LG Display is planning to develop hybrid OLED panel to supply to automobile customers, TheElec has learned.
Hybrid OLED panels uses glass substrates and thin-film encapsulation (TFE), technologies that were used mutually exclusively for rigid OLED panels and flexible OLED panels, respectively, in the past.
Hybrid OLED panels bring the benefits of flexible OLED panels, which use polyimide substrates instead of glass, to rigid OLED panels that are based on glass substrates. It is also cheaper to manufacture than fully flexible OLED panels, which display panel makers currently supply mostly to premium smartphones.
Sources said LG Display’s first customer for its new hybrid OLED panels is very likely European carmakers.
The South Korean display panel maker had only supplied polyimide OLED panels for its automobile customers so far.
It uses two stack tandem structure in these panels, where there are two emission layers, to make the panels last longer.
LG Display introduced its hybrid OLED panel technology as Advanced Thin OLED during CES earlier this year. It touted that it uses glass substrates is 20% thinner than its competition.
Manufacturing cheaper OLED panels will allow LG Display to supply them to low-end vehicles as well.
The company is also looking to procure fine metal masks, key components used to manufacture OLED panels that are used to deposit the organic material on the substrate, from LG Innotek instead of long-time supplier Dai Nippon Printing for the hybrid OLED panels.
Meanwhile, LG Display and Samsung Display are also currently developing hybrid OLED panels to supply to customer Apple for use in future iPads.
