CHINESE DISPLAYMAKERCHINASTAROPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY (CSOT), a subsidiary of the electronics conglomerate TCL Technology, has invested $187 million in the Japanese OLED manufacturer JOLED. The move allows CSOT to make inkjet-printed (UP) OLED TV panels using JOLED's technology. As part of the deal, CSOT received newly issued shares in JOLED and entered into a three-year partnership and patent cooperation agreement. The arrangement provides a much-needed financial boost to JOLED, which was formed in July 2014 by the Japanese government-backed investment fund Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) in combination with Japan Display, Sony, and Panasonic. JOLED began its research and development on UP OLEDs in 2015. It started shipping low volumes of 21-inch 4K OLEDs for medical monitors in 2017 but still needed $900 million in additional capital to expand production and target new markets. In August 2018, it raised $420 million from the Japanese companies Denso, Toyota, Sumitomo Chemical, and Screen Finetech, and in April 2019, it raised an additional $229 million from INCJ, Sony, and Nishaa. Still, that left it $251 million short, which is where CSOT comes in. CSOT and BOE Display have a commanding lead in the manufacture of LCD panels, which has forced Korean companies LG Display and Samsung Display to largely exit the LCD market. But neither firm has an OLED solution for high-end TVs, a segment that has been dominated by LG's white OLED (WOLED) technology, notes Eric Virey, principal analyst for Yole Developpement. To solve that problem, CSOT and BOE can try to catch up by duplicating LG's WOLED technology, or the newer quantum dot (QD)-OLED ("blue OLED") technology in which Samsung Display is investing $11 billion. Or, Virey says, the Chinese firms can try to "jump to the next generation of OLED" with IJP RGB OLEDs. Licensing JOLED's inkjet technology for TV panel production, as CSOT has done, is a big step toward that.
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