Samsung Display has improved its quantum dot nanorod LED (QNED) technology enough to start investing in production equipment in 2021, according to UBI Research.
The market research firm said it analyzed 94 patents filed by the South Korean display maker this year.
It found drastic improvements in technology in patents filed in the second half of 2020 over those filed in the first half.
The backplane of Samsung’s QNED has a 7T2C thin-film transistor (TFT) structure __ oscillator transistor to align the nanorod LED and repair transistor were found to be placed together.
QNED’s circuit design was similar to that of Samsung’s TFT structure for mobile organic light emitting diode (OLED), UBI Research said.
Conventional large-sized OLED uses 3TIC structure, the research firm added.
The addition of oscillator transistor was the most interesting finding in its patent analysis, UBI Research said, as it has not been used in display panels before.
Nanorod LED are deposited on the panel in ink form. Dielectrophoresis caused by the electric field of the panel aligns the Nanorod LEDs. Waveform of the alignment determines the yield rate of the resolution.
Yield rate is the key issue with QNED technology. Around ten to twenty nanorod LED will be placed per pixel. A failure to align them properly will cause short circuiting of the pixel.
This is why a repair transistor is also placed together, so that the problem can be solved if it happens, UBI Research said.
Samsung Display has spent only four years to develop its QNED technology but it seems it is already sufficient for the company to put in production equipment for them in its factories in 2021, the research firm said.
