Over the last few years quantum dots have become a significant part of display infrastructure and have been one of two factors that have led to the ability of LCD technology to extend its dominance over newer display modes.  The addition of quantum dots to LCD displays, particularly in the TV space, has increased specifications for such displays, at a relatively low cost both from a product and manufacturing standpoint, and has given display brands a new product tier and substantial product differentiation. 
That said, we are in unparalleled times in the display industry, with a number of new display technologies surfacing that are all vying for a dominant place in the display world.  Mini-LED based displays, essentially a typical LCD display with an LED backlight on steroids, is the ‘other’ of the two technologies that has extended the life of LCD technology by improving this older technology’s contrast (The difference between pure black and pure white), a weakness that makes LCD technology less comparable to newer self-emitting technologies such as OLED.  
OLED has gone from a novelty in 2013 to the mainstay of small panel displays and while still a niche product in the TV space (<5% of total TV unit volume), it is a key technology in the lucrative premium display market.  As a self-emissive display mode, RGB OLED allows for ultimate control over each sub-pixel, generating almost infinite contrast, but large panel OLED displays are subject to two basic limitations, the first being an inability to manufacture TV size RGB OLED displays, and second, limitations on the brightness of the display.  OLED TVs use a combination of yellow/green and blue OLED emitters to create a white light that is made up of red, green, and blue light components, but in order to create the three colors necessary for an RGB display that white light must pass through a color filter, essentially a sheet of red, green, and blue dots.  Each dot will filter out two colors (for example a ‘blue’ dot will filter out red and green, while a red dot will filter out blue and green) which reduces the amount of light that is generated by the device.
OLED materials continue to improve and improvements in light extraction materials can also help to increase WOLED light output, but Samsung Display (pvt), the leader in small panel OLED, has been developing another approach that combines the properties of self-emitting OLED materials and those of quantum dots.  Yesterday Sony (SNE) announced that it would be releasing a 4K TV (Bravia XR A95K) later this year that is based on a QD/OLED panel produced by SDC, however while this is a major step for SDC, missing from the show was an announcement from parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) that it would also be releasing a QD/OLED TV.  While we expect that this omission was more of a tactical issue than a technology related one, Samsung’s approval and purchase of such panels are an absolute necessity for SDC, who must make the decision as to whether to expand QD/OLED production, which is currently capped at a maximum of 30,000 sheets/month. 
Without this additional potential demand SDC has little or no large panel TV display product, leaving Samsung Electronics to buy all of its TV panels from competitors and leaving SDC only able to compete in the small panel market, but Samsung Electronics must also consider where a QD/OLED TV might fit into their TV line , which already consists of pure LCD TVs at the low end, quantum dot enhanced LCD TVs at the mid-tier, quantum dot LCD+Mini-LED TVs at the top tier, and Micro-LED TVs at the ultra-high premium level. 
Rumors that Samsung is considering buying WOLED panels from LG Display (LPL) add another potential TV price class, so QD/OLED must find a place in what is a rather complex TV line-up at Samsung, and the marketing of each category is carefully considered by Samsung, who is the leader in the TV set space.  We expect Samsung Electronics to offer one or both OLED types, potentially using WOLED as a low-end OLED offering and QD/OLED as a high end OLED offering, but much will depend on SDC’s ability to keep the cost of QD/OLED panels in a range that allows Samsung these options, and with true mass production just beginning, it is likely that the focus at SDC is resolving potential yield issues rather than refining production costs.  Given the number of moving parts in such product decisions, while we were a bit surprised that Samsung did not make a specific announcement, we expect it will happen this year.
 

​As the release of Samsung’s (005930.KS) Quantum Dot/OLED TV nears (likely at CES in January), Samsung Display (pvt) has released a promo slide show extolling the virtues of the technology, albeit mostly a simple comparison against LCD technology.  Since the promo was in Korean, we translated the 10 slides and put them in a PowerPoint below.

The CEO of Samsung Display (pvt) spent some time with the company’s executives and employees discussing the company’s achievements and future plans, during which he gave some specifics as to the status of the company’s QD/OLED display project.  He indicated that mass production was to begin at the end of this month, with 55” and 65” displays, but also a 34” monitor, which was a bit unexpected. Since the production fab is a Gen 8.5 line, 55” panels are quite efficiently produced, while 65” panels less so, but the fab is said to be using an MMG process, which allows for different size panels to be produced from a single Gen 8.5 substrate.  The 34” panel size would increase the efficiency of the less efficient panel size production.
Yield, at the initial production point was ~33%, which is to be expected given both the process and the fab are new.  The utilization is expected to increase as production ramps, which should increase yield in the short term according to the company.  The fab, which is Asan, South Korea, has a maximum capacity of 30,000 sheets/month when running at full utilization.  As we have noted previously, Samsung is expected to show at least a prototype at CES 2022 in January, although no formal release date for the actual product has been set.  SDC has been sampling product to parent Samsung Electronics, and to Sony (SNE), both of whom are expected to release QD/OLED product in 2022.

Simply put, there were only two special deals offered by Samsung (005930.KS) for their 2021 Mini-LED/QD and QD only TVs.  Based on prices tallied on 11/9/21, again on Black Friday, and today (Cyber-Monday), prices on all the TVs in the Mini-LED/QD and QD only lines, which includes sets from 98” to 32” and between $15,000 and $400, differed only on Samsung’s 43” 4Q QD TV (60A), which dropped from $600 to $500 and the similar 32” QD only model, which dropped from $450 to $400.  Other than those two changes at the very bottom of the line, prices remained the same as they were pre-holiday, other than one model, an 85” 4K QD set that increased in price by $100.
Of the 35 TV sets in our survey, 33 are still at their lowest price point since they were introduced in late May of this year.  As the charts are almost the same as our last posting, we will show the initial price, the current value, the change, and the corresponding value/in2 of the Samsung Mini-LED/QD and QD only TV line in the table below.  We note the 98” 90A ($15,000) is essentially an ‘on order’ set and the 90A 43” ($1,300) is in short supply and is not available in all regions.  We have highlighted the best ‘value’ (cost/in2) in each category.

Samsung Display’s (pvt) QD/OLED project is a game changer for SDC, who has moved away from generic LCD TV production over the last three years.  The project, which has developed a process for producing a blue OLED emitting platform that gets partially converted to red and green using quantum dots, creating an RGB pixel, is a process that would require new production facilities that are specific to the technology.  As this process does not require a color filter, it has the technical ability to be brighter and less expensive when compared to the WOLED process currently used by LG Display (LPL) to produce OLED TV panels.  While the structure for QD/OLED is different from typical RGB OLED displays, the basic OLED stack still has the same materials that surround the emitter that help to generate light, such as HTL (Hole transport layer), ETL (Electron Transport Layer), HIL (Hole Injection Layer), and EIL (Electron Injection Layer), along with blocking layers and an anode and cathode.  One new material that has been said to be included in the QD/OLED stack is called ‘filler’ and while it seems more like it might be akin to cereal by-products that have little nutritional value but add bulk, it serves a purpose that adds to the structure’s ability to produce light.

Such a structure, as seen in Fig. 2, uses a high refractive material as the filler and an encapsulation material, however much of the light is reflected internally, so the OLED stacks (#42 in Fig. 2) are surrounded by a bank of material that sends the internally reflected light out of the display rather than being trapped internally.   While the concept of structures that extract light from displays is certainly not new, it seems this concept is being built into SDC’s QD/OLED process directly, making the ‘filler’ part of the display structure for the first time.  We believe Solus Advanced Materials (336370.KS) (formerly Doosan Solus) is the supplier of the filler material, creating a new category of materials to the QD/OLED stack, and while the use of fillers will depend on how easily the structures can be built and how effective they are in capturing light, we expect Solas to join other QD/OLED material suppliers such as SFC (JV between SDC and Hodogaya Chemical (4112.JP), Duksan Neolux (077360.KS), and Merck (MRK).
​

As we have previously noted, Samsung Display (pvt) has been shipping samples of its Quantum Dot/OLED display panels to parent Samsung Electronics and other potential customers for evaluation, with the hope that they will find enough demand to justify the production of such panels at their Q1 fab in Asan, South Korea.  While the project has faced an initial lack of enthusiasm from Samsung Electronics, more recently the project seems to have been accepted wholly, with SDC committing to starting production in November and sets shown at CES 2022 in early January.
While we are optimistic about the prospects for QD/OLED, we are a bit conservative in what we believe can be produced in 2022, based on production limitations and yield more than demand.  We expect production to be 1.32m units over the next 14 months ending 12/22, with 1.28m being produced in 2022 itself.  We base these estimates on capacity and yield, using 55” and 65” displays only, as these are a logical combination using MMG (Multi-mode glass) on a Gen 8.5 line.  When actual set shipments will begin and where the sets will be released is still quite speculative, and we note that our estimates are a bit lower than most we have seen.

​As we have noted previously, Samsung Display (pvt) has made a bet on a new display process using both quantum dots and OLED materials.  The QD/OLED process would coat a substrate with a blue OLED emitter and use quantum dots to shift the blue color to red and green to produce RGB pixels.  By shifting the blue light, the concept would avoid a color filter, with is currently used in OLED TVs and reduces the intensity of each sub-pixel by filtering out other colors.  Quantum dots however ‘shift’ rather than filter the light and change the color at a higher efficiency level.  SDC has also been examining a path that substitutes quantum dot nano-rods for the blue OLED material, and converting the nano-rod blue color to RGB with QDs.
Samsung Display is expected to start QD/OLED (or some variant) by the end of this year and has delivered sample product to parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Sony (SNE), potential customers for a commercial product, and while actual production in 2022 is expected to be relatively limited, SDC is expected to build out its QD/OLED production capacity next year in its Q1 fab in Korea, as other brands have expressed interest in the potential product.  The risk to SDC is substantial as there has been some controversy as to whether Samsung Electronics is on board with the technology, but SDC must eventually be able to produce large panel displays using some form of non-LCD technology to maintain its status as a major panel producer.  Without large panel production, SDC would be left to the vagaries of the small panel OLED market with a side business of OLED IT panels, so it is imperative that SDC find a viable large panel product to replace the LCD assets it has sold or idled.
Behind SDC’s risk issues also lies establishing a supply chain for the QD/OLED product, which entails convincing support companies to build out capacity to meet potential demand for QD/OLED.  Given the early stage of SDC’s QD/OLED product, one would expect this to be a difficult task given that SDC cannot provide an absolute guarantee that the product will be adopted by brands and if so, at what volumes, but that does not seem to have deterred CU-Tech (376290.KS), a supplier of PC boards, who announced last night that it will build 5 new production lines dedicated to SDC’s QD/OLED displays.  The company said it will build three of those lines in 2023 and two more in 2024, which is specific enough to assume that they have been in discussion with SDC as to a potential capacity expansion timeline.  According to management, when the five lines are completed, they will be able to produce ~600,000 units/month consisting of two source boards and a controller board. 
This would indicate that SDC has estimated a production run rate of between 7m and 7.2m QD/OLED units in 2024, an optimistic view three years out, considering that an un-yielded 30,000 sheet/month line would be capable of producing ~ 1m 65” units/year.  The implication would be that SDC would have to build out a full 45,000 sheet line twice a year through 2024 and run the combined operation at 80% yield in order to generate enough units.  That is a tall order even for Samsung Display, especially with little actual mass production cost data on which to rely.  That said, SDC has always taken risks when it comes to new technology, so while this is a big step to take on its own, we wouldn’t put it past SDC to make such a commitment.

​In our 8/10/21 note we mentioned that South Korean tool vendor Wonik (240810.KS) had been competing with ICD (040910.KS) and Tokyo Electron (8035.JP) in developing a dry etcher product for Samsung Display’s (pvt) potential large panel RGB OLED project.  It seems that Wonik has won the competition, but not for the SDC large panel RGB OLED project, as the tool has been approved for SDC’s QD/OLED project, which has a stated capacity of 30,000 sheets/month.  The newly approved tool is used during the TFT production process, but the current line, which has yet to begin mass production, is using dry etch tools from both ICD and Tokyo Electron, so the expansion of the QD/OLED project will be the stimulus for Wonik actually selling its new tool.  
Much will depend on the success of the QD/OLED displays with parent Samsung Electronics, who has had an on-again/off-again view of the technology.  SDC has also been considering shifting its QD/OLED technology to quantum nano-rods, which, if done, would delay the etcher sales further, although the process at the TFT level is similar.  The competition between dry etcher companies for SDC’s large panel RGB OLED project continues, although the status of the project itself remains dependent on the ability of SDC and deposition tool partner Ulvac (6728.JP) to finalize a mass production vertical deposition tool that will allow for fine metal mask RGB large panel production without the size limitations that currently limit RGB OLED to Gen 6 fabs.
 

​Samsung Display (pvt) has been working on the development of QD/OLED technology for years and much of the recent speculation about the potential commercialization of same has been focus on when production will begin and when consumers will be able to purchase sets using the technology.  There has been considerable nuance from prognosticators, some saying production has begun and sets using the technology will be out before the end of this year, while others say that actual production will not start until later this year, with a product release some time in 1H ’22.  Samsung Display has not made any official comments about the new process, but recently a number of low-tier blogs have picked up on the fact that Samsung Display’s corporate site has, in the quantum dot section of their site, a picture titled “Blue self-luminescence”, which they have decided means SDC is readying their QD/OLED product.
Along with that ‘revelation’, Korean firm UBI noted that based on the scheduling for the CES in 2022 (January) they expect an official announcement from Samsung (Display or Electronics) at the show and a release in the 1st half of the 2022 year.  Citing an additional article in the Korean Economic Daily (which is also based on the same information), the blogs have suddenly decided that something new and exciting is going to emanate from Samsung in the near future.  As it turns out the “Blue self-luminescence” panel that is shown on the SDC site does not specifically indicate that it is an OLED panel, but just that it generates its own blue light which leaves open the idea that it could be OLED or LED nano-rods or micro-LEDs, so we see this sudden ‘new information’ as nothing new unless you are new to the display space. 
As we have noted in a number of previous notes, we believe SDC is producing QD/OLED panels for evaluation, which means they go to potential customers who test the panels and make suggestions as to how to improve or make the panels more practical for commercial use.  When SDC believes it has met the bulk of both its internal goals and those of its potential customers, it will produce a ‘final’ panel and potential customers will test and make a final decision on whether they will place orders.  Either Samsung Display or Samsung Electronics (hopefully the later) will show a QD/OLED or QD/Nano device at CES 2022, but the timeline is no different today than it was yesterday, despite the blog headlines. 

While there has been considerable speculation about the status of Samsung Display’s (pvt) QD/OLED project and even more speculation about the technology being developed, on a general basis there were two paths for the development to take.  The first (simplified) is based on a substrate coated with a blue OLED emitting material and a color filter with quantum dot (red/green) converters.  In this mode the blue light generated from the OLED emitter, which is controlled by an active matrix TFT system similar to what is used in OLED TVs, reaches the color filter, which is configured as three sub-pixels in each pixel, all being individually controlled by the TFT.  In the case of two of the sub pixels, the blue light is converted into red and green, while the third sub-pixel is essentially a ‘clear’ window, allowing the blue light through.
This system differs in two ways from the approach that LG Display, the leading OLED TV panel supplier, uses for their TVs, which use two OLED layers (green/yellow and blue) that when combined generate white light.  That white light then passes to a color filter that uses red, green, and blue phosphors to filter out two of the three primary colors in white light to form red, green, and blue sub-pixels.  The important distinction here is that the ‘new’ QD/OLED process uses only one OLED color (blue), while the LGD process uses two and that the phosphors in the LGD color filter are ‘subtractive’, in that they remove two of the three color components and let only one through.  Logic holds that when you remove components of white light you wind up with a ‘less bright’ light, which has been a criticism of OLED TVs since their inception.  The ‘newer’ process uses quantum dots in the color filter, which are not subtractive but are able to shift the frequency of the light (meaning color), maintaining much of its brightness.  This should allow for an overall brighter display.
But SDC did not stop there and continued to look for other alternatives, particularly as blue OLED materials are not phosphorescent and inherently generate considerably less light than those that are phosphorescent (red and green).  SDC came up with the idea of using what are known as nano-rods that are essentially very small LED ‘tubes’ that emit blue light.  By substituting these nano-rods for the blue OLED material they were able to overcome the lower light output issue that was present in the alternative technology.
There is a problem however in that such nano-structures must be grown in place, must be vertically oriented, and must have an equal number in each sub-pixel.  If a nano-rod is not vertical it will short other rods and the sub-pixel will fail.  If the number of nano-rods in a pixel is greater or less than required, that sub-pixel will be brighter or darker than the rest, causing non-uniformity, a definite no-no in the display space.  In order to compensate for these issues SDC has had to added ‘electrodes’ that ‘sense’ whether a nano-rod is ‘aligned’ and can also be used to adjust the brightness of the sub-pixel if it has too many or too few nano-rods, but all of these checks and balances add up to complexity, which adds up to cost.
That said, the goal at SDC is to be able to produce a large display that has better overall image quality than current OLED TVs, and according to some, nano-rod based displays fit that bill, however when it comes to displays, there has to be a visible path to large scale production that is cost effective, and while few new display technologies have such a clear view when in the early stages of mass production, there has to be a realistic vision of how long it will take to become viable and profitable.  OLED TV panel production, at current volume levels, is just becoming profitable for LG Display, after almost nine years in production (albeit pilot line production in the early years), so the complexity of SDC’s nano-rod technology must be evaluated in the same way. 
Given that the company has committed significant resources to its development and has allocated dedicated capacity for its production, SDC is certainly willing to give it a chance, and if successful will build out that capacity, but despite those who support  the technology, there is considerable distance between generating the technology on a limited basis and producing a few million or so panels per year, and we likely will not see anything on a commercial level until 2022 to be able to judge both quality and generate a cost curve, although the saying “No guts, no glory” is certainly a valid one in this case.