BOE to develop giant OLED line in Chengdu, China

12 May 2015

Company aiming to establish the hi-tech city as a "global base for photonics display industry".

Chinese company BOE Technology Group, a leading developer of semiconductor display technologies has this month started work on its “Gen 6 Low Temperature PolySilicon Active Matrix OLED” production line in the Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone.

BOE's range of display products are widely used in a broad spectrum of applications such as mobile phones, tablets, notebooks, monitors, TVs, vehicle displays and digital information displays. The company announced that the new production line “will manufacture high-end mobile phone panels and new displays for mobile devices.”

The facility has a design capacity of 45,000 glass substrates per month and involves a total investment of RMB 22bn ($3.54bn / €3.15bn). Actual production is expected to come on line in the first half of 2017.

BOE and Chengdu Hi-tech Zone have worked in partnership for many years. In 2007, BOE invested RMB3.1bn to build the Gen 4.5 TFT-LCD project in Chengdu and in 2011, BOE expanded the Chengdu LTPS TFT-LCD/AMOLED production line to offer over 30 different products. In 2013, Chengdu BOE Optoelectronics Technology achieved sales revenue of RMB4.4bn and export sales of $600m.

According to market analyst NPD DisplaySearch, the demand for LTPS panels will continue to grow with the popularity of high-resolution smart phones and increasing sizes of smart phone screens.

Growth forecast

In 2013, the demand for LTPS panels was 3.3 million m² and that for AMOLED panels was 1.4 million m². It is expected that the compound annual growth rate of demand for LTPS panels will reach 24.1% and that for AMOLED panels 40.7% in 2020.

BOE commented that its new production line in Chengdu, once completed, will increase its competitiveness in small and medium-sized high-end displays. The new production line announcement stated, “The company will gain greater overall strengths in high-performance mobile phone panels and displays for mobile devices, a higher proportion of products with higher gross margins, and better capacity to withstand market fluctuations.”

Liu Xiaodong, COO of BOE Technology Group, said, "As a leading city in Southwest China, Chengdu possesses an integrated industrial production resource for the electronic information industry, with multiple skills and human resources, a massive market and favorable transportation and logistics infrastructure. With the benefit of the Gen 6 production line, BOE will use Chengdu as a base from which to expand into larger global markets, significantly enhancing the competitiveness of its high-end display products.”

Besides BOE, both China National Building Materials Group Corporation and Tianma Microelectronics Company, Ltd. have established manufacturing bases in Chengdu. In mid-August 2014, China Electronics Corporation announced it would be investing RMB 28bn to build a "Gen 8.5" panel production line project in Chengdu, “to shape it into one of the most advanced and competitive LCD production lines in the future. “

About the Author

Matthew Peach is a contributing editor to optics.org.