Samsung Mobile Displays to Triple OLED Manufacturing Capacity

Samsung Mobile Displays (SMD) will triple its OLED manufacturing capacity this year with the addition of a 5.5-generation line, as it battles to keep pace with demand, Marketing Team Leader Sean Lee told us. Volume production along the new line will start in Q3, ahead of earlier plans for adding it in 2012.

Samsung Mobile Displays completed construction of the 5.5G plant in September and installed manufacturing equipment in December, Vice President Brian Berkeley said. SMD’s monthly manufacturing capacity was at 6-8 million 2-inch OLED displays in late December, Lee said. SMD moved up the 5.5G manufacturing schedule due to tight supply that gripped the market last summer, forcing some Samsung OEM customers to return to LCDs for the main screen on cellphones. Samsung’s OLED-based Galaxy S smartphone, which had a 4-inch display and sold more than five million units, caused SMD to limit capacity last summer to affiliated companies (CED July 9 p1).

"It is an unfortunate situation for us because we don’t want our customers to be disappointed,” Berkeley said. “We have a lot of non-Samsung customers and capacity is going to go way up this year."

The added capacity will enable SMD to make larger 4.5- and 7-inch OLEDs, the latter targeting tablet PCs, Berkeley said. The 7-inch OLED, which has 1,024x600 resolution, is available but hasn’t landed an OEM customer, Berkeley said. Samsung also has said the 5.5G line would be suited for making 30-inch OLED TVs and has hinted at introducing a 42-inch model this year. Samsung also has aired plans for adding 8G production. But it will be “some years” before that occurs, Berkeley said.

Samsung is “mid-way” in development of a flexible 4.3-inch color OLED with 800x480 resolution, Lee said. It will be a “maximum” of two years before the display is available, Lee said. The flexible display, which can be made using a roll-to-roll process, is 50 microns thick, but will be closer to 10 microns when it’s commercially available, SMD officials said. The display has a 100,000:1 contrast ratio.

Samsung is developing a green OLED organic material to go along with the red that’s currently available. Samsung is working with Universal Display, among others, on a green phosphorescent material. “It will be there before long,” said Berkeley, declining to be more specific on when green will be commercially available.

Improvements also are needed in the deposition and fine metal mask OLED manufacturing techniques if the technology is to achieve larger sizes, Berkeley said.

"It works because we're making millions a month, but if you think about making larger and larger panels and trying to scale up the deposition with a fine metal mask, you need something that is better and we have developed something else,” Berkeley said. Berkeley declined further comment. Among the options would be ink jet printing.

Meanwhile, Samsung is said by sources close to the company to have acquired Philips spin-off Liquavista. Liquavista develops displays using an electrowetting technology that allows full color displays to be visible indoors and outside. It also has transflective displays that can work as monochrome screens with the backlight off or color with it on, a technology also championed by Pixel Qi. Samsung was said to be interested in using electrowetting in e-reader and cellphone displays. Samsung officials weren’t available for comment.

Liquavista introduced two software development kits in 2010 for 6- and 8.5-inch electrowetting displays built around Texas Instruments OMAP and Freescale Semiconductor processors. Liquavista demonstrated prototype displays in October. The company built the prototypes using manufacturing equipment it developed with VDL ETG Projects in Eindhoven, Netherlands.