South Korean media: Chinese panel manufacturers are testing OLED FMM with Korean manufacturers to reduce dependence on Japanese manufacturers

Philoptics, a South Korean manufacturer, is testing its OLED fine metal mask (FMM) with a Chinese panel maker, said Han Ki-su, CEO of the company. The manufacturer currently relies on a Japanese company for FMM and hopes to obtain a secondary supplier.

According to TheElec, Han Ki-su said at the shareholders' meeting held on the same day: "The test evaluation work that started at the end of last year is expected to take about 1 year to complete." This means that Philoptics may not generate new revenue from the sale of FMM before the end of 2022. But it emphasized that the company's FMM technology is "complete."

FMM is a material used to deposit organic materials in the production process of smartphone OLED display panels. Japan's Dai Nippon Printing is the world's largest FMM supplier. Instead of using etching technology to manufacture FMM, Philoptics chose electroplating instead, that is, electroplating invar on a patterned substrate to manufacture FMM.

Prior to this, Philoptics lost the opportunity to win a national project awarded by the Korean government to develop FMMs that do not use etching production methods, but it still continued to develop its own FMMs.

If Philoptics succeeds in supplying FMMs to the Chinese panel maker, it is likely to also supply FMMs to Samsung Display, which relies heavily on Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. for FMMs used in smartphone OLED panels.

Philoptics said the company plans to use its self-developed electroplating method to manufacture FMMs in MLCC and Mini-LED.