LG Display said in its board meeting on July 22 that it would invest an addition 3 trillion won ($2.5 billion) into the Gen 10.5 OLED production lines at its P10 plant in Paju of Gyeonggi Province.
The display maker said most of the funds would be used to ramp up the monthly production capacity to 45,000 panels from the current 30,000 panels, and also to install deposition equipment.
"We hope to develop a wider diversity of competitive products from TVs to CSO and rollable displays based on the Gen 10.5 technology, while at the same time expand our OLED application to enter new markets,” said an LG Display official. “This way, we plan on staying on the top in the OLED sector.”
The Gen 10.5 lines will kick off mass production in the first half of 2022, and in the first half of 2023 for the additional 15,000 panels.
Industry sources believe the latest decision is aimed at firmly establishing at least one OLED line, while putting in place the necessary equipment for a second line for future use.
This means YAS, the local deposition equipment maker supplying LG Display, can expect more orders for the Gen 10.5 deposition equipment, which are likely to be installed by February next year.
LG Display has already sent a letter of Intent for purchasing the equipment to YAS, but has yet to place an official order. The recently endorsed 3 trillion won of investment will include expenses for the equipment from YAS, which costs around 150-180 billion won. This is about double the price of the Gen 8.5 equipment.
So far at LG Display’s P10 plant, there is room for such equipment in three of the Gen 10.5 OLED lines.
Earlier in 2017, LG Display decided to spend 2.8 trillion won into the Gen 10.5 production lines. The funds were used to install TFT equipment, and also a total of three pieces of CVD equipment supplied by Applied Materials and Jusung Engineering.
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