The display industry is big on numbers, with one of the more important metrics being fab production capacity but a fab’s stated capacity (say 30,000 sheets/month) actually has little to do with what the fab actually produces and represents a theoretical number that is in most cases a maximum.  The most obvious factor that affects actual production vs. stated capacity is yield, which varies widely from product to product, production experience, and equipment performance at various stages of the display production process.  For OLED displays, the production process can be divided into three segments, the first being the production of the TFT (Thin-film transistor) circuitry that triggers the OLED materials to produce light, the second being the deposition of OLED materials on a substrate, and the third being encapsulating the materials and making electrical connections.
We note that TFT production is typically done on a line that is separate from the deposition line, typically run in parallel to the deposition line, and an early point at which actual production capacity begins to fall below that stated maximum is the time it takes to produce the TFT against the time it takes to produce the second step, the deposition of OLED materials.  The TFT process tends to have a shorter end-to-end process time than the deposition line, as it is based on process tools used in semiconductor manufacturing that are widely available, while OLED deposition tools are quite specific to the industry and produced by few equipment vendors, such as Sunic Systems (171090.KS), Canon-Tokki (CAJ), Dai Nippon Printing (7912.JP), and Screen Holdings (7735.JP).  Potential bottlenecks occur when TFT production must wait for the deposition process, reducing overall fab efficiency, although given the three potential TFT types used for OLED displays (LTPS, IGZO, LTPO[1]), each with its on process steps and complexity, TFT process time can vary considerably depending on the product specifications.
There are a number of steps that occur before a substrate gets to the deposition line, including detailed optical inspection, a number of cleaning steps, the coating of a layer of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) that will become the anode of the OLED stack, and laminating the flexible substrate to a rigid glass sheet to keep it stable during processing.  The substrates are loaded into a robotic system that performs additional cleaning and then moved by another robot to a chamber that deposits HIL (Hole-Injection Layer) materials.  When that process is completed the robot moves the substrate to another chamber where HTL materials (Hole Transport Layer) are deposited, followed by three individual steps where red, green, and blue OLED materials re deposited.  Each of these deposition steps is done through a fine metal mask, essentially a screen that keeps each pixel or sub-pixel spaced correctly.  Following the deposition of the three OLED emitters, the substrate moves to chambers that deposit ETL (Electron Transport Layer) and EIL (Electron Injection Layer) materials.
We note that all of these deposition processes must take place in a non-reactive atmosphere, which is commonly Nitrogen, as exposure to even minute amounts of oxygen or water vapor will erode OLED materials and cause the substrate to be discarded, and a number of processes are done under high vacuum conditions, so there is considerable cycle time for reducing pressure and heating chambers for each step.  Once the substrate has completed these steps it remains in the enclosed atmosphere and is encapsulated either with a sheet of glass sealed with glass frit[2] or through the deposition of alternating layers of transparent organic and inorganic materials.
The deposition system shown in Figure 1 is designed for Gen 2 substrates which are 1.87 ft2, which allows the chambers to be relatively small.  Typical OLED production systems are designed to handle Gen 6 substrates, which are 29.86 ft2, although such substrates are typically processed after being cut in half or in quarters, keeping the chamber size as small as possible.  These systems cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on the configuration and given the small number of suppliers, lead times are between 9 months and 18 months, so considerable planning is needed to get the equipment to a new line and brought up to production specifications, but more importantly is cycle time, which in the case of the tool below is between 3 to 5 minutes/substrate for a single stack structure of this size, and that does not consider any additional layers that particular producers add to differentiate their product.  Such a system can run almost continuously for ~5 days, at which point chambers must be cleaned and masks replaced, at which point the system has to be restarted, recalibrated, and tested before it is put back in production.
Even this cursory OLED process explanation shows the many points at which the process tact time can get extended, reducing output based on the equipment and process alone, and then comes yield, which is the variable that can be the difference between an OLED fab being profitable or not profitable.  Once the OLED displays come out of the encapsulation process, they are tested.  This is done visually (automated) where physical defects are tagged, electrically, to make sure each sub-pixel is able to turn on and off, and characteristically, where luminance, color point, and uniformity are checked.  Some discrepancies that appear between sub-pixels can be corrected by adjusting electrical values, while others cause the OLED panel to fail and be binned for possible repair.  OLED process engineers look for problems that are causing panels to fail testing procedures, and whether they are ‘one-time’ issues or whether they are recurring, and if they are recurring, is it an problem that is occurring at the same point in each display or more random. 
By assessing the test data engineers can determine the source of the problem and make adjustments quickly in order to maintain acceptable yields, especially at the beginning of a new product run or near the end of a use/clean cycle, and when one looks at an OLED line that is capable of producing 15,000 Gen 6 substrates/month or ~1 55” panel/minute, every 1% drop in yield equals ~$73,000/ month in lost sales[3].  It is therefore incumbent on OLED panel producers to watch and improve yields regardless of product in order to achieve profitability.  But what if you have already improved yields and you are still below the quota needed to supply customers?  Typically panel producers begin planning for a new fab, which is an 18 to 20 month process and costs upwards of $3b, a solution that is acceptable on a long-term basis but does little in the near-term.  That said, Samsung Display (pvt) has come up with another, far less expensive solution that goes a long way toward solving the problem.
Samsung Display has developed a large panel display production process that combines the positive aspects of OLED materials and those of quantum dots.  By using quantum dots to shift the color of blue/green OLED emitters to red and green, they avoid the use of a color filter that reduces the light output of WOLED displays produced by LG Display (LPL).  The process is new and still being refined, even as the company is in production, but SDC’s concern (and that of their customers who are Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), Sony (SNE), Dell (DELL), and MSI (2377.TT)) was that they would not be able to produce enough QD/OLED displays to satisfy customer demand, as they have a single Gen 8 production fab for this new product line.  This was especially onerous when the line first went into production as yields were ~50%, meaning they tossed one panel for every two they produced, but SDC was able to bring that yield up to an acceptable 85% by mid-year.  However bringing yields from 50% to 85% is far easier than bringing it from 85% to 90% and that difference in unit volume would not be enough to fill the product gap they see coming, so SDC is working to change the other variable in their QD/OLED production process, that of tact time.
According to sources in South Korea, Samsung Display has set the goal of increasing output of its QD/OLED line by 30% by the end of the year by reducing bottlenecks that keep tact time high.  This would imply a similar reduction in tact time, not an easy task, but one where SDC has the advantage of being the only producer of QD/OLED and has had more experience with RGB OLED production than any other OLED supplier, including LG Display, who is the only global supplier of WOLED TV panels.  As the WOLED process uses conventional phosphors to filter the white OLED light into primary colors, the process differs from SDC’s large panel QD/OLED process, and from the basic RGB OLED process described above, but Samsung’s expertise and close connection to its OLED equipment suppliers gives them the opportunity to increase volume and sales without building out new capacity in the near-term, albeit a short-term solution. 
We expect that SDC has already made the decisions necessary to begin planning for additional QD/OLED capacity, although this has not been an ideal time to be making such plans, which will likely be implemented in one of the company’s shuttered LCD fabs, but as noted this will take considerable time, so such an interim solution is like adding half of a 15k production line for free and one that likely put SDC upper management and that of parent Samsung Electronics in a happier state of mind, something in short supply across the CE space currently.  Now they have 128 days in which to do it…


[1] LTPS – Low Temperature Poly-silicon
IGZO – Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (aka ‘Oxide’)
LTPO – Low Temperature Poly-silicon Oxide

[2]  Glass frit – a low melting point glass powder mixture that can be used to seal or bond glass to glass or other materials, essentially a glass solder.

[3] Assuming a generously low $160 cash cost

The CEO of Samsung Display (pvt), affiliate of Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), indicated that it will be building a Gen 8 OLED fab in its production complex in Asan, South Korea, designed for the production of IT OLED panels.  As we have noted previously (8/16/21, 06/30/22,5/26/22), the construction of such a facility has been rumored, particularly as SDC has been developing specialized OLED deposition equipment with tool supplier Ulvac (6728.JP) that will help overcome the physical limitations that restrict the use of fine metal masks to Gen 6 OLED fabs.  Fine metal masks are used to pattern OLED emitter materials on rigid or flexible substrates but begin to sag, causing defects, when they are used above Gen 6.  The new process that SDC is developing places the deposition chamber and the masks vertically, rather than horizontally, keeping gravity from deforming the masks.
We expect the fab will be built in the L8 building, where SDC formerly had two large LCD fabs, producing up to 350,000 sheets/month at its peak, or the equivalent of 25.2m 55” LCD TV panels/year.  SDC closed the first line in 2019, sold the equipment to Chinese LCD module producer Shenzhen Efonlong (pvt), and since built the production line for the company’s QD/OLED display products in that location.  While no specific details about the new fab’s capacity were given, the company is expected to begin production on the new line in 2024, which will improve the efficiency of OLED panel production for IT products (monitors and notebooks), which are currently being produced on less efficient Gen 6 OLED fabs at SDC.  This would coincide with Apple’s (AAPL) rumored plans to move the iPad from LCD to OLED displays in that year.
The OLED IT category is small relative to OLED smartphones, watches, and TVs, but represents a less competitive category and rapid growth. Current estimates see OLED monitor revenue growing from $57m last year to over $200m this year, although that includes QD/OLED and OLED notebooks growing almost 40% in sales y/y and over 60% in units.  The chairman also indicated that SDC would be pursuing two forms of micro-displays, micro-OLED and micro-LED, neither of which comes as much of a surprise considering Samsung’s micro-LED commercial products are already available albeit at extremely high prices.  The indication was that the company will be in mass production of micro-displays in the 2024 year along with the Gen 8 OLED IT line, which musts some significant milestones for SDC over the two years.  While SDC management did not indicate the cost of these projects, the Gen 8 fab alone is estimated to cost between $2.3b and $3b, and we would expect that the OLED micro-displays would be produced on silicon, which would entail a dedicated production line. 
All in, these are big projects but necessary for SDC to maintain its leadership role in the RGB OLED space and compete for micro-LED commercialization with Chinese panel producers, who have also been making such investments.  While 2023 will be a year primarily dedicated to more traditional OLED products, which are increasingly influenced by macro factors, 2024 and 2025 will be years in which SDC is able to expand its display product line, particularly with new premium priced display products that will lessen its exposure to competition from Chinese panel producers.  There are still a large number of roadblocks to overcome but it is nice to have the backing of one of the world’s largest CE companies when it comes to taking such chances.

Back in February (02/23/22 & 02/25/22) we noted that Samsung Display had decided to vary the OLED materials it used to produce displays for the Galaxy S22 series of smartphones, using its M10 materials for the lower priced S22 and switching to the newer M11 material set for the Galaxy S22 Plus and the Galaxy S22 Ultra displays.  While the difference to the average customer would likely be almost impossible to notice, the basis for the divergence in OLED material sets is based on cost, particularly the cost of emitter materials, those that actually produce the RGB light that we see.  The red and green emitters used in OLED displays are produced and licensed to display producers by Universal Display (OLED), while the blue fluorescent emitter materials are produced by SFC (112240.KS) and Idemitsu Kosan (5019.JP).
As we have noted in the past, UDC charges for those materials based on long-term contractual agreements that are based on material volumes, with the price/kilogram declining as volumes reach various trigger points until the reach a ‘terminal’ rate that remains the same for the life of the material.  This implies that ‘newer’ material stacks would be more expensive until the necessary higher volumes are reached, while older material stacks would be less expensive.  That said, this would also mean that Samsung would have to dedicate a particular deposition line to a specific Galaxy S series model so as not to have to change deposition tool settings, and that would only happen if overall model volumes remain high enough to justify dedicating a line to that model, as it does with the Galaxy S series products.
It seems that Samsung Display has convinced Apple that such a split process is also a viable cost savings measure for the iPhone 14 displays it will be producing.  Not only will SDC be using an LTPO (Low-temperature poly-Oxide) backplane that will allow for a higher refresh rate without higher power consumption, but will be using a newer (M12) material set for the display stack for the 6.1” iPhone Pro and 6.7” Pro Max and the M11 material stack for the 6.1” iPhone 14 and the new iPhone 14 Max in order to remain price competitive against LG Display and BOE, who will be supplying displays for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max.  While SDC is the primary provider of LTPO displays to Apple for the iPhone 14, the company faces considerable price competition from BOE and LGD for the iPhone 14 LTPS models and while the difference in OLED stacks might seem negligible to most consumers, when multiplied across some 80m units that Samsung is expected to supply, it can help to offset the price effect from the lower margins that BOE is likely to settle for in order to develop its OLED display relationship with Apple.

​The headlines in a South Korean tech paper indicated that a research firm had discovered that Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) was selling its 65” QD/OLED TV (S95B) at a price $200 below that of its main competitor LG Electronics (066590.KS) 65” W-OLED TV (Model G2), which would imply Samsung is willing to keep this new technology priced as a direct alternative to LG’s OLED TV products, regardless of how LG prices its comparative products.  With the original 65” QD/OLED price of $3,000, Samsung has already reduced the price, which remains at $2,600 on their website and within a few dollars of that more major retailers.  That said, we did find one on-line vendor that was offering the unit for an unusually low price of $2,049 out of Hollywood, Florida, although neither sales nor support lines seem to be working.
While we do expect that Samsung will try to remain competitive with LG’s OLED TV offerings with LG’s G2 series priced at $1,999 (55”) and $2,599 (65”), we were unable to find the offer mentioned in the trade press, although we expect there will be a few ‘door buster’ type sales over the next few months that might get the price a bit below the LG range, but we expect Samsung has built-in some substantial controls as to how the QD/OLED TVs are priced in order not to create unfair competition between vendors.  We believe it is frowned upon for brands to officially lock retailers into a price but we know of a number of instances where large brands have castigated those who beak the ‘suggested’ price points.  We do expect that Samsung will have some room to lower QD/OLED prices as it improves yield, and we would expect the company is still experimenting with how it is going to present the new technology from a pricing standpoint, so there might be a point where Samsung is willing to sell for little or no margin to make sure it sells out the targeted number of units before year end.  We are still watching…

Samsung Display (pvt), an affiliate of Samsung Electronics, was once the large producer of LCD display panels[1], then competing with South Korean rival LG Display (LPL) for supremacy in that market.  While much of SDC’s revenue came from its parent, Samsung Display was a major global large panel LCD supplier to the industry. But as can be seen in Figure 1, SDC’s focus moved away from large panel LCD display production and more toward higher value small panel OLED displays, where the company still dominates.
  In 2020 the company made a formal decision to end its large panel LCD production business by the end of that year, and sold its Gen 8.5 fab in Suzhou, China to Chinastar (pvt), while taking a 12% stake in the company, but postponed the closing of large panel LCD production facilities in South Korea at the behest of parent Samsung Electronics.  While sustaining a single large panel LCD fab during 2021as panel prices increased, SDC maintained it goal of exits the large panel LCD display business but used existing fab infrastructure to add small panel  OLED capacity or to develop a production line for its proprietary QD/OLED panel process, which has begun production.
As large panel LCD prices began to decline last July, it became inevitable that SDC would finalize its plans and close that fab, although the moratorium was extended into this year.  As large panel LCD prices continue to decline it becomes more critical for SDC to close their last large panel fab as panel prices approach cash costs, which is the case currently, and sales for SDC’s large panel LCD segment declined to only $7m in April, down from $65m in January and a peak of 2.13b in March of 2012.   Given the declining panel price and the reduced production assumed, we would expect the fab to be closed by the end of 2Q.
According to local Korean press, Samsung Display employees (at least those 37 years old or less) can apply to be transferred to the chip packaging business of parent Samsung Electronics, which operates under a different division.  300 such positions are being offered to the ~1,000 SDC employees still working at the L8 LCD fab, which will take some time to wind down.  Staff will be needed to secure the equipment, which could be sold to smaller producers, with some potentially held until SDC decides what it will do with the idle space. 
SDC has been developing plans to produce Gen 8 OLED panels using a vertical deposition process that would allow for RGB patterning rather than the WOLED process used by LG Display, or the fab can be converted to additional capacity for the QD/OLED process, which currently stands at 30,000 Gen 8.5 sheets/year, a relatively small production volume level, but we expect plans to be finalized for the fab in July if it goes toward QD/OLED, as that conversion would likely take 9 to 12 months, giving SDC enough time to increase QD/OLED production for the 2023 holiday season, although that is a bit speculative on our part.  All in, SDC should be out of the large panel LCD business within the next 30 to 45 days.


[1] By Sales

​The same South Korean trade publication that we noted in our 5/4/2022 note was hinting that BOE (200725.CH) was in the Apple penalty box over changes made to circuit design without Apple’s permission, is back with similar speculation that BOE’s display production participation in the iPhone 14 could be reduced or eliminated, even after BOE officials visited Apple’s headquarters to plead their case.  A number of scenarios are presented in the most recent article by the South Korean media source, the most extreme being that BOE’s 30m unit OLED display order (6.1” panels) would be given to Samsung Display (pvt) (20m) and LG Display (LPL) (10m), who are already expected to be producing the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max displays in late June or early July, and that BOE would be limited to producing legacy iPhone (12 & 13) OLED displays for the remainder of this year, likely a total of 20m units, 10m of which have already been produced.  Less aggressive scenarios push back BOE’s iPhone 14 OLED display production until early next year and limit it to 10m units, assuming that they are fully reinstated by Apple by the end of this year.
As we noted previously, BOE struggled during 2021 to pass the stringent qualification requirements that Apple imposes on its OLED display producers and was given legacy OLED replacement screens initially as a test to make sure the company was able to meet yield goals.  This was then advanced to producing actual iPhone 13 and 1`4 OLED displays when BOE finally was able to qualify production, but within a relatively short time the story of BOE’s design change seemed to indicate that BOE was in the penalty box with Apple and had been suspended from further production, leading to a drop off in BOE’s flexible OLED unit volumes in February and March (unconfirmed). 
Given the source for this most recent speculation is South Korean, where both SDC and LGD reside, and that the Chinese trade press has made innumerable statements about how BOE’s inclusion in the Apple OLED display supply chain marks the end of South Korea’s domination of the OLED business, we are reticent to take it at face value until the data becomes available.  It would be surprising for a panel producer to make a change in design, even for a legacy product without getting approval or qualification from the customer, especially Apple, but it is certainly possible that such a change was made and is now causing BOE to bear the consequences.  Any negative scenario will hold back BOE from becoming a primary supplier, as can be seen from the years it took for LG Display to gain full OLED display qualification at Apple after it failed to meet production quotas back in 2019.

​There are two basic types of OLED displays.  RGB (red, green, blue) displays that are made up of pixels that contain red, green, and blue sub-pixels, and WOLED displays, which consist of blue and yellow/green layers that combine to form white light, which is then converted into reed, green, and blue sub-pixels through a color filter.  As we have noted previously, Samsung Display (pvt) has developed another type of OLED display that is based on a blue and green OLED layer that is converted into more precise red, green, and blue sub-pixels using quantum dots.  While this is a highly simplified picture of these OLED structures, there is a nuance that is quite important and that is the actual OLED materials used to create these displays.
There are two general types of OLED emitting materials, fluorescent and phosphorescent, and while those terms both encompass light-emitting materials, they are quite different.  While both materials generate light when electrically stimulated fluorescent materials generate light in a ‘singlet state’ while phosphorescent OLED materials generate light in a ‘triplet state’, and before you fall back into the glaze of Chemistry 101, the simplified explanation of what that means is phosphorescent OLED materials can emit close to 100% of the light generated, while fluorescent OLED materials can emit ~25%.  Given that the objective of all displays is to generate the most amount of light with the least amount of power, phosphorescent OLED materials are preferred, however there is a catch.
Red and green phosphorescent OLED materials are commonly used in RGB displays, however blue phosphorescent OLED materials tend to be unstable and have lifetimes that are shorter than necessary for most displays, so OLED display producers have been forced to use blue fluorescent OLED materials to fill the gap in RGB displays.  This means that the blue layer would be producing les light than its red and green phosphorescent counterparts, so OLED display designers double or triple the blue layer to balance the system.  While that works from a visual point-of-view, it requires considerably more power and is therefore an inefficient device, and many companies are working toward finding a stable phosphorescent blue OLED material to eliminate that inefficiency.
While we have read through literally hundreds of papers and IP filings that are looking for solutions to the phosphorescent blue issue, no commercial blue phosphorescent OLED emitter material has appeared in the market.  Universal Display (OLED), the holder of the IP for heavy metal red and green phosphorescent OLED emitter material, which it exclusively supplies to all OLED display manufacturers, has one of the largest blue phosphorescent material R&D programs and has stated that they expect to have a commercial blue phosphorescent OLED emitter available in 2024 while others have stated earlier goals, many of which have passed without success.  A recent article in the South Korean press indicated that Samsung Display itself was doing research toward the development of a blue phosphorescent OLED emitter which would allow the company to replace the three layers of blue fluorescent emitter material in its QD/OLED stack with one blue phosphorescent blue layer, reducing power requirements and simplifying the deposition process, but thus far we do not believe that has occurred. 
More likely would be a collaborative effort between Samsung Display and UDC toward such a product, with SDC sharing the material science behind their blue material, which is based on a platinum/carbene combination, and UDC extending the characteristics of the material to reach commercial specifications.  The SDC material has a LT70 lifetime[1] of 1,113 hours at 1,000 nits, which would be about the peak brightness of an iPhone 13 Pro Max, and the LT70 degradation would occur in roughly a year, but the press note suggests that SDC’s research has progressed considerably since the paper was written, with ‘visible results’ expected by SDC within a year from the original writing (~15 months ago).
Much of the article was speculation concerning SDC’s internal development efforts toward developing a blue phosphorescent emitter but the paper on which that speculation is based noted that the materials being developed were reactive to host materials commonly used and further development of those host materials would be necessary to take advantage of the newly developed blue phosphorescent emitter materials. This leads us to believe that a commercial blue phosphorescent emitter system is still a further away than the press article might suggest.  All in, we expect all major OLED display producers are doing at least some research toward the development of a stable blue phosphorescent OLED emitter, likely in conjunction with UDC or other OLED materials suppliers.  While progress is certainly being made in the development of such a material, the fact that new research has been published could move development forward but is only a gateway to the commercial development and production of a new material.  We keep our expectations low as many promises have been made in the past and the development of blue LEDs was far more challenging and time-consuming than its red and green cousins, so we know it will eventually be done but take all timeline assumptions with a grain of salt..


[1] LT70 means the length of time it takes for the material to lose 30% of its light output.

​Samsung Display is said to have begun placing orders for the components needed to produce its next line of foldable smartphones and has increased the unit volume expectations considerably over last year.  SDC will begin display production in June and will begin assembly in July, likely at its expanded facility in Vietnam, which has increased capacity by ~33%.  The initial component unit volume is expected to be be for between 15m and 18m units, doubling the 7m units the company produced last year, with ~70% for the Galaxy Z Flip and 30% for the Galaxy Z Fold.
Without reviewing the vast number of ‘leaks’, ‘influencer rants’, and idle speculation about what the new foldables will look like or contain hardware-wise, we expect relatively little change over last year’s models with the exception of the inclusion of a holder for the S-Pen on the Z Fold 4.  Display sizes should be almost if not exactly the same, with the possibility of some camera improvements and battery size changes, but most important will be the price, as last year Samsung was able to bring down the initial price of the Z Fold by $200. 
There has been some conjecture as to the lower profitability of the foldable line for Samsung, which is logical considering the maturity of Samsung’s flexible OLED production experience relative to its foldable production experience (although still the leader in foldable OLED), but we expect Samsung has been working toward bringing down the price for the Fold/Flip 4 line, even in an inflationary market in order to stimulate sales.  Perhaps a $200 price reduction (bringing the initial price of the Fold 4 to $1,600 from $1,800 last year) is a bit much to hope for but at least Samsung has the volumes needed to squeeze a bit more out of its foldable supply chain.
The last two foldable model years have seen announcements of the new line made in early to mid-August, which we expect will be the same this year, with release dates by the end of August or early September depending on transportation issues, but we expect this will be a more competitive year for foldables, despite Samsung’s considerable lead in the space, especially in China where Vivo (pvt) and Honor (pvt) have joined Huawei (pvt) and Oppo (pvt) with offerings this year.  There is also considerable buzz that Samsung will release a rollable smartphone device this year although we keep our expectations low for such a model this year.

​Samsung Display (pvt) likes to hedge its bets.  While it is in the early stages of promoting and producing its QD/OLED technology, it has been researching the development of nanorods, which we first mentioned back in 2020 as a way for the company to offset the use of a fluorescent blue emitter in its QD/OLED displays.  Nanorods are small structures that are ‘grown’ using the same materials used for LEDs, and as the direction of the growth can be controlled, these structures are grown as rods, which are bunched together to form a light source, in this case a blue one.  The nanorods generate blue light which is then converted into red and green via quantum dots.  While that sounds relatively simple, getting the nanorods, which are less than 1um wide to stand up next to each other is a bit like herding cats, they tend to go in every direction, so Samsung is using a process called dielectrophoresis, similar to the process used to separate platelets from whole blood, which aligns the rods by using an electric field.  The process lines up the rods vertically, which represents a major step toward the commercialization of the process.
That said, the process is still under development, as regulating the number of nanorods in each sub-pixel is key to maintaining brightness consistency across the display, and that is just one of the issues that face SDC during the nanorod development process and expectations that SDC has solved most of the nanorod issues last year gave confidence to some that SDC would move the technology toward the development of a pilot production line this year.  It seems that SDC has decided to postpone the construction of the nanorod production line and has sent back the team that was to implement the new line to their former positions and returned the project to the R&D level.
SDC had originally planned to produce nanorod based displays sometime in 2024 or 2025 however the line postponement seems to have pushed that back a year or so, which might affect the plans of parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), who is looking to augment its TV lineup with more premium products, which nanorod displays would have supported.  While SDC has built a 30,000 sheet/month fab for its QD/OLED display production, thyat capacity represents only a small portion of what Samsung Electronics would need to make the technology a featured product, and while the initial reception to QD/OLED technology has been positive, without some sort of capacity expansion QD/OLED would have to remain a niche product against LG Display’s OLED TVs, which are expected to see between 9m and 10m units shipped this year.  Perhaps the postponement of the nanorod project foretells a decision by SDC to expand QD/OLED capacity, but no announcement has been made as of yet, “You are burnin’ daylight”

Samsung Display (pvt), the display production arm of parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), was part of a decision made back around 2013 not to pursue OLED technology for TVs.  SDC and Samsung Electronics were both convinced that the RGB OLED process, which patterns red, green, and blue OLED sub-pixels in each pixel, could not be adapted to the larger panel sizes necessary for TV displays.  LG Display (LPL) took a different view, and championed WOLED technology for its OLED TVs, which used layers of OLED material that were not patterned, and added a color filter to define the red, green, and blue ‘dots’ that made up each pixel.  While the WOLED process allowed for the production of large OLED panels, the color filter reduced the amount of light reaching the user, an issue that LCD technology proponents still cite today.
Samsung Display has gone on to become the preeminent RGB OLED display producer with what we believe to be a 70.5% share[1] of the small panel OLED display market, which itself has grown from ~7.5m units in 2014 to ~620m units last year, and while this represents ~50% of the overall mobile phone display market, RGB OLED displays have been primarily limited to smartphone, tablet, and watch displays.  In 2019[2] however, SDC began mass producing OLED panels for laptops which are now being used in a variety of models by popular laptop brands, and other small panel OLED producers are beginning to see this as an area where they might want to compete with SDC.  As is typical for Samsung, they are technologically the leader in the OLED laptop display space and continue to expand offerings, with 13 of the 15 OLED laptop display models that are available made by Samsung Display (2 from Everdisplay (688538.CH)) and they are also the leader in promoting the technology for laptops, which has led to its adoption by major laptop brands.
While Samsung Electronics produces both OLED and LCD based laptops, only Samsung Chromebooks use traditional LCD displays, with the entire Samsung laptop line based on OLED displays produced by SDC, and as such Samsung Display is happy to promote the concept and quality derived from using OLED rather than LCD in a laptop format.  SDC recently summarized those advantages in a series of pictures comparing images from both types of displays which have been translated and show below.  We note that the translations might be lacking occasionally, and SDC, while primarily accurate in its statements, has likely picked examples that do not reflect LCD technology in its best light, akin to the Nick Nolte arrest photo in Figure 1, but isn’t that what promotion is all about?  All in, while OLED displays for laptops are more expensive than LCD displays (the reason Samsung uses LCD for its Chromebook line), they do provide higher quality images that users will eventually demand, as they have for smartphones.  Its takes time for the industry to make the migration and we are still in the early stages where consumers have to be educated as to OLED display technology’s advantages, but it will happen in laptops, just as it did in smartphones.


[1] 2021 full year units volume

[2] Small quantities of OLED laptop displays were produced in the 3 years prior to 2019 but were not in mass production.