What They Say
The Korea Herald reported that Merck Korea has now completed the expansion of it OLED material facility in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province after a plan to invest €20million. announced in 2020. (Merck Announces € 20 Million OLED Manufacturing Expansion in Korea and China)
The newly installed equipment for material for sublimation and vacuum deposition processes is expected to help yield the best level of performance and quality of the locally produced materials.
The Herald reported that Merck entered the Korean market in 1989. It operates several production plants and research centers for display and semiconductor materials, with about 1,500 workers.
Merck is a top 5 OLED material supplier according to DSCC
What We Think
The plant was opened in 2015 (Merck To Develop OLEDs in Korea). Those with a long memory will remember that Merck got into OLED materials in a bigger way in 2006 when it bought Covion from Avecia for €50 million (Display Monitor Vol 12 #6). Covion occupied part of the huge Hoechst plant to the South East of Frankfurt, while Merck is based in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt
A couple of weeks ago, we reported on developments in photolithography of OLED materials and I was pretty sure that we had reported this before, We had, but it was a story from Merck in 2006 at Display Week! I hadn’t looked back far enough. It just goes to show that you can be very close to a good solution for a very long time without breaking through. (BR)
The newly installed equipment for sublimation and vacuum deposition processes at Merck`s OLED materials plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. (Merck Korea)