October 30, 2024

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Samsung Display will reportedly announce a new investment plan next week to build manufacturing lines for quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED) displays. The amount will likely reach 13.2 trillion won ($11 billion) -- the largest in the display industry, according to sources Tuesday.

A QD-OLED display is made of a self-luminous OLED panel attached with a layer of QDs, which are small semiconductor crystals.

Similar to OLED TVs, QD-OLED variants do not require backlight units and boast better color gamut and energy efficiency than LCD-based products. In addition, they do not have the so-called burn-in issue, which describes a permanent image retention on a screen. The burn-in problem is pointed out as one of the biggest drawbacks for OLED displays.

Samsung Display and its parent company Samsung Electronics have so far focused on producing LCD-based TVs while having utilized the OLED technology for small-sized devices like smartphones and tablet PCs.

Samsung Electronics’ high-end QLED TV lineup, for example, are based on a LCD panel layered with a QD film.

The investment plan came after Samsung Group’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong paid a visit to the display manufacturing complex in Asan, South Chungcheong Province.

He encouraged the top executives of the display firm to spare no efforts to take the lead in the high-end display sector.

“The risks and opportunities come and go repeatedly, so Samsung should not give up on large-sized display businesses because of the challenges,” Lee said during his visit.

Samsung, and other South Korean LCD makers like LG Display, are being outpaced by fast-growing Chinese display makers in terms of the manufacturing volume and sales.

Because of the falling margin in the LCD segment, it has long been forecast Samsung would jump in the QD-OLED sector to create new values.

LG Display, on the other hand, has recently announced it would streamline some of its LCD manufacturing lines in South Korea while putting more focus on rolling out various types of OLED products.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)