Chinastar IJP Decision, Soon
Chinastar (pvt), who has announced intentions to develop a Gen 8 ink-jet printed OLED line as far back as 2020, has said they will announce their investment plans for such a line as early as this month, a bit later than their recent expectations for a July announcement. It is thought that the company is in discussions with the local government over the investment’s scale and we expect funding for the project. The company currently has a Gen 5.5 IJP pilot line (20k/m) at its T5 fab in Wuhan where it has been producing 21.5” medical displays since late last year, but the economics of large panel production for IJP requires a large (Gen 8) substrate to become profitable.
While ink-jet printing is done under a low-level vacuum, as opposed to the full vacuum environment used in FMM (Fine metal mask) deposition (the current standard for OLED display production), the OLED materials must be mixed with a solvent in order for them to flow through ink-jet heads. Not all of the OLED stack materials are able to make this transition, and new materials have been developed to facilitate IJP, but this also means that the emitter materials, the ones that actually produce light, don’t have the same characteristics as current OLED materials, and that means some of the major features could change or have to be adapted, particularly material lifetimes. The offset is that inkjet printing allows for higher aperture between the sub-pixels, meaning more light is emitted per pixel, making the device brighter or more energy efficient.
We assume Chinastar’s pending announcement will be for at least one 15k/month line with plans for more, along with associated TFT and a local ecosystem to provide the necessary production materials. This is a big risk for Chinastar in that it will be the only IJP large panel producer, with others taking a more conservative Gen 8.6 FMM approach (Samsung Display (pvt), BOE (200725.CH), and potentially Visionox (002387.CH). If the technology does not pan out, they will be years behind others in the IT OLED space.
While ink-jet printing is done under a low-level vacuum, as opposed to the full vacuum environment used in FMM (Fine metal mask) deposition (the current standard for OLED display production), the OLED materials must be mixed with a solvent in order for them to flow through ink-jet heads. Not all of the OLED stack materials are able to make this transition, and new materials have been developed to facilitate IJP, but this also means that the emitter materials, the ones that actually produce light, don’t have the same characteristics as current OLED materials, and that means some of the major features could change or have to be adapted, particularly material lifetimes. The offset is that inkjet printing allows for higher aperture between the sub-pixels, meaning more light is emitted per pixel, making the device brighter or more energy efficient.
We assume Chinastar’s pending announcement will be for at least one 15k/month line with plans for more, along with associated TFT and a local ecosystem to provide the necessary production materials. This is a big risk for Chinastar in that it will be the only IJP large panel producer, with others taking a more conservative Gen 8.6 FMM approach (Samsung Display (pvt), BOE (200725.CH), and potentially Visionox (002387.CH). If the technology does not pan out, they will be years behind others in the IT OLED space.
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