Samsung Display to postpone IT OLED co-project with Ulvac

Samsung Display has changed its priority in the development of Gen 8 IT OLED panels, TheElec has learned.

The South Korean company is planning to postpone investments into full-cut, vertical deposition method it had been co-developing for over a year with Japan’s Ulvac.

Samsung Display will instead start investments into half-cut, horizontal deposition method it has been developing Canon Tokki, sources said.

This is because the latter method has already been commercialized and is being developed with the aim to supply OLED panels for tablets to Apple. Cupertino is planning to launch iPads with OLED panels.

Samsung Display has been developing full-cut, vertical deposition machines with Ulvac to manufacture OLED panels with a single stack, or just one RGB emission layer, to supply the panels to Asus and other PC makers.

On the other hand, the project with Canon Tokki which is developing a half-cut, horizontal deposition machine to make two stack tandem OLED panels, where there are two RGB emission layers.

Apple had asked its display makers to develop two stack tandem OLED panels.

Another likely cause of the delay on the project with Ulvac is due to the technology not being mature enough as of yet.

Samsung Display is planning to use Gen 8.7 substrates instead of Gen 8.5, but the development of the deposition machines was done with the latter in mind.

While their size difference, 2290x2620mm compared to 2200x2500mm, may not seem much, in making the machines it needs a huge redesign, the sources said.

The economic downturn this year also means that Samsung Display is in no hurry to start spending on Gen 8 OLED panels when there is low demand for consumer electronics.