LG's New 55+ inch OLED Plant in China Opens: Over 1m+ per Year
by Anton Shilov on August 31, 2019 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Monitors
- Displays
- LG
- OLED
- LG Display
LG Display this month started production at its 8.5th Generation OLED manufacturing facility in Guangzhou, China. When fully ramped, total capacity of the factory will be 90,000 substrates per month. The plant will produce 55, 65, and 77-inch high-resolution panels for televisions. In fact, LG’s goal is to make 10 million large size OLED panels per year by 2022, which means to more than double its current output.
The new 8.5G OLED panel plant is a nine-level building above the ground that occupies a 74,000 m² piece of land and provides 427,000 m² of floor space. Initial capacity of the manufacturing facility will be 60,000 2200×2500 mm substrates per month, which will be expanded to 90,000 sheets per month by 2021. The factory will be operated by LG Display High-Tech China, a joint venture between LG Display and Guangzhou Development District, in which the former holds a 70% stake (with ~$2,150 billion in capital).
Facing cut-throat competition from various makers of liquid crystal displays, LG Display recently set a strategic goal to significantly expand production of large OLED panels in a bid to serve more lucrative and growing market segments. LGD says that it sold 2.9 million huge OLED panels in 2018 and expects to sell 3.8 million large panels this year, which will turn this business to profitability. Citing market researchers, the manufacturer says that demand for OLED TVs and panels is growing and to that end, it makes a great sense to invest in OLED plants.
Right now, LG makes 70,000 8.5G OLED substrates at its plant near Paju, South Korea. The company is building a 10.5th Generation OLED plant near Paju that will produce 45,000 of 2940×3370 mm substrates per month when it is ready in 2022. Combined, LGD will manufacture 160,000 8.5G OLED substrates and 45,000 10.5G OLED sheets a month in 2022. The company hopes that its expanded manufacturing capacity will enable it to make 10 million of large OLED panels per year by 2022.
Related Reading:
- LG to Start Production of OLEDs in China Next Month, Set to Double OLED Output
- AU Optronics OLED Displays: A New Foldable + A New 17.3-Inch 4K120
- Japan’s Ministry Approves Shipments of Industrial Chemicals to South Korea
- Samsung Mulls Suspending South Korea LCD Plant Due to Oversupply
Source: LG Display
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BurntMyBacon - Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - link
I'm sure it is a little more complicated than you or I understand, but everything I've seen and read suggests this is exactly what is happening in this industry. It is probably a good example of an abuse of the patent system that the system itself was not designed to prevent. Many patent systems are designed under the assumption that the people using it are proper innovators only looking to protect their investments and further fuel their innovations. They aren't made to prevent patent trolls or stop people from sitting on a single innovation and forcing royalties from any who wish to continue innovating. Also, the level of detail required to be call an innovation is often trivial, but most systems don't provide an adequate way to differentiate true innovation from the next logical step or functions provided by an auxiliary advancement in technology. I digress.FunBunny2 - Saturday, August 31, 2019 - link
"Innovation costs money."name one person who got smarter by being paid more.
RBFL - Monday, September 2, 2019 - link
Money doesn't make people smarter but applying more time and effort to a problem does cost more.It also typically involves a level of failure, market development,... which are also expensive.
Ideas may be cheap but developing real products is not.
BurntMyBacon - Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - link
@FunBunny2: "name one person who got smarter by being paid more."Want to find the most efficient way to get the job done? Give it to the laziest person on the crew. The point is, I find that the most innovative people are rarely the smartest. More often they are simply smart enough with an incentive to improve something (often times out of laziness) and with access to the necessary tools and resources to do so. Which brings me to my point: the smartest silicon designers in the world could not have created silicon microprocessors without ... SILICON. Inventing, innovating, and improving process technologies at the molecular and atomic level also requires the necessary tools to implement, measure, and evaluate. Putting these ideas into practice requires even more tools and resources (raw or processed materials).
Many ideas in the microprocessor industry were thought of decades ago, but were beyond the (at the time) current technology to be implemented effectively if at all. As technology advanced, some of these ideas became practical, but implementation frequently deviates from how it was originally envisioned. Oh, and did I mention that it takes MONEY to buy these tools and resources and employ people to continue working on technology advancements to get to the point where you could implement the idea.
Now consider that sometimes things don't work out (I.E. Intel's original foray into 10nm). It is hard to justify investing large quantities of money into projects with a high chance of failure if there is a high probability that someone else will receive the benefits. Remember, the people funding the projects are rarely the people responsible for the actual innovation. They are extremely concerned about return on investment.
FunBunny2 - Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - link
" Putting these ideas into practice requires even more tools and resources (raw or processed materials)."those are engineering concerns, not, strictly speaking IP or innovation. engineering doesn't innovate, only digs up some more of God's Laws. it's hubris to claim 'innovation' when it was God who actually did it. Mendeleev didn't invent the periodic table, even if he's widely credited with it. God built the elements and in such a way that they had 'family' characteristics. most everything in science and engineering isn't 'invented' by humans, but merely dug out of the muck of time. and much of 'innovation' was by accident; for this some human should be rich and have power over the rest of us?
Vitor - Saturday, August 31, 2019 - link
False. Because innovation doesnt happen in a vacuum, everybody gets inspiration from everybody. Ideas love to "mate" with each other.Now those billions waste on courts for the most stupid IP, now that is money that is going to lawyers instead of actual R&D.
BurntMyBacon - Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - link
I agree that innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum. In addition to getting inspiration from others, I'll add that new innovations can enable other innovations (similar to your mating of ideas comment).It is also undeniable that an inexcusable amount of money that should be funding R&D gets redirected to the legal departments of many companies.
However, I don't see how that invalidates the idea that innovation costs money or that lack of any protection could have an undesirable effect on the pace of innovation. Consider that the people funding the kind of innovations that have a legal team behind them are rarely the people who are doing the actual innovating. These people are extremely concerned about return on investment.
That said, the appropriate level of protection is certainly debatable and I don't know of a single system (or lack there of) out there that hasn't been abused.
FunBunny2 - Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - link
"However, I don't see how that invalidates the idea that innovation costs money or that lack of any protection could have an undesirable effect on the pace of innovation."there was a time, in the lifetimes of some still alive, when most 'innovation' was sponsored by the Damn Gummint and academia, and the fruits of that 'innovation' was part of the Public Capital. general growth of the economy and society was much greater than it's been since all that has been sequestered by Corporations. be careful what you wish for.
I want to say one word to you. Just one word. linux.
uibo - Saturday, August 31, 2019 - link
What is the difference between 8.5G and 10.5G OLED-s?Add why would they give them names with .5-s?
s.yu - Sunday, September 1, 2019 - link
Good question!