Wonik IPS, ICD, and TEL seize orders for dry etching equipment for Samsung Display's 8.5-generation OLED line

According to CINNO Research, Wonik IPS, ICD, and TEL are competing in the 8.5-generation OLED dry etching equipment market for Samsung Display (SDC), an IT product. It is expected that the company that develops the equipment first will gain a market advantage.

According to Korean media Thelec, Wonik IPS, ICD, and TEL are developing 8.5-generation OLED dry etching equipment (Dry Etcher) for IT products that SDC is developing. IT products refer to tablets, laptops, and monitors. The 8.5-generation (2200x2500) OLED panel for IT that SDC is evaluating is more economical than the current 6th generation (1500x1850) OLED panel.

Dry etching equipment is used to manufacture electrode wiring in the front-end TFT process of the panel. Dry etching equipment has advantages over wet etching equipment (Wet Etcher) when it comes to tighter and thinner wiring. For most IT products OLED with a screen size of more than 10 inches, if you want to densely arrange RGB pixels on the substrate to produce higher pixels, dry etching equipment is more suitable.

SDC also mainly uses dry etching equipment to draw the wiring of the 6th generation small and medium-sized OLED panels in mass production. The 6th generation OLED dry etching equipment has been supplied by Wonik IPS, ICD, and TEL.

Samsung Electronics and Apple, which are SDC's customers, plan to expand the application of OLED in IT products, so the company that first developed the 8.5-generation dry etching equipment is expected to seize the market first. An industry insider said, "Wonik's IPS and ICD technology levels are highly evaluated, no less than TEL."

In addition to dry etching equipment, the development of FMM, which is necessary for the production of 8.5-generation OLED panels, has also officially begun. FMM is a thin metal mask used when evaporating organic matter. It is reported that Japan's DNP, which currently monopolizes the SDC 6th generation OLED FMM market, has started to develop 8.5-generation FMM since the second quarter of this year. In the organic evaporation process, the "net stretching machine" that tightens and fixes the FMM will be developed by Hims and others.

Although there are still technical development issues to be solved, it is speculated that SDC will invest in the 8.5-generation OLED production line for IT as early as next year. Although Apple's demand for iPad OLED panels in 2022 and 2023 will not be very large, according to Apple's planned route, OLED laptops and other products will also be launched.

Samsung Electronics is also actively developing OLED panels for IT products such as tablets and laptops. It is reported that Samsung Electronics' wireless business unit has recently lost ground in the smartphone market and plans to maintain its technological leadership and sales scale with OLED IT products. SDC has already started mass production of tablet and laptop OLED screens, and recently raised its shipment target for laptop OLED panels this year from 4 million units to 5.5 million to 6 million units.

It is reported that the iPad OLED panels that SDC will supply to Apple from next year may be produced on the A3 production line, and the notebook OLED panels currently supplied to Samsung Electronics will be produced on the A2 production line. If the demand clearly exceeds the capacity of the existing production lines, SDC will make large-scale investments, and equipment companies will benefit accordingly.

The 8.5th generation glass motherboard can cut out more panels at a time than the 6th generation. Taking 13.3 inches as an example, the 6th generation motherboard can cut out 48 panels, while the 8.5th generation can cut out 96 panels (half cut, 48 panels each). The more panels are cut from a single glass motherboard, the more economical it will be and the lower the production cost will be. Currently, OLED is mainly used in high-end IT products because of the price burden.