Opportunity for Korea’s OLED Panel Industry
Opportunity for Korea’s OLED Panel Industry
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  • 승인 2007.08.13 13:49
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In a point of time when the AMOLED age, called Dream's Display, approaches with big strides, Korea's OLED panel industry is likely to greet opportunity with its full-scale AMOLED production.

Such opinion was stated by CEO and president Yi Choong-hoon, Ubi Sanup Research, in an exclusive interview conducted by The Korea IT Times, an IT-oriented leading English Journal in Korea, on the occasion of IMID (International Meeting on Information Display) 2007.

Yi said: "Despite of insufficient source technology development, Korea's edge that as No.1 country in terms of PMOLED production, our country secures the best display production technology in the world plus abundant special high-grade manpower."

However, he points out panel manufacturer's profitability aggravation as a threat.

According to market observers, AMOLED makes its debut ceremony from the third quarter of this year as it is commercialized as cellular phone and TV display in earnest. In the light of picture quality and thickness, AMOLED overwhelms LCD and PDP, but there are still many home tasks such as low yield rate, expensive price, and sales route pioneering.

Nevertheless, AMOLED is rapidly emerging as a next-generation display as it is expected to capture the attention of consumers with color reappearance rate, 30% point up than LCD and 20 times excellent contrast rate.

The outlook of market research institutions further is in a nutshell blue ocean and rosy. AMOLED market scale which is no more than US$ 120 million this year, is forecast to reach to US$ 400 million next year and presumes US$ 1.4 billion in 2009, according to Yi.

AMOLED market's explosive power don't cease here. AMOLED market scale is presumed to grow up to US$ 3.6 billion in the upcoming 2011. Moreover, Europe's staple lighting manufacturers are busy in commercializing, selecting AMOLED as a next-generation lighting to substitute a fluorescent lamp. In conjunction with such phenomenon, Ubi Sanup Research's Yi CEO notes: "For the present, it is a stage AMOLED is commercialized centering around cellular phone and small-sized TV, but in about 2010, AMOLED also for over 40 inch TV will be commercialized."

Up to US$ 3.6 billion in the upcoming 2011

In connection with OLED industry's SWOT (strength, weak point, opportunity, and threat), Yi first of all said flatly: "OLED holds TFT-LCD and PDP's edges."

Contrarily, OLED's life span is short in comparison with competing product. As regarding OLED's opportunity, it is possible for display major content to convert to moving picture in OLED. As for its threat, TFTLCD facility investment has to be kept up.

Keeping an eye on such factors, from Korea LGE and Samsung SDI are starting mass production in 2007 in the case of AMOLED. LPL and SEC are scheduled to mass produce later on and Neo View Colon, Orion OLED are considering their mass production, according to Yi.

In the case of Japan, Sony is starting AMOLED's mass production and Kyocera, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Showa Denko and TMD plans to mass produce AMOLED afterwards.

In the case of PMOLED, LG Electronics, NeoView Kolon, Orion OLED, and Samsung SDI from Korea have their mass production under way. From Taiwan and Japan respectively, CMEL, RitDisplay, Univision (Taiwan) and TDK, Tohoku Pioneer (Japan) have their PMOLED mass production under way right now.

With regard to Korea OLED equipment and material industry's SWOT, Yi explained that Korea is the largest producer in the world and regional approximation is good between companies.

As Korea OLED equipment/material industry's vulnerable point, he said: "Equipment/material industrial is fragile and their technology development ability dependence on panel manufacturer is severe."

As regarding both opportunity and threat, it is advantageous for Korea's OLED equipment/material industry to graft mass production processing technology whereas mass production equipment/material manufacturing experience is short for them.

A condition for a product to succeed in industry, Yi epitomizes, is that it must be better than a competing product, a manufacturer must be able to make it easily, and the producer must make it cheap. Likewise, the OLED expert CEO said: "As a condition for OLED to succeed in industry, it must be better than a competing product (performance), an OLED manufacturer must make it easily (yield rate) and the manufacturer must make it cheap (mass production and cost reduction)."

Busy panel manufacturers' movement

With regard to movements of Korean panel manufacturers, Yi introduced: "For Samsung SDI, the company is operating two 730 x 460 mass production equipment, made by Tokki in the case of AMOLED plus possessing 730 x 920 LTPS TFT manufacturing line."

It is said that Samsung SDI has completed its agreement to deliver goods with NTT DOCOMO, and REINCOM has the company's development for Samsung Electronics Anycall under way.

A new developed model is four inch notch VGA~XGA product and lately exhibition development model include 2.2inch Slim QVGA AMOLED, 2.2inch Dual QVGA AMOLED, 2.8inch LQVGA AMOLED, and 2.4inch AMOLED etc.

In the case of PMOLED too, Samsung SDI is operating two 370 x 400 mass production equipments.

LGE's afresh development model is 2inch-notch top emission QVGA, according to Yi. LGE is planning to load mobile phone for SKT with its AMOLED within this year and is considering 500 billion won (US$ 541 million)-800 billion won (US$ 865 million) scale's investment according to market response.

SEC is possessing one Sunic 370 x 470 development equipment besides possessing its equipment for Doosan Mecatec 730x920 WOLED.

Plus AMOLED development exhibition for 14inch TV, SEC has developed 40inch a-Si TFT AMOLED for the first time in the world. SEC's pilot mass production point of time is expected to be Dec. this year or the second half of the year 2008.

SEC's latest exhibition development model includes 14.1inch AMOLED (1280 x 768) 106ppi, 14.1inch WXGA (1280 x 768) AMOLED, and 11inch QVGA AMOLED etc.

LPL which possessed one Doosan 370 x 470 development equipment, has developed 20inch LTPS TFT AMOLED and flexible AMOLED besides its joint development with Kodak.

3inch LTPS AMOLED, 4inch flexible QVGA AMOLED, and 20.1inch Wide SGA AMOLEE etc. are LPL's latest exhibition development models.

As for a movement of Japan panel manufacturers, SONY has developed 10.3 inch LTPS TFT AMOLED and 27inch AMOLED TV for the first time in the world. 11inch AMOLED and 27.5inch AMOLED are Sony's latest exhibition development models.

For Japan's TMD, 2inch QVGA, 2.8inch WQVGA, 3.5inch QVGA, and 20.8inch PLED are the company's latest exhibition development models.

For Taiwan's CMEL, 2inch, 2.2inch, 2.4inch, 2.8inch, 4.3inch AMOLED panel and 25inch AMOLED panel are its exhibition development models.

Last but the least, president Yi named high equality LTPS manufacturing equipment over Gen (generation)5, pixel manufacturing equipment over Gen5: high productivity equipment and encap manufacturing equipment over Gen5 as AMOLED industry's success factors.


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