,000 sheets/month.
Large Process Differences
Based on these specifications, the differentiation  between suppliers seems minimal, but that is definitely not the case.  Typically OLED displays are produced using large deposition chambers where OLED materials are vaporized and passed through fine metal masks (think – screens) that precisely place the materials on a substrate.  These are very expensive tools (hundreds of millions) as are the masks.  Given that the OLED materials are not only placed on the substrate but also attach to the chamber walls and build up on the masks, the tool needs to be taken offline and cleaned regularly, while the masks must be constantly replaced.  This leads to a relatively mature but inefficient process, however one that is well-known to both SDC and BOE from their Gen 6 OLED display fabs.
Visionox is approaching the Gen 8.6 OLED process differently, basing its fab on the use of photolithography to place OLED materials.  It is a new display technology that has never been used for large-scale production, so a successful project could separate Visionox from BOE and SDC, giving them a competitive advantage.  Chinastar is also taking a new route but has settled on using ink-jet printing as its deposition method, a technique that is used by others for parts of the OLED display production process, but not for the key deposition steps.  Again, a successful project would put Chinastar in a class by itself.
Risk
Why would two of the four panel producers involved in Gen 8.6 OLED display production take such a massive risk?  They have no choice.  Both Samsung Display and BOE are OLED giants, with multiple fabs and years of production experience.  Neither Visionox nor Chinastar have the OLED resources and experience to compete directly with these two leaders, making it difficult for them to become suppliers to large CE brands who must be assured that capacity and yield will be there when they need it.  Samsung and BOE will eventually refine their Gen 8.6 processes and present customers with a reliable supply of OLED IT products, forcing Visionox and Chinastar to rely more of product differentiation than competing on volume and yield.
Aside from the process differentiation, there is the matter of cost.  Not the cost of the fab, which will get depreciated over time, but the cost of producing the panels themselves.  As noted, the deposition process used by SDC and BOE is wasteful.  Up to 70% of the OLED materials are wasted as the materials collect on the inside of the chamber and on the mask.  The process itself must be done under high vacuum conditions to keep OLED material molecules from colliding with gas molecules, and while the OLED materials must be heated to vaporize them, the substrate and the mask must maintain a cooler temperature to prevent expansion that would misalign the materials.  The vacuum makes the process cumbersome in that the chamber must be pressurized and depressurized each time a sheet enters the system while  low pressure must be precisely maintained throughout the process, slowing throughput and complicating substrate transfers.
While the lithographic process is still being developed, Chinastar’s ink-jet printing process is a bit more mature, as it is used to encapsulate OLED displays and to deposit quantum dot materials in SDC’s QD/OLED process.  This makes the process easier to cost out when comparing it to metal mask deposition.  theoretically, the processes compare like this:

Conclusion: The Next Generation of OLED Differentiation
The pivot toward Gen 8.6 OLED fabs marks a critical inflection point where the fierce competition among display producers moves beyond product style and focuses squarely on manufacturing process differentiation. The shift from 2.775m2 substrates (Gen 6) to 5.05m2 substrates is not just a 2X scale-up; it's a fundamental change that more than doubles unit volume and significantly improves material efficiency for high-demand IT products (laptops, monitors, tablets).
While industry leaders Samsung Display (SDC) and BOE leverage their experience with the mature but costly Fine Metal Mask (FMM) Evaporation process, their massive capital expenditure (up to $9.9 billion) and process inefficiency present a vulnerability. The FMM approach's reliance on high vacuum, constant mask replacement, and up to 70% material waste creates a high-cost structure that will eventually be challenged.
Conversely, Visionox and China Star (CSOT) are making a necessary and high-stakes bet on FMM-free technologies:

• Visionox with its new, photolithography-based process (ViP).
• CSOT with its Ink-Jet Printing (IJP) method.

The IJP process, in particular, offers a stark operational advantage, boasting 85%–90% material utilization, 20%–30% lower manufacturing cost, and 90% fewer vacuum processes. These inherent efficiencies, combined with lower equipment investment, position IJP as the cost-competitive roadmap for mass-produced, large-area OLEDs.
Ultimately, the successful execution of these Gen 8.6 projects will determine the future hierarchy of the global display market. For established giants, success means solidifying supply dominance with reliable volume. For challengers like Visionox and CSOT, success requires proving the viability and reliability of their innovative processes. This technological diversification is not merely an option but a strategic imperative that will redefine the cost structure, supply dynamics, and competitive landscape of the premium IT display segment for the next decade.

TCL/Chinastar (000100.CH) has announced that it will join three other panel manufacturers in building a Gen 8.6 OLED fab to produce IT products (tablets, laptops, and monitors).  The $4.1b project is to be constructed in Guangzhou along side the TCL/Chinastar campus and is expected to have a capacity of 22,500 sheets/month when fully completed.  We expect two phases to the fab development, with the first phase in mass production in late 2028 or early 2029 and the second phase in 2030 or later depending on market conditions.  TCL is budgeting a lower cost for this fab, lower than competitor’s BOE (200725.CH), who expects their fab to cost $9b and Visionox (002387.CH), who expects to spend $7.7b.  The reason for the lower cost is that TCL will not be producing OLED panels using the FMM (Fine Metal Mask) process, which is used by most OLED producers at the Gen 6 level, and by both BOE and Samsung Display (pvt) for their new Gen 8.6 IT OLED fabs. 
TCL will be using ink-jet printing, although details of which process steps will include IJP have yet to be revealed.  Ink-jet printing, which is used by Samsung Display to deposit quantum dots on their QD/OLED process, and others for OLED encapsulation, would replace the highly material inefficient vacuum deposition and FMM process used currently.  This (FMM) process wastes up to 70% of the OLED material, which winds up coating the interior of the deposition chamber and the mask, and causes downtime in order to remove that material with harsh chemicals.  Ink-jet printing has a much higher material utilization rate of 85% to 90% and is therefore expected to be more cost effective and enable TCL to produce IT OLED products at a lower cost.
Of course, all of this is speculation as TCL has only been running a Gen 5.5 pilot ink-jet production line in Wuhan, producing one size displays for the medical industry. Gen 8.6 substrates are over 3 times larger, pushing the limits of ink-jet technology, so we are quite conservative as to when the TCL fab will enter true mass production and what yield might look like.  As noted, little is known about TCL’s ink-jet process, but we know with a substrate of this size the mechanics of placing 340 pixels per inch containing three sub-pixels (RGB) each requires considerable engineering expertise.  Panasonic (6752.JP) is said to be supplying the ink-jet equipment, but little else is known about TCL’s process and how easily it might scale.

​What makes the Gen 8.6 IT OLED supply chain a bit unusual is that of the four panel
producers who have committed to building such fabs, only two are using the standard vacuum deposition FMM process that has been used for smaller (Gen 6) OLED production.  With TCL committed to ink-jet and Visionox committed to a photolithographic deposition process, there will be less commonality across the equipment industry, especially given how little is known about how these new processes will scale.  Everybody is watching everybody to see if things are progressing, but we are still at the cusp of mass production for SDC’s phase 1 VD FMM line, and we expect that is the easiest of the three technologies to scale.  It will be a while before anyone can claim success.

​Ink-jet printing for displays has come and gone a number of times.  As far back as the 1990’s programs to adapt the technology to the display space had begun and companies like Kateeva (pvt), Tokyo Electron (8035.JP), and SEMES (pvt) were developing systems using IJP for display.  At times there has been great hope for the technology, originally as a way to reduce emitter material costs and later as a tool for the encapsulation of OLED materials, but in only a few instances has IJP proved to be an effective competitor against more standard metal mask vacuum deposition systems.  IJP does seem to have found a home at Samsung Display (pvt) where it is used to encapsulated OLED materials and to deposit quantum dot materials on SDC’s QD/OLED displays, but few producers have been successful enough with the technology to use it as a primary sub-pixel deposition system.  In fact, the leader in the development of IJP technology for OLED, JOLED (defunct) went bankrupt in 2023 and sold its Gen 5.5 IJP line to Chinastar (pvt).
Chinastar has been using the equipment to produce what is the first (and only?) commercial IJP display product, a 21.6” display for the medical industry.  Most recently Chinastar has shown both small (6.5”) and larger (14”) IJP displays and is now expected to begin offering 14” and 16” IJP notebook panels sometime in 1H 2026.  Chinastar’s IJP line is rather small but given the relatively small size of the current display, the line has a maximum production level of 240,000 units/month (100% yield), likely far in excess of what Chinastar is able to sell, so capacity is not a current issue.  That said, panel producers must look years into the future to decide whether to build out capacity and Chinastar is considering building a Gen 8.5 ink-jet fab to fill future demand.
There would be two key advantages to such a project.  First, the Gen 5.5 fab currently being used (21.6” product) is rather inefficient, wasting 23% of the substrate with each production sheet.  A Gen 8.5 IJP fab would bring that substrate efficiency up to ~93%, a substantial savings during high volume production.  The Gen 5.5 fab can produce a maximum of ~240,000 21.6” displays each month (theoretical), while the Gen 8.5 IJP fab could produce ~800,000, so if Chinastar believes that IJP is enough of a differentiator to attract high volume customers, the Gen 8.6 fab would be needed.
It’s a tough decision given the importance of not only reducing the cost of production, but also exceeding the specs of competitive displays produced on more traditional deposition systems.  If IJP is only an advantage for the producer, it’s a much harder sell than if it benefits both the producer and the customer, so there is still a lot for Chinastar to prove before they get enough customer feedback to justify spending a few billion on a new IJP fab.
 

​In July we noted that Samsung Display had been having difficulty with it’s ink-jet printing tools on its QD/OLED line and had reconsidered replacing those tools, which had been supplied by Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) affiliate, SEMES (pvt), after a bake-off with US based IJP supplier Kateeva (pvt), despite the better results from the Kateeva tools, which SDC already uses to encapsulate OLED displays.  We were surprised when the SEMES decision was made, as Kateeva had considerable experience with SDC and was the performance leader, but we expect there were other criteria, likely price, that could have influenced the decision at that time.
Since then it has become known that SDC is either replacing or adding IJP capacity to its QD/OLD line using Kateeva IJP to deposit quantum dot materials, with South Korea’s HB Solutions (297890.KS) as the provider of software that sits on the Kateeva tool, and delivery of the combined tool set is expected this month under a $10.2m contract with HBS.  SDC was said to have already purchased the Kateeva tool late last year and provided it to HBS for the software modification.  As HB Solutions made a $13.5m investment in Kateeva earlier this year and also purchased rights to additional Kateeva patents in the US, there was a point at which, if the deal between Kateeva and SDC did not go through, HB Solutions would become the owner of some of Kateeva’s collateralized patents, but it seems that any recent delays had little to do with Kateeva.
While it will take some time to bring the Kateeva tool into full production, we expect that the addition of this new IJP tool is part of the increased capacity SDC has been touting in relation to its QD/OLED fab.  Earlier yield issues are now assumed to be at least in part, related to the SEMES IJP tools, and the use of the Kateeva/HBS tool should allow SDC to bring QD/OLED yields even higher than the recent 85% rate that has been estimated.  The battle over who should supply IJP to the QD/OLED project has been going on since early 2020 (likely even before that date), and now seems finally resolved with Kateeva the winner after Kateeva had spent considerable capital developing the tool for SDC.  While SDC’’s original choice of the SEMES IJP tool almost cost Kateeva its existence, it seems SDC has had enough sense to admit they were wrong and make the change, something a bit less common than one might think in the display space.  All in, it is a positive for HBS and Kateeva, but more so for SDC, who needs to expand QD/OLED capacity with as little capital as possible. 

​Equipment bake-offs are a dangerous business, as the cost of developing and producing demos and then a working model of large display production equipment can be quite expensive, especially when it comes to a demanding customer such as Samsung Electronics.  Way back in July of 2020 we noted that Samsung (005930.KS) had been evaluating the ink-jet printing tools developed by Kateeva (pvt) and SEMES (009150.KS), a Samsung owned company that had been a supplier of display equipment to its parent, and had chosen SEMES as the provider of the IJP tools that it would be using to print quantum dot material under its new QD/OLED process.  This was a disruptive choice for Kateeva, pushing the company to fall back on its IJP encapsulation product development and focusing on Chinese panel producers who were expanding their OLED panel production.
Little was said concerning why Samsung made the choice, especially given that our information suggested that Kateeva’s tool had produced better results, but other factors prevailed, and while much of SEMES’s traditional display business was for sale, the IJP portion seemed to be headed for Samsung’s new QD/OLED fab, even as Kateeva’s price offer was said to be lower than SEMES’s.   As the QD/OLED fab has been sampling product for a few months, the SEMES tools continue to operate however problems seem to have occurred and there have been suggestions that SEMES is blaming the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the company’s R&D development organization that was said to have been part of the software development process for the equipment’s poor performance.
It seems that Samsung is now going to use Kateeva’s IJP tools for the QD deposition process, placing an order with HB Solutions (297890.KS), who will provide additional software to the Kateeva product and will service the tools.  HB Solutions is said to be developing its own IJP tools but at least for now will be the provider of the order for Kateeva.  No indication was given as to whether the SEMES tools will remain or be fully replaced by the Kateeva IJP tools, which are typically used for OLED encapsulation and Samsung is considering expanding QD/OLED production if the acceptance of the new technology is strong enough.  Should Samsung Display decide to expand production of the QD/OLED process, the question would then be whether they would go with Kateeva tools for the new lines or begin another bakeoff.  If the current scenario proves correct, we would expect Kateeva would have a strong shot as a primary IJP supplier.