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Company News >> The advantages and disadvantages of OLED printing technology and its development prospect 19th,March,2018

Many manufacturers and even emerging Chinese manufacturers are developing printing processes for OLED production. However, given the current state of technology, experience, and material R&D, it seems to take more time than panel makers expect. IHS believes that this goal will be achieved around 2020.

1. What is the difference between FMM vapor deposition and ink jet printing OLED?

The main difference between fine metal mask (FMM) evaporation and inkjet printing is the equipment and materials that make up these organic layers. When using FMM to make these organic layers, you need to use a vacuum device. Solid materials were added to the device and then the OLED material was evaporated by heating.

The evaporation source is coated on the surface of the substrate in a pixel pattern manner through a mask. However, the principle of ink jet printing OLEDs is different. The basic principles are similar to those commonly found in home and office inkjet printers. The inkjet printing method is mainly to use a solvent to melt the OLED organic material, and then the material is directly printed on the surface of the substrate to form R (red), G (green), and B (blue) organic light-emitting layers. Please see the figure below.

2. What are the advantages of the printing process?

The OLED printing process has the following advantages over the typical FMM (Fine Metal Mask) process. First of all, the process is simpler; secondly, the organic luminescent material has higher evaporation efficiency; thirdly, it is easier to handle large substrates, especially Gen8 and above, and finally the manufacturing cost is lower.

With these advantages, the printing process is mainly aimed at large-size substrates, especially the Gen8 and above TV panels. However, there are also some deficiencies in the printing process. In fact, the material of the printed OLED process is not yet sufficient for large-scale production, but many industry players aim to develop a large-scale printing process by 2018.

3. What are the challenges in printing OLEDs?

Printed OLEDs also face numerous challenges, including material luminous efficiency and longevity improvements. It is well known that printing materials, especially blue light emitting materials, need to be improved because the lifetime and luminous efficiency of blue light emitting materials are lower than those of other color materials.

Therefore, recently, South Korea and Japanese OLED equipment manufacturers have developed the "FMM (fine metal mask) and printing process mixed" technology: that is, red and green organic materials processed by the printing process, while the blue organic material by the typical FMM (Fine Metal mask) process and then combine the three luminescent materials.

The most important is the limited number of material manufacturers that have the ability to conduct research on printed OLED materials. So far only about five chemical material manufacturers worldwide have been able to conduct research and production of printed OLED materials, such as Merck, DuPont, Sumitomo Chemical and Nissan Chemical.

4. Is there any difference between evaporation and printing OLED materials?

There are many differences in the OLED materials used in the two processes. First of all, for the FMM (Fine Metal Mask) process, the OLED material is basically a solid form, and for the printing process, the material is a liquid form. The characteristics of organic materials are basically more sensitive (unstable).

Therefore, it is also difficult to develop materials that can meet the scale of production and required performance. In fact, even solid organic materials used for mass production of AMOLEDs still need to be improved. This means that the development of new materials suitable for printing technology will take more time.

In addition, for the printing process, since these materials are in liquid form, they should also be dried after printing. This will also result in material changes and loss of yield.

5. When will the printing process for large-size OLED technology mature? A brief description of the development strategy of display manufacturers in printing OELD.

Korean panel makers are currently leading the research and development of OLED printing technology because they are the only manufacturers that currently produce OLED displays on a large scale. The printing process is mainly aimed at the replacement of large-scale substrate evaporation. Since LG Display is currently the only manufacturer of OLED TV panels, it is particularly active in the research and development of OLED printing processes.

In fact, Lejin Display has set up a test device for Gen8 size OLED printing process on the Korean production line for research. However, since luminescent materials are still in the development stage, much of the work depends on the material manufacturer, not the panel manufacturer. It seems that the development of materials that can meet the required performance levels of the display panel will also take more time.