Category Archives: FPDs and TFTs

As the global TV market continues to struggle with unit volume growth overall in 2017 — now projected to decline for the second year in a row — attention has turned to the most profitable market segments. This includes larger screen sizes and advanced technologies like OLED, quantum dots, 4K and HDR, each of which helps boost average selling prices and profits. In fact, OLED TV revenues are forecast to grow 71 percent year-over-year in 2017, while 4K TV revenues will increase 31 percent year-over-year, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO). A number of brands have adopted OLED technology into their TV lineups in 2017, including Sony, joining LG Electronics, the primary promoter of OLED.

In 2016, the share of TV shipments at $1,000 and higher price points amounted to 5 percent of units, but more than 20 percent of dollars. Largely this is driven by the rapid share growth of 4K, especially at the largest screen sizes, where the retail premium for 4K has held remarkably steady without impacting average size growth.

Within the $1,000 and higher market segment, OLED TV share has grown significantly during the past eight quarters, from 2.4 percent in first quarter 2015 to 13.8 percent in first quarter 2017. Looking forward, IHS Markit is forecasting OLED TV shipments to grow from 723k units in 2016, to 6.6 million units in 2021. However, due to the very high average selling price of OLED, the unit share of the $1,000-plus market will increase to a peak of 59 percent in 2019, before declining as 8K LCD TVs begin shipping with very high prices as well.

The average selling price of a 4K OLED TV in 2017, forecast at $2,247,  is nearly 6 times greater than the average LCD TV, and three times greater when looking at just the 50-inch-plus and larger size category. However, the introduction of quantum dot enabled LCD TVs more directly competes with OLED TVs at the highest price points. Quantum dot LCD TVs are expected to account for 4 percent of LCD TV shipments in 2017, rising to 15 percent by 2021, and exceeding OLED TV shipments in the process. Samsung is the dominant brand in the quantum dot LCD TV category, accounting for 90 percent of shipments in first quarter 2017.

By 2020, 8K LCD TVs will have launched in all regions, primarily at 65-inch and 75-inch screen sizes. At the early introduction stages, 65-inch 8K LCD TVs will carry a 35 percent premium against 65-inch 4K OLED TVs, but gradually reduce as capacity rapidly increases in LCD fabs optimized for 65-inch-plus screen sizes.

In the current, unprecedented phase of active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) panel factory build-out, flexible AMOLED capacity will expand from 1.5 million square meters to 20.1 million square meters between 2016 and 2020, at a compound annual growth rate of 91 percent. In 2016, flexible capacity, or factories with the ability to produce AMOLEDs on plastic substrates, only accounted for 28 percent of total capacity targeting mobile applications. This will increase to 80 percent by 2020 as almost every new Gen 6 fab and smaller factory built over the next four years will be flexible compatible, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

AMOLED_capacity_targeting_mobile_applications_by_substrate_type

According to the Display Supply Demand & Equipment Tracker by IHS Markit, between 2016 and 2020, China, Japan and South Korea will build the equivalent of 46 new flexible AMOLED fabs, whose monthly capacity reaches 30,000 substrates, each. These fabs will add 18.6 million square meters of new plastic substrate production capability, more than 13 times the industry’s current level.

“All of the new capacity will facilitate a rapid increase in flexible AMOLED panel adoption in smartphones,” said Charles Annis, senior director at IHS Markit. “Nevertheless, as so much new flexible capacity is being added, it is starting to raise concerns that the market will not be able to absorb all of the potential output.”

IHS Markit forecasts that the tight AMOLED panel supply in 2016 will continually give way to a growing capacity-based glut. The supply is predicted to exceed demand by more than 45 percent in 2020, when 40 percent of smartphones will adopt AMOLED panels.

“AMOLED displays will offer excellent image quality and form factor advantages in high-end phones. Despite excessive capacity availability, the challenge to faster adoption will be costs,” Annis said. High manufacturing costs for most makers will keep average rigid AMOLED panel prices 40 percent above equivalent LCD panels, while flexible AMOLED panel prices will remain 100 percent higher. “Smartphone makers, targeting mid and low-end market segments, may want to buy flexible AMOLED panels, but are likely to be restricted by lingering high prices.”

To absorb all the new capacity in the pipeline, flexible AMOLED panels will need to expand the market beyond smartphones to tablet PCs, notebooks and new form factors enabled by foldable displays. Ultimately, the rapid growth of flexible AMOLED capacity and the resulting increase in panel production will help to lower costs, increase yields and improve quality. In the long-run, this will spur further adoption into more applications; however, to get there, the industry may first need to cycle through a difficult period of digesting the 46 new flexible fabs now being built.

The global active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panel market is forecast to surge 63 percent in 2017 from a year ago to $25.2 billion on growing demand for AMOLED panels in the smartphone and TV industries, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

“Growing use of AMOLED panels in smartphones and rising sales of AMOLED TVs will mainly drive the growth of the AMOLED panel market,” said Ricky Park, director of display research at IHS Markit. “A steady rise in demand from head-mount displays and mobile PCs would also prop up the market.”

AMOLED_shipment_revenue_forecast_2

The demand for AMOLED displays has rapidly risen in the smartphone market in particular as the flexible substrate allows phones to be produced in various designs with a lighter and slimmer bodies. This year, leading smartphone makers have competitively rolled out premium phones that boast a very narrow bezel or nearly bezel-less designs.

“The AMOLED display market is also expected to get a boost from Apple’s decision to use an AMOLED screen in its iPhone series to be released later this year, and Chinese smartphone makers’ moving to newer applications of AMOLED panels,” Park said. “To meet the burgeoning demand, South Korean and Chinese display makers have been heavily investing in Generation 6 AMOLED fabs.”

According to Display Long-term Demand Forecast Tracker from IHS Markit, the TV industry, the second biggest market for AMOLED panels, will also play a major role in fostering the growth of the AMOLED panel market this year. LG Display, which currently dominates the AMOLED TV panel market, is set to embark on the operation of its second AMOLED TV panel line E4-2 with an aim to mass produce panels in the latter half of this year.

Bumped up by an increase in output, the AMOLED TV panel market is forecast to grow from 890,000 units last year to 1.5 million units this year. By 2021, the AMOLED panel market is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 22 percent to exceed $40 billion.

As active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays quickly displace liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in smartphones, panel makers are rapidly adding new production capacity, accelerating the demand for the fine metal mask (FMM), a critical production component used to manufacture red-green-blue (RGB) AMOLEDs. The FMM market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38 percent from $234 million in 2017 to $1.2 billion in 2022, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

 

AMOLED_FMM_revenue_forecast

In the AMOLED manufacturing process, FMM is a production component used to pattern individual red, green and blue subpixels. A heating source evaporates organic light-emitting materials, but vapor deposition can only be controlled precisely with the use of a physical mask. FMM — a metal sheet, only tens of microns thick, with millions of very small holes per panel — is the only production-proven method of accurately depositing RGB color components in high-resolution displays.

“FMM has become a bottleneck in the supply of AMOLED panels due to the manufacturing technology challenges posed by increasing resolutions and a limited supply base. As pixels per inch (PPI) increase, thinner FMMs with finer dimensions are required, which reduce mask production yield and useable lifetime,” said Jerry Kang, senior principal analyst of display research at IHS Markit.

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) is the dominant FMM supplier, owing to its proprietary etching technology for very thin metal foils and mass production experience. Currently, DNP’s FMMs are used to fabricate the vast majority of AMOLED smartphone panels, and exclusively for high-end quad high definition (QHD) resolutions. “Most panel makers are now trying to procure DNP’s FMM in hopes of being able to quickly ramp new fabs to high yields,” Kang said.

The critical nature of FMM and rapid demand growth are encouraging a number of companies to develop alternative FMM technologies and enter the market. Panel makers are also encouraging new players as a second source to mitigate supply chain risk and create price competition. As the supply of FMM is a determinant factor in the AMOLED display market to meet its projected growth rates, and with the FMM market forecast to grow five times its current size by 2022, FMM is garnering intense interest from both set and panel makers alike and creating new opportunities for suppliers.

The AMOLED Shadow Mask Technology & Market – 2017 report from IHS Markit provides a comprehensive analysis of the latest technology and market trends for FMMs and open masks, as well as mask and panel supplier status updates, including forecasts of revenues, units, area and prices from 2014 to 2022.

 

As panel makers are increasingly targeting the premium TV market, active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) TV panel shipments are expected to exceed 10 million units by 2023, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42 percent from 2017, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

Panel manufacturers are continuously increasing AMOLED TV panel line-up with differentiated picture quality and figure, targeting the premium TV market. However, high manufacturing cost of the AMOLED TV panel will remain a hurdle to its shipment increase, according to IHS Markit analysis.

“LG Display is the only AMOLED TV panel supplier continuously increasing ultra-high definition (UHD) AMOLED TV panel shipments, while planning to discontinue the mass production of full HD AMOLED TV panel in 2017,” said Jerry Kang, principal analyst of display research at IHS Markit.

“This indicates most TV brands recognize that AMOLED TV will be more competitive in the premium TV market, which is less price-sensitive than even the high-end TV market, considering the relatively high manufacturing cost of AMOLED TV panels.” The 65-inch UHD TV panel will account for 48 percent of the total AMOLED TV panel shipments in 2017.

Figure 1

Figure 1

According to the IHS Markit Large Sized AMOLED Technology & Market report, most of AMOLED panel manufacturers are trying to develop an ink-jet AMOLED process, seen as a viable way to reduce manufacturing costs. However, they are facing challenges with the soluble emitting materials used in the process, resulting in low-performance yields.

“The panel manufactures are now associating themselves with a few equipment and material suppliers to develop and optimize the ink-jet AMOLED process, with an aim to mass produce AMOLED TV panels utilizing essentially an ink-jet printer by 2019,” Kang said.

The IHS Markit Large Sized AMOLED Technology & Market report covers the latest market trend and the forecast of AMOLED displays of 9.7 inches and larger, technologies analysis and panel makers’ strategies by region.

Air Products (NYSE: APD), an industrial gases company, today announced it has recently received multiple, long-term supply awards from semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturers in China as the country’s electronics manufacturing industry continues to boom.

Industrial gases supply contracts awarded to Air Products over the past 12 months call for the investment in six industrial gas plants and a pipeline network for the supply of gaseous nitrogen and oxygen, as well as other bulk gases. These facilities will support existing and new customers in key electronics clusters and industrial parks in China’s major economic regions, including the Yangtze River Delta in Eastern China, Pearl River Delta in Southern China, and Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in Northern China.

“We are greatly honored to be selected by our existing as well as new customers to support their growth plans in China. These wins speak volumes about their confidence in our capabilities,” said Saw Choon Seong, China president, Industrial Gases at Air Products. “Air Products has been serving the China market for 30 years. These recent strategic investments reflect our continued commitment to supporting the fast-paced development of electronics manufacturing customers here who are gaining new momentum for growth under the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan and ‘Made in China 2025′ initiative. We will continue to bring our scale, innovation, and reliable and safe supply to enable them to thrive.”

The Chinese Government has a strong commitment to boosting development of the electronics industry. One initiative is the establishment of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, commonly known as the Big Fund, to invest roughly USD 20 billion from 2014 through 2017 in the country’s semiconductor industry. In addition, local governments have also set up regional-level funds totalling around USD 100 billion to promote key technologies and major projects.

Air Products’ wins over the past 12 months include some landmark projects in China’s electronics industry, and some are state-level projects, such as:

  • A new memory fab in the Fujian (Jinjiang) Integrated Circuit Industrial Park in Fujian Province, Southern China; and
  • A new foundry in the Pukou Economic Development Zone (PKEDZ) in Eastern China, a state-level high-tech park which will be home to advanced manufacturing and is only 35 kilometers away from the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park (NCIP). Air Products has already built a leading position in the NCIP serving several hundred customers in the park and across Nanjing through pipelines and various supply modes.

Air Products has been an industrial gases supplier to the global electronics industry for over 40 years. In China, the company has been serving many world-leading and domestic manufacturers in the development of next generation electronics devices by leveraging its strong and reliable supply network across the country. One example is the supply to one of China’s most advanced fabs, which is located in Xian City, Western China, and is owned and operated by a leading global semiconductor company. Air Products is also supplying the country’s highest-generation, most advanced and most efficient TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) fab located in the Banan Jieshi IT Industrial Park in Chongqing City, Western China.

The primary automotive display systems market will reach $11.6 billion in tier one supplier revenue globally in 2017, according to new analysis from business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

The market is set to increase drastically over the next few years, says the latest Automotive Display Systems Forecasts from IHS Markit. The most valuable are the Center Stack Displays and Instrument Cluster Displays, representing global revenues of $6.1 and $4.8 billion respectively. Head-Up Displays (HUD) account for only $731 million today, but show the largest growth potential in terms of percentage going forward through 2022. In 2022, combined value from the Center Stack Display, Instrument Cluster Display and Head-Up Display system markets total more than $20.8 billion, an increase of $9.2 billion in annual revenue in just five years, according to IHS Markit.

“There are a few different sources of this increase in display value within the automotive sector,” said Brian Rhodes, automotive technology analyst for IHS Markit. “First are simple volume increases, with more vehicles adding new displays to the instrument cluster and center stack, along with Head-Up Display deployments becoming more common. The second area of growth is in the technology value itself, as these displays are becoming larger and more capable – and therefore more expensive.”

Continental leads display system suppliers

Continental is expected to be the top supplier of primary automotive display systems in 2017 based on global revenue forecasts, the IHS Markit research says. Visteon follows closely behind, as the only other supplier with a double-digit market share in this space. Panasonic, Denso and Bosch round out the remaining market share leaders in the top five. Combined, these suppliers account for more than $6 billion in revenue resulting from Center Stack Display, Instrument Cluster Display and Head-Up Display systems in 2017.

“The top five primary display system suppliers command more than half of the total automotive display systems market,” Rhodes said. “While this is certainly a large portion of revenue for a handful of large players, it still means there is an incredible amount of fragmentation left over offering opportunity for the rest of the supply base — both in today’s market and in the foreseeable future based on our forecasts.”

Safety information related display panels offer strong growth potential

Thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) automotive display panel market shipments are expected to grow from 135 million units in 2016 to 200 million units in 2022. This technology will represent more than 67 percent share of total automotive display shipments, according to the Automotive Display Market Tracker from IHS Markit.

“The market growth momentum has shifted from center stack display, rear seat entertainment and other infotainment displays, to safety system displays, namely instrument cluster display, head-up display and eMirror systems,” said Stacy Wu, principal analyst for IHS Markit. While today’s volumes are large for infotainment display panels, safety-critical display panels will see double-digit growth through 2022, according to IHS Markit forecasts.

Japan Display, Innolux top tier two automotive display panel manufacturers

Based on the latest findings from IHS Markit, Japan Display, Innolux, Sharp, AU Optronics and LG Display are the top five TFT LCD automotive display panel manufacturers, representing more than 65 percent of the market in 2016.

“However, we expect to see increasing share gains from new entrants and possible ranking switches as well,” Wu said. “Stagnant panel demand from consumer electronics segments like notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, together with excess production capacity, is forcing display panel makers to enter the fast growing automotive market.”

IHS Markit experts covering various aspects of the global displays market will be attending SID’s Display Week in Los Angeles, May 23-25. In addition, IHS Markit will present in these three upcoming display events in the fall:

  • IHS Markit Global Display Conference on September 19-20 in San Francisco, CA
  • IHS Markit Automotive Conference on September 26 in Detroit, MI
  • SID Vehicle Display Symposium on September 26-27 in Detroit, MI

A team of researchers, led by the University of Minnesota, have discovered a new nano-scale thin film material with the highest-ever conductivity in its class. The new material could lead to smaller, faster, and more powerful electronics, as well as more efficient solar cells.

The discovery is being published today in Nature Communications, an open access journal that publishes high-quality research from all areas of the natural sciences.

Researchers say that what makes this new material so unique is that it has a high conductivity, which helps electronics conduct more electricity and become more powerful. But the material also has a wide bandgap, which means light can easily pass through the material making it optically transparent. In most cases, materials with wide bandgap, usually have either low conductivity or poor transparency.

“The high conductivity and wide bandgap make this an ideal material for making optically transparent conducting films which could be used in a wide variety of electronic devices, including high power electronics, electronic displays, touchscreens and even solar cells in which light needs to pass through the device,” said Bharat Jalan, a University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science professor and the lead researcher on the study.

Currently, most of the transparent conductors in our electronics use a chemical element called indium. The price of indium has generally gone up over the last two decades, which has added to the cost of current display technology. As a result, there has been tremendous effort to find alternative materials that work as well, or even better, than indium-based transparent conductors.

In this study, researchers found a solution. They developed a new transparent conducting thin film using a novel synthesis method, in which they grew a BaSnO3 thin film (a combination of barium, tin and oxygen, called barium stannate), but replaced elemental tin source with a chemical precursor of tin. The chemical precursor of tin has unique, radical properties that enhanced the chemical reactivity and greatly improved the metal oxide formation process. Both barium and tin are significantly cheaper than indium and are abundantly available.

“We were quite surprised at how well this unconventional approach worked the very first time we used the tin chemical precursor,” said University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science graduate student Abhinav Prakash, the first author of the paper. “It was a big risk, but it was quite a big breakthrough for us.”

Jalan and Prakash said this new process allowed them to create this material with unprecedented control over thickness, composition, and defect concentration and that this process should be highly suitable for a number of other material systems where the element is hard to oxidize. The new process is also reproducible and scalable.

They further added that it was the structurally superior quality with improved defect concentration that allowed them to discover high conductivity in the material. They said the next step is to continue to reduce the defects at the atomic scale.

“Even though this material has the highest conductivity within the same materials class, there is much room for improvement in addition, to the outstanding potential for discovering new physics if we decrease the defects. That’s our next goal,” Jalan said.

Global liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel shipments are expected to increase by 7 percent in the second quarter of 2017 quarter to quarter to 646.7 million units, a rebound from a 9 percent quarter-to-quarter decrease in the first quarter, according to IHS Markit.

“The increase in shipments has been driven by demand from new product model preparation and the annual Labour Day sales promotion in China held during May,” said Linda Lin, senior analyst of display research at IHS Markit. “Among applications, TV, monitor and smartphone panels will drive the shipment increase.”

IT panel demand is expected to be conservative this year, without strong enough replacement momentum to drive it up. Demand for notebook PC panels is forecast to decline 8 percent in the second quarter of 2017 from the previous quarter, weaker than that for monitors (up 5 percent) and tablet PC (down 1 percent) applications. In particular, tablet PC panel demand is expected to surge at the end of the second quarter as Apple and other tablet PC brands launch new products later.TV panel inventory level is balanced at this moment, and TV panel demand is expected to go smoothly through the second quarter of 2017. “TV inventory levels after China’s Labour Day sales promotions will determine whether panel demand can continue up or decline in the second half of 2017,” Lin said.Demand for TV panels is forecast to be up 3 percent in the second quarter from the previous quarter. After suffering from high panel prices, TV brands are likely to move their procurement plan to two different size segments at either 32-inch and below, or 65-inch and above.  Smaller TV brands are aiming for the smaller segment, seen as a boon for quantity sales given the lower retail price, while first-tier brands that command better purchasing power will look to the larger segment, despite the supply shortage caused by tighter capacity, according to IHS Markit.

“Panel makers are moving more capacity to IT panels from smartphone panels beginning the second quarter as mobile phone set demand slows down. This will aggravate the supply-demand imbalance in the IT panel market,” Lin said.

ASML and ZEISS today announced that both companies are filing initial legal claims against Nikon for infringement of more than 10 patents, related to a broad range of products in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, flat panel display manufacturing equipment and digital cameras. This follows Nikon’s announcement on April 24, 2017, that it has sued ASML and ZEISS. Both companies have denied infringement allegations.

ASML has today filed suits in Japan, both on its own and jointly with its strategic partner ZEISS. Additional suits will be brought in the United States.

Peter Wennink, ASML President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We have no choice but to file these countersuits. We have tried for many years to come to a cross-license agreement that reflects the increased strength of our patent portfolio. Unfortunately, Nikon has never seriously participated in negotiations. Now that Nikon has decided to take this dispute to court, we also have to enforce our patent portfolio, and we will do this as broadly as possible.”

ASML has been confronted with Nikon’s claims of supposed patent infringement before. In 2001, Nikon went to the United States International Trade Commission (US ITC). Two years later, the Commission found no violation and ASML won on all 15 accounts. ASML and Nikon subsequently settled in a cross-license agreement that allowed both companies to focus on further developing products and serving chipmakers, without the unnecessary distraction of an intellectual property dispute. Some patents were perpetually licensed; for others, the license period ended on 31 December 2009. A transitional period, during which the parties had agreed not to bring suit, ended on 31 December 2014. Nikon’s patent portfolio was larger than the portfolio of ASML and ZEISS in 2004, a situation which is now reversed.

Through sustained high investment in Research and Development totaling more than EUR 8 billion since 2004, ASML built up a portfolio of more than 10,000 patent rights. The application of these technologies has been adopted by all of the world’s largest chipmakers.

ZEISS holds more than 7,000 patents in many countries around the globe, developing technologies in optics and optoelectronics in areas such as microscopy, medical technology and lithography.