​Back in 2015 Japan Display (6740.JP), Sony, and Panasonic (6752.JP) all contributed their OLED businesses to the formation of a combined entity known as JOLED (pvt), with Sony retaining some small panel OLED assets.  The venture was funded primarily by INCJ (Innovation Network Corporation of Japan), a partnership between the Japanese government and a number of major Japanese companies.  INCJ provided 75% of the funding with JDI 15%, Panasonic 5% and Sony 5% with the goal of utilizing Panasonic’s ink-jet printing technology and Sony’s OLED R&D to develop IJP OLED displays, with JDI announcing its intention to increase its stake to 50% in 2017, which unfortunately did not occur due to financial issues at JDI, but JOLED was able to raise an additional $400m in 2018 from a group led by automotive component provider Denso (6902.JP).
JOLED was the first display manufacturer to produce commercial displays using IJP and in early 2018 began shipping what were then high resolution medical displays, followed by a 21” monitor panel for ASUS (2357.TT) and a year later began producing IJP OLED panels from a fab in Nomi Japan and in 2020 TCL (000100.CH) took a 10.76% stake ($280m US) in JOLED in order to license the JOLED IJP technology to Chinastar (pvt), TCL’s display affiliate.   Unfortunately the supply contracts that JOLED has been able to secure have not been particularly large, making it difficult for the company to realize the cost benefits afford to IJP relative to other OLED deposition platforms, and while the company supplied the display for LG Electronica (066570.KS) first OLED monitor,  certainly a feather in its cap considering LG’s affiliate LG Display (LPL) is the premier producer of large panel OLED displays, volumes and yields have not been strong and deal with Lexus (LEXUS.IN) fell through after years of development when the company was unable to deliver product that met specifications.
A recent visit from the chairman of TCL and the announcement that Chinastar and JOLED are sharing IP to develop new products in addition to the 65” 8K OLED ink-jet printed TV that was jointly developed, gives some hope that TCL is serious about maintaining JOLED as a partner and could fund them further if necessary, but whether that means an additional stake in JOLED or a takeover of the entire company by TCL, JOLED seems to be in need of one of two things, financial aid or higher volume orders, and while TCL could certainly provide either or both, would that undermine Chinastar’s OLED efforts, which have been oriented toward developing enough expertise in the OLED space to gain entry into the Apple display supply chain.  We would expect some movement either way by the end of this year.

​Yesterday Chinastar (pvt), a subsidiary of TCL (000100.CH) ‘released’ two inkjet printed OLED displays, a 65” 8K and a 14” (4K?), a presage of what it hopes its most recent expansion plans will be part of.  On 11/2/21 we noted that Chinastar had petitioned the Shenzhen government to acquire land adjacent to its T6/T7 production fab in order to scale production, some of which would be for OLED.  With the release of these two IJP panels, it sets the tone for Chinastar to build at least one dedicated Gen 8 ink-jet printing line as part of that project, which would be China’s first IJP mass production line.  TCL has been working with Japan’s JOLED (pvt), in which it took a 10.76% stake last year, to develop the technology for mass production.  We target mass production for late 2023 to early 2024, but leave considerable room for delays, both from a process and a customer standpoint.
Chinastar is promoting IJP for OLED based on its belief that the process will allow for a cost/unit that is lower than that of the more typical OLED deposition process, with the expectation that OLED material utilization can be improved from ~60% to 90% using IJP and that the complexity of the process can be reduced, particularly not having to deposit materials in a vacuum.  While the theoretical metrics for IJP deposition are certainly promising, moving from a pilot line to a high volume mass production environment has proven more difficult and time consuming than originally thought, and while IJP is used for OLED encapsulation, it is still being developed for material deposition.  Samsung Display (pvt) is using IJP for process steps in its push toward mass production of QD/OLED displays and much work is being done on the deposition of quantum dots for a number of applications, but even Chinastar says it is studying the customer and product introduction schedules to determine the details of what IJP large panel mass production would look like.
JOLED itself does produce OLED displays ranging from 12.3” to 32” including some IJP models, although they tend to be for specialized applications.  JOLED does run an IJP line, using IJP technology from Panasonic (6752.JP), one of the two (Sony (SNE)) was the other) companies whose OLED divisions were merged to form JOLED in 2015, however we expect Chinastar’s and TCL’s plans are to bring IJP OLED production to a more massive scale in order to compete with LG Display’s OLED TV domination.  Again, in theory it makes sense, but the practical application of the technology on a more massive scale has taken years longer than originally expected, not only because of the hardware, but also due to the modification of materials necessary for IJP itself.  In order to compete with vacuum OLED deposition processes, such soluble materials must exhibit the same characteristics as their evaporative counterparts, which has also proved challenging.