What They Say
TechRadar reports that TCL had said that it plans to introduce inkjet printing for TV panels in 2023.
DSCC had a lot more information on this that was published in its Weekly Review subscription newsletter (which is a very good reference for the supply side of the industry). It seems that the inkjet announcement was part of a bigger announcement that seems only to have been released in Chinese.
There are are to be two new lines. The inkjet line will be called T8 and T9 will make LCDs, although T9 will happen first. The T9 project will have investment of around $5 billion and will be a G8.5 fab optimised for IT panels for notebooks and monitors, with some Oxide capacity. Full capacity in early ’25 will be 180K substrates per month in Q1/2025.
The T8 line is expected to use technology from JOLED (TCL and JOLED Connect to Make IJP OLED TV Panels) and we reported rumours about it in October last year. However, DSCC is somewhat sceptical about whether it can be used for TVs and suggests it might be better used initially for IT panels using the Oxide technology in T9.
What We Think
I’ve said before many times that we are getting ‘that close’ to being able to move inkjet printing to volume printing of OLEDs. But we’ve been there for close to two decades. Although IJP has been getting better, the challenge in the display industry is always that you are chasing a moving target and it was hard to believe that LCD and WOLED would have got as good and as cheap as they have, now. (BR)
