Will OLED and Micro LED become mainstream? Two major panel makers have their views
OLED panels are growing rapidly in smartphone applications, and there is currently a shortage. Will OLED panels become mainstream in the future? The industry is concerned. In addition, the industry is increasingly concerned about the subsequent development of the new Micro LED technology. As for whether these two technologies will become the mainstream of display panels in the future, the two major panel makers have their own views.
Will OLED and Micro LED become mainstream? Two major panel makers have their views
Innolux Chairman Wang Chih-chao said that Korean manufacturers are actively developing OLED panels. Does OLED really replace LCD? Or is it just a topic? Or will it only ferment in certain applications? As for whether traditional LCD will still exist, these are topics of concern in the industry.
Currently, the deployment of OLED panels by Korean panel makers is not limited to smartphone applications; they hope to expand into other applications. Korean makers are actively promoting OLED panels for notebooks (NB). Whether OLED panels will become the standard configuration for notebooks remains under observation.
Wang Zhichao stated that Innolux has doubts about whether OLED will become mainstream, because regardless of cost-performance ratio, reliability, and cost, there is currently no reason to see OLED replacing LCD. In addition, beyond OLED, new display technologies are brewing, such as Micro LED. So will OLED replace LCD in the long run? Or will it shine briefly before demand drops off? It remains unclear at present.
Precisely because of this, at this stage, Taiwanese manufacturers still have reservations about making large-scale investments in OLED panels, which differs from Korea's considerations. Korea is actively developing OLED technology hoping to shift the market toward areas with fewer competitors. Moreover, as OLED panels are currently in short supply, at this stage some customers have begun to request panel makers other than Samsung Display to supply OLED panels, in order to become the second-largest supplier.
Market rumors suggest that Apple may adopt OLED panels in iPhones in 2017. In response, Yang Hongwen, Vice President and General Manager of the Mobile Products Business Group at Qunwang, said that Apple is ruthless in switching technologies. Besides potentially adopting Samsung's OLED panels, Apple is also researching display technologies itself, such as Micro LED. However, to solve the problem of declining market share, Apple needs to make bold and sweeping changes, so it's not impossible that it will adopt OLED panels, but will it continue to adopt them? Or after a short-term adoption, will it switch back to LCD panels? It remains to be seen.
Wang Zhichao said that Apple is investing its own money in Micro LED, and the entire Micro LED infrastructure has only just begun. Although Micro LED is not yet mature, it holds great promise for the future. He said that if the government wants to form a national team or pursue integration, it should choose such forward-looking technologies to work on. Micro LED can also be made flexible, and flexibility is one of the trends, but that doesn't necessarily mean OLED is indispensable.
AUO's Peng Shuanglang: OLED Has Survival Space, Producing Micro LED Is Quite Difficult
In response, AUO Chairman Peng Shuanglang said that technology development is subject to subjective and objective conditions. When LCD first began to develop 20 years ago, technologies such as PDP and FET also competed with it. However, the advantage of LCD is that it can be made from small sizes to large sizes, so it later became an irreplaceable technology and pushed other technologies out of the market.
Currently, in small-sized and mobile device applications such as mobile phones, wearables, and VR, OLED has its unique features, and compared to LTPS, the cost is lower. Therefore, OLED panels will have their survival space, while flexible OLED still needs to be observed.
As for large-sized OLED, since LCD's technology development is already very close to OLED, and some are even better than OLED, and consumers are unwilling to spend 3 times the price to buy OLED TVs, OLED has higher development difficulties in large-sized TVs.
In addition, will Micro LED become the mainstream? Peng Shuanglang said it is still a bit early, but the advantage of Micro LED is that it requires much less investment than LCD, and it combines the technologies of two mature industries, LCD and LED. However, the difficulty of producing Micro LED is not low. For example, the difficulty of miniaturizing LEDs is very high. In addition, processes such as transfer and fixing are also immature. The brightness and color of the LED in the middle are also different from those at the periphery. Plus, there are still problems to be solved in packaging, and the application areas are also undefined. Therefore, it is still too early to judge whether Micro LED will become the mainstream in the future.