advantages of flat panel display screens made in china

When you purchase LED displays, you need to consider more issues, because as an engineering product, it involves more installation, use, and after-sales issues. Now 80% of China’s electronics production comes from Shenzhen, and almost all LED displays are produced in China. When you are purchasing LED displays, there is a high probability that you will come into contact with products and suppliers from China. Chinese products and suppliers have many advantages.

Shenzhen is not only China’s but also the world’s, capital of electronics manufacturing, It is also the largest trading port in China. This is the place where anything that fits into the consumer electronics category is assembled, packed, and exported to the rest of the world. LED screens are not an exception – a quick search on google.com reveals that there are very few LED screen manufacturers that aren’t based in Shenzhen.

There’s a reason 98% of China’s LED screen manufacturers are located in Shenzhen – the well-established and (fairly) efficient components and materials supply chain. LED screen manufacturers are assembling components purchased from subcontractors in or near Shenzhen. Proximity to the subcontractors is a critical factor in manufacturing. Assembling an LED screen requires thousands of components – delivery times and transportation costs certainly add up on the bottom line.

China currently has the most complete LED display industry chain in the world. The most direct consequence of this is a substantial reduction in production costs, and it can quickly respond to market feedback and customer needs, and launch new products. Now Chinese suppliers can launch a new product as soon as 45 days. Not only that, Chinese upstream suppliers like NationStar, NOVA, etc., have their technology comparable to those of major international manufacturers. So you don’t need to worry about quality at all

There are currently more than 2,000 LED display suppliers in China, 80% of which are located in Shenzhen. High-end brands include ROE, LEDYARD, YAHAM, and first-line brands: Absen, Unilumin, However, in recent years, some emerging brands have performed well, such as OneDisplay. This company not only has a complete product range but also performs well in market segments, such as transparent LED displays. Currently, the company has two exclusive products including 2.6-2.6, 3.47-3.47

Most practitioners have worked in this industry for many years and have extensive experience. They can not only help solve the various problems of customers efficiently, but also understand the needs of customers, and truly do what they want and what they want. For example, Andrew of OneDisplay has been working in the LED industry for ten years. He is an excellent technical engineer. All your technical questions can be answered here.

Customizing a product for a project can only be done by Chinese suppliers in the world. In December 2020, Onedisplay customized the world’s first P2.6-2.6 transparent screen for their French customers, helping customers solve the problem of transparent screen resolution.

As is known to all, in the past 40 years, China has made remarkable achievements in its industry. With the establishment and improvement of a modern industrial system with complete categories, China has long been the world’s largest manufacturing country.

This is mainly because China has a large population, about the same as the rest of the developed world put together, but it has not yet developed to the point where services account for a large proportion. Because China has a large population and a large number of employed people, labor is cheaper than in other countries. Foreign enterprises can take advantage of China’s labor force by putting their products into production in China, which not only increases the employment rate of Chinese people but also saves a lot of costs in the production of products. Therefore, made in China is so popular.

A guy on Quora mentions that”If you import a lot of raw Material from broad, it will cost a lot of money, but China has a very special weapon: infrastructure. Since the demand for products (mostly commodities) drives demand for raw material, that drives demand for infrastructure to route these raw materials effectively and cheaply. Unlike India, China has that infrastructure and system, and so raw material can flow in large batches and routed effectively to minimize cost.”

It is also true that in the eyes of foreign companies, Chinese products in almost any field can be produced. China’s development in the production field in recent years is very comprehensive, including raw materials, production, logistics, trade, and other supporting industrial chains, which can be said to be very complete. Therefore, foreign enterprises can find a complete industrial chain in a very short time when they come to China, so the reputation of Chinese manufacturing is also very good.

When it comes to cheap Labour, it is much cheaper in south-east Asia than in China. But why is China so popular? This involves the quality of the product. The reason why the labor force in many countries in southeast Asia is cheap is mainly that the economic level of these countries is not high, so no matter the production technology or technological level is inferior to China. To ensure the quality of their products, foreign companies naturally prefer to choose China.

In terms of product production efficiency, China is hard to compare with many other countries. According to relevant data, domestic product manufacturing efficiency is the highest in the world. On the one hand, this is because China’s factories have more comprehensive equipment and a high level of science and technology, which can shorten the production cycle of products. On the other hand, it is because of the high quality of Chinese workers, strong learning ability, and developed transportation, which also speeds up the operation of all aspects of product production.

In order to export more products to other parts of the world, the Chinese government has only a VAT system and only taxes value-added services. As a result, production costs are much cheaper than in other countries. On the other hand, the United States and some other developed countries do not impose low import tariffs on Chinese goods.

It is believed that with the continuous development of Chinese manufacturing and science and technology, made-in-china manufactures will become more popular in the future.

A flat–panel display is a type of display device that uses thin, flat, electronic technologies to create images. They are found in a variety of devices, including televisions, computers, mobile phones, and tablets. Flat-panel displays have many advantages over traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, including lower power consumption, thinner form factors, and better image quality.

Flat-panel displays have many advantages over their older counterparts, cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors. They are thinner, lighter and consume far less power. They also offer a much wider viewing angle and generally provide a sharper, more vibrant image.One of the biggest advantages of flat–panel displays is their size. They are significantly thinner and lighter than CRT monitors, making them much easier to transport and install. This also means that they take up far less space, which is ideal for use in small offices or homes.Flat-panel displays also consume far less power than CRTs. This is due to the fact that they do not require the high-voltage electron beams that are used in CRTs. This reduced power consumption not only saves money, but also helps to reduce the strain on the environment.Another advantage of flat–panel displays is their viewing angle. CRTs have a very narrow viewing angle, which can make it difficult to see the screen from certain angles. Flat-panel displays, on the other hand, have a much wider viewing angle, making them much easier to use.Finally, flat–panel displays generally provide a sharper, more vibrant image than CRTs. This is due to the fact that they use a technology called active matrix, which allows each pixel to be controlled independently. This results in a much higher level of image quality.

It is a well-known fact that flat–panel displays have a number of advantages over their older CRT counterparts. However, there are also some disadvantages that should be considered before making a purchase.One of the biggest disadvantages of flat–panel displays is their cost. While prices have come down considerably in recent years, they still tend to be more expensive than CRTs. This is particularly true of larger displays.Another downside of flat–panel displays is that they can be more difficult to view in brightly lit rooms. This is because they tend to reflect more light than CRTs. If you plan to use your display in a room with lots of windows or overhead lighting, you may want to consider a CRT.Finally, flat–panel displays tend to have shorter lifespans than CRTs. This is due to the fact that they contain a number of delicate parts, such as the backlight. If one of these parts fails, it can be very expensive to repair or replace the display.

A flat–panel display is a type of display device that uses a thin, flat piece of electric crystal to show images. They are typically used in devices such as computers, cell phones, televisions and portable media players. Flat-panel displays can be made in different ways, using various technologies. The most common types of flat–panel displays are liquid crystal displays (LCDs), light-emitting diode displays (LEDs) and plasma displays. LCD flat–panel displays work by placing a layer of liquid crystal between two polarized sheets of glass. The liquid crystals are arranged in a pattern that allows them to twist and turn when electric current is applied. This twisting and turning allows the crystals to block or pass light, which is used to create the images on the screen. LCDs are the most common type of flat–panel display, and are used in a variety of devices, including computers, televisions, and cell phones.LED flat–panel displays work in a similar way to LCDs, but use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of liquid crystals. LEDs are small, electrically charged devices that emit light when electric current is passed through them. The LEDs are arranged in a pattern on the flat–panel display, and can be used to create images in the same way as liquid crystals in LCDs. LED displays are becoming increasingly common, as they offer a number of advantages over LCDs, including better power efficiency and brighter images.Plasma flat–panel displays work by using a gas that is electrically charged to create images on the screen. The gas is contained in small cells between two pieces of glass. When electric current is applied, the gas is ionized and creates ultraviolet light. This ultraviolet light then excites phosphors on the inside of the cells, which emit visible light to create the images on the screen. Plasma displays are typically used in larger devices, such as televisions, and offer a number of advantages over LCDs and LEDs, including better image quality and wider viewing angles.

Flat-panel displays are thinner and lighter than traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer monitors. They use less electricity, which not only saves you money on your energy bill, but also helps reduce your carbon footprint. And because they don’t have any moving parts, they’re less likely to break.There are two main types of flat–panel displays: liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma displays. LCDs are found in most laptops, desktop monitors, and televisions. Plasma displays are typically found in larger televisions.Here’s a quick comparison of the two types of displays:LCD Displays• Thinner and lighter than CRTs• Use less electricity• No moving parts• Available in a wide range of sizes• Can be difficult to read in direct sunlightPlasma Displays• Thinner and lighter than CRTs• Use less electricity• No moving parts• Available in larger sizes• Better for watching movies and playing video games• Can be difficult to read in direct sunlight

The nation has invested 800 billion yuan ($120.6 billion) in flat-panel display production lines, with investment in liquid crystal display (LCD) panel production exceeding 500 billion yuan, according to the China Video Industry Association and China Optics and Optoelectronics Manufacturers Association.

Statistics also showed that revenue from the country"s display industry topped 200 billion yuan last year, and shipments of display panels reached around 57 million square meters in the first half of 2017, accounting for one-third of global shipments, second only to South Korea.

"With production lines reaching mass output in the fourth quarter, the shipment of display panels will continue to grow," said Yi Xianjing, deputy research director of display device and system department at consultancy All View Cloud in Beijing.

"We are confident that Chinese display manufacturers will break the monopoly of South Korean companies in the area of flexible display panels for smartphones this year."

An earlier report from research and analytics firm IHS Markit said China will dominate flat panel display manufacturing by 2018, taking up 35 percent of the global market.

In a move to break South Korea"s stranglehold in AMOLED, or active matrix/organic light-emitting diode technology, which is used in high-end smartphone screens, such as the iPhone X and Samsung"s Note 8 series, Chinese panel manufacturers are pressing ahead with ambitious expansion plans, investing heavily in new flexible display panels.

BOE Technology Group Co Ltd, the country"s biggest display producer, is muscling into the market. The company invested 46.5 billion yuan in a sixth generation AMOLED production line, which was rolled out in May, at its Chengdu factory. It can turn out 48,000 glass substrate panels per month.

Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd, another Chinese display panel manufacturer, started construction of a sixth-generation LTPS-AMOLED display panel production line in June in Wuhan, Hubei province.

Chen Lijuan, an analyst at Sigmaintell, said panel manufacturers should not just invest in production lines, but also pay more attention to the establishment of a whole industry chain, including raw materials, equipment and technology.

One of today’s modern technological wonders is the flat-panel liquid crystal display (LCD) screen, which is the key component we find inside televisions, computer monitors, smartphones, and an ever-proliferating range of gadgets that display information electronically.What most people don’t realize is how complex and sophisticated the manufacturing process is. The entire world’s supply is made within two time zones in East Asia. Unless, of course, the factory proposed by Foxconn for Wisconsin actually gets built.

Last week I had the opportunity to tour BOE Technology Group’s Gen 10.5 factory in Hefei, the capital of China’s Anhui Province.This was the third factory, or “fab” that Beijing-based BOE built in Hefei alone, and in terms of capability, it is now the most advanced in the world.BOE has a total of 12 fabs in Beijing, Chongqing, and several other major cities across China; this particular factory was named Fab 9.

Liquid crystal display (LCD) screens are manufactured by assembling a sandwich of two thin sheets of glass.On one of the sheets are transistor “cells” formed by first depositing a layer of indium tin oxide (ITO), an unusual metal alloy that you can actually see through.That’s how you can get electrical signals to the middle of a screen.Then you deposit a layer of silicon, followed by a process that builds millions of precisely shaped transistor parts.This patterning step is repeated to build up tiny little cells, one for each dot (known as a pixel) on the screen.Each step has to be precisely aligned to the previous one within a few microns.Remember, the average human hair is 40 microns in diameter.

On the other sheet of glass, you make an array of millions of red, green, and blue dots in a black matrix, called a color filter array (CFA).This is how you produce the colors when you shine light through it.Then you drop tiny amounts of liquid crystal material into the cells on the first sheet and glue the two sheets together.You have to align the two sheets so the colored dots sit right on top of the cells, and you can’t be off by more than a few microns in each direction anywhere on the sheet.The sandwich is next covered with special sheets of polarizing film, and the sheets are cut into individual “panels” – a term that is used to describe the subassembly that actually goes into a TV.

For the sake of efficiency, you would like to make as many panels on a sheet as possible, within the practical limitations of how big a sheet you can handle at a time.The first modern LCD Fabs built in the early 1990s made sheets the size of a single notebook computer screen, and the size grew over time. A Gen 5 sheet, from around 2003, is 1100 x 1300 mm, while a Gen 10.5 sheet is 2940 x 3370 mm (9.6 x 11 ft).The sheets of glass are only 0.5 - 0.7 mm thick or sometimes even thinner, so as you can imagine they are extremely fragile and can really only be handled by robots.The Hefei Gen 10.5 fab is designed to produce the panels for either eight 65 inch or six 75 inch TVs on a single mother glass.If you wanted to make 110 inch TVs, you could make two of them at a time.

The fab is enormous, 1.3 km from one end to the other, divided into three large buildings connected by bridges.LCD fabs are multi-story affairs.The main equipment floor is sandwiched between a ground floor that is filled with chemical pipelines, power distribution, and air handling equipment, and a third floor that also has a lot of air handling and other mechanical equipment.The main equipment floor has to provide a very stable environment with no vibrations, so an LCD fab typically uses far more structural steel in its construction than a typical skyscraper.I visited a Gen 5 fab in Taiwan in 2003, and the plant manager there told me they used three times as much structural steel as Taipei 101, which was the world’s tallest building from 2004- 2010.Since the equipment floor is usually one or two stories up, there are large loading docks on the outside of the building.When they bring the manufacturing equipment in, they load it onto a platform and hoist it with a crane on the outside of the building.That’s one way to recognize an LCD fab from the outside – loading docks on high floors that just open to the outdoors.

LCD fabs have to maintain strict standards of cleanliness inside.Any dust particles in the air could cause defects in the finished displays – tiny dark spots or uneven intensities on your screen.That means the air is passed through elaborate filtration systems and pushed downwards from the ceiling constantly.Workers have to wear special clean room protective clothing and scrub before entering to minimize dust particles or other contamination.People are the largest source of particles, from shedding dead skin cells, dust from cosmetic powders, or smoke particles exhaled from the lungs of workers who smoke.Clean rooms are rated by the number of particles per cubic meter of air.A class 100 cleanroom has less than 100 particles less than 0.3 microns in diameter per cubic meter of air, Class 10 has less than 10 particles, and so on. Fab 9 has hundeds of thousands of square meters of Class 100 cleanroom, and many critical areas like photolithography are Class 10.In comparison, the air in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA is roughly Class 8,000,000, and probably gets substantially worse when an MBTA bus passes through.

Since most display manufacturing has to be done in a cleanroom and handling the glass requires such precision, the factory is heavily automated.As you watch the glass come in, it is placed into giant cassettes by robot handlers, and the cassettes are moved around throughout the factory.At each step, robots lift a piece of glass out of the cassette, and position it for the processing machines.Some of the machines, like the ones that deposit silicon or ITO, orient the glass vertically, and put them inside an enormous vacuum chamber where all the air is first pumped out before they can go to work.And then they somehow manage to deposit micrometer thin layers that are extremely uniform.It is a miracle that any of this stuff actually works.

It obviously costs a lot to equip and run such a fab.Including all of the specialized production tools, press reports say BOE spent RMB 46 billion (US$6.95 billion). Even though you don’t see a lot of people on the floor, it takes thousands of engineers to keep the place running.

The Hefei Gen 10.5 is one of the most sophisticated manufacturing plants in the world.On opening day for the fab, BOE shipped panels to Sony, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Vizio, and Haier.So if you have a new 65 or 75-inch TV, there is some chance the LCD panel came from here.

► When the leading Korean players Samsung Display and LG Display exit LCD production, BOE will be the most significant player in the LCD market. Though OLED can replace the LCD, it will take years for it to be fully replaced.

► As foreign companies control evaporation material and machines, panel manufacturers seek a cheaper way to mass-produce OLED panels – inkjet printing.

When mainstream consumer electronics brands choose their device panels, the top three choices are Samsung Display, LG Display (LGD) and BOE (000725:SZ) – the first two from Korea and the third from China. From liquid-crystal displays (LCD) to active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED), display panel technology has been upgrading with bigger screen products.

From the early 1990s, LCDs appeared and replaced cathode-ray tube (CRT) screens, which enabled lighter and thinner display devices. Japanese electronics companies like JDI pioneered the panel technology upgrade while Samsung Display and LGD were nobodies in the field. Every technology upgrade or revolution is a chance for new players to disrupt the old paradigm.

The landscape was changed in 2001 when Korean players firstly made a breakthrough in the Gen 5 panel technology – the later the generation, the bigger the panel size. A large panel size allows display manufacturers to cut more display screens from one panel and create bigger-screen products. "The bigger the better" is a motto for panel makers as the cost can be controlled better and they can offer bigger-size products to satisfy the burgeoning middle-class" needs.

LCD panel makers have been striving to realize bigger-size products in the past four decades. The technology breakthrough of Gen 5 in 2002 made big-screen LCD TV available and it sent Samsung Display and LGD to the front row, squeezing the market share of Japanese panel makers.

The throne chair of LCD passed from Japanese companies to Korean enterprises – and now Chinese players are clinching it, replacing the Koreans. After twenty years of development, Chinese panel makers have mastered LCD panel technology and actively engage in large panel R&D projects. Mass production created a supply surplus that led to drops in LCD price. In May 2020, Samsung Display announced that it would shut down all LCD fabs in China and Korea but concentrate on quantum dot LCD (Samsung calls it QLED) production; LGD stated that it would close LCD TV panel fabs in Korea and focus on organic LED (OLED). Their retreats left BOE and China Stars to digest the LCD market share.

Consumer preference has been changing during the Korean fab"s recession: Bigger-or-not is fine but better image quality ranks first. While LCD needs the backlight to show colors and substrates for the liquid crystal layer, OLED enables lighter and flexible screens (curvy or foldable), higher resolution and improved color display. It itself can emit lights – no backlight or liquid layer is needed. With the above advantages, OLED has been replacing the less-profitable LCD screens.

Samsung Display has been the major screen supplier for high-end consumer electronics, like its own flagship cell phone products and Apple"s iPhone series. LGD dominated the large OLED TV market as it is the one that handles large-size OLED mass production. To further understand Korean panel makers" monopolizing position, it is worth mentioning fine metal mask (FMM), a critical part of the OLED RGB evaporation process – a process in OLED mass production that significantly affects the yield rate.

Prior to 2018, Samsung Display and DNP"s monopolistic supply contract prevented other panel fabs from acquiring quality FMM products as DNP bonded with Hitachi Metal, the "only" FMM material provider choice for OLED makers. After the contract expired, panel makers like BOE could purchase FFM from DNP for their OLED R&D and mass production. Except for FFM materials, vacuum evaporation equipment is dominated by Canon Tokki, a Japanese company. Its role in the OLED industry resembles that of ASML in the integrated circuit space. Canon Tokki"s annual production of vacuum evaporation equipment is fewer than ten and thereby limits the total production of OLED panels that rely on evaporation technology.

The shortage of equipment and scarcity of materials inspired panel fabs to explore substitute technology; they discovered that inkjet printing has the potential to be the thing to replace evaporation. Plus, evaporation could be applied to QLED panels as quantum dots are difficult to be vaporized. Inkjet printing prints materials (liquefied organic gas or quantum dots) to substrates, saving materials and breaking free from FMM"s size restriction. With the new tech, large-size OLED panels can theoretically be recognized with improved yield rate and cost-efficiency. However, the tech is at an early stage when inkjet printing precision could not meet panel manufacturers" requirements.

Display and LGD are using evaporation on their OLED products. To summarize, OLED currently adopts evaporation and QLED must go with inkjet printing, but evaporation is a more mature tech. Technology adoption will determine a different track for the company to pursue. With inkjet printing technology, players are at a similar starting point, which is a chance for all to run to the front – so it is for Chinese panel fabs. Certainly, panel production involves more technologies (like flexible panels) than evaporation or inkjet printing and only mastering all required technologies can help a company to compete at the same level.

Presently, Chinese panel fabs are investing heavily in OLED production while betting on QLED. BOE has four Gen 6 OLED product lines, four Gen 8.5 and one Gen 10.5 LCD lines; China Star, controlled by the major appliance titan TCL, has invested two Gen 6 OLED fabs and four large-size LCD product lines.

Remembering the last "regime change" that occurred in 2005 when Korean fabs overtook Japanese" place in the LCD market, the new phase of panel technology changed the outlook of the industry. Now, OLED or QLED could mark the perfect time for us to expect landscape change.

After Samsung Display and LGD ceding from LCD TV productions, the vacant market share will be digested by BOE, China Star and other LCD makers. Indeed, OLED and QLED have the potential to take over the LCD market in the future, but the process may take more than a decade. Korean companies took ten years from panel fab"s research on OLED to mass production of small- and medium-size OLED electronics. Yet, LCD screen cell phones are still available in the market.

LCD will not disappear until OLED/QLED"s cost control can compete with it. The low- to middle-end panel market still prefers cheap LCD devices and consumers are satisfied with LCD products – thicker but cheaper. BOE has been the largest TV panel maker since 2019. As estimated by Informa, BOE and China Star will hold a duopoly on the flat panel display market.

BOE"s performance seems to have ridden on a roller coaster ride in the past several years. Large-size panel mass production like Gen 8.5 and Gen 10.5 fabs helped BOE recognize the first place in production volume. On the other side, expanded large-size panel factories and expenses of OLED product lines are costly: BOE planned to spend CNY 176.24 billion (USD 25.92 billion) – more than Tibet"s 2019 GDP CNY 169.78 billion – on Chengdu and Mianyang"s Gen 6 AMOLED lines and Hefei and Wuhan"s Gen 10.5 LCD lines.

Except for making large-size TVs, bigger panels can cut out more display screens for smaller devices like laptops and cell phones, which are more profitable than TV products. On its first-half earnings concall, BOE said that it is shifting its production focus to cell phone and laptop products as they are more profitable than TV products. TV, IT and cell phone products counted for 30%, 44% and 33% of its productions respectively and the recent rising TV price may lead to an increased portion of TV products in the short term.

Except for outdoor large screens, TV is another driver that pushes panel makers to research on how to make bigger and bigger screens. A research done by CHEARI showed that Chinese TV sales dropped by 10.6% to CNY 128.2 billion from 2018 to 2019. Large-size TV sales increased as a total but the unit price decreased; high-end products like laser TV and OLED TV saw a strong growth of 131.2% and 34.1%, respectively.

Millions of young white-collars support the co-leasing business in China and breed the six-billion-dollar Ziroom, a unicorn company that provides rental and real estate management services. As apartments can be leased by single rooms instead of the whole apartment, living rooms become a public area while tenants prefer to stay in their private zones – it hints that the bedroom is too small to fit in a TV.

Besides the tier-1 cities" "disappearing living rooms," the mobile Internet gives another reason to explain the declining TV sale in China. Various streaming services and high-speed networks allow people to watch programs wherever and whenever they would like to. However, the change in life does not imply TV will disappear. For families, the living room is still a place for family members to gather and have fun. The growth of high-end TV sales also tells the "living room" economy.

The demand for different products may vary as lifestyles change and panel fabs need to make on-time judgments and respond to the change. For instance, the coming Olympics is a new driving factor to boost TV sales; "smart city" projects around the world will need more screens for data visualization; people will own more screens and better screens when life quality improves. Flexible screens, cost-efficient production process, accessible materials, changing market and all these problems are indeed the next opportunity for the industry.

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The flat-panel display market is starting to recover after a period of oversupply and lackluster growth, fueled by new technologies as well as more people working from home.

The flat-panel display market is complex. Several different technologies are at play, such as liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) for TV screens and other products, as well as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) for smartphones. Cars, industrial equipment, PCs and tablets all incorporate flat-panel displays in one form or another. And for many products, the display is a big selling point for consumers.

For the flat panel market as a whole, 2019 was a tough year. Oversupply caused prices to drop, which in turn sparked some major changes in the landscape. Two South Korean suppliers — LG Display and Samsung — are retreating from the low-margin LCD business to focus on higher-end display technologies. Meanwhile, China-based suppliers have been building up a massive amount of fab capacity, with plans to dominate several sub-segments in the arena.

2020 was supposed to be another gloomy year. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. A large segment of the population was (and is still) forced to work at home due to the pandemic, disrupting the world’s economies. If there is a silver lining, the work-at-home economy is fueling demand for several products, thereby jumpstarting the display market.

“In 2020, who would have thought that the three fastest growing segments on an area basis would be tablets, notebooks and monitors? Those three segments had been in decline,” said Ross Young, CEO at Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), during a presentation at the recent Display Week 2020 conference. “We are now talking about double-digit growth in display revenues in 2021 with a brighter outlook post-COVID than pre-COVID.”

Not all products categories are robust. Smartphone demand is a mixed bag, while TVs are plodding along. So in total, worldwide display demand is projected to grow by 1% in 2020 over 2019, according to Omdia. Display capacity also will grow by 1%, meaning supply and demand are in balance in 2020, they said. “In the meantime, we are expecting the industry will experience a ‘V’ shape recovery for 2021. Flat-panel display area demand growth will increase by 9.5% in 2021,” said David Hsieh, an analyst at Omdia.

Capital spending for displays also appears to be a bright spot, which is welcome news for flat-panel display equipment suppliers. “(There is a) continuing investment in large panels for TVs and a recovery in investment for OLED for mobile applications,” said Toshiki Kawai, president and CEO of TEL, in a recent presentation. In terms of capital spending, the industry “is expecting approximately 15% year-over-year growth in CY2000,” Kawai said.

Apple and other smartphone OEMs continue to migrate from LCDs toward brighter OLED displays. Samsung is the leader in OLED fab production, but China is making a major push here.

The smartphone display market is dynamic. Smartphone displays based on OLED technology continues to take share away from LCDs, and the new 5G smartphones will accelerate that trend. Plus, foldable phones and tablets using OLED displays are finally shipping after several false starts.

An LCD is a mature and inexpensive technology with several parts. A backlight module is on the bottom of an LCD screen, followed by a thin-film transistor (TFT) array, liquid crystals, a color filter (red/green/blue), and a polarizer.

LCDs consist of a multitude of pixels. A pixel consists of three sub-pixels—red/green/blue (RGB). “A change in voltage applied to the liquid crystals changes the transmittance of the panel, including the two polarizing plates, and thus changes the quantity of light that passes from the backlight to the front surface of the display. This principle allows the TFT LCD to produce full-color images,” according to Japan Display.

Meanwhile, active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLEDs) use a series of thin, light-emitting films, which enable brighter displays than LCDs. OLEDs are also flexible, but they are more expensive than LCDs.

LCDs and OLEDs are manufactured in fabs using an assortment of equipment. Korea is still the OLED leader in terms of fab capacity with a 67% share, according to Omdia. But China is making a big push here, as the nation’s share of OLED fab capacity has jumped from 1% in 2014 to 31% in 2020, according to the firm.

By 2022, China is projected to have 21 small- to mid-sized display fabs, including LCD and OLED. Some 14 fabs are in production in China with 7 in the works, according to the firm. China also is building new fabs for large-screen LCDs for TVs.

“In case of the OLEDs, China is aggressively investing in new capacity. But long-term, we also see that Korean OLED capacity will dominate,” Omdia’s Hsieh said.

On the product front, meanwhile, 70% of all smartphones use traditional LCD screens today, while 30% incorporate OLEDs, according to Omdia. By 2024, OLEDs will represent about 43% of the smartphone display market, they added.

5G, a next-generation wireless standard that is faster than today’s 4G, also will propel OLEDs. “AMOLED displays will grow, along with the 5G mobile phone market, due to their superior power consumption characteristics, which is lower than that of LCD displays,” said T.T. Yang, deputy division director of corporate marketing at UMC. “In addition, TDDI is the display driver IC with the touch controller function integrated on the same silicon chip, which has become very popular within the smartphone market over the past two years. It has started to expand into other applications for growth as TDDI has recently faced strong competition from AMOLED displays for smartphones. The new applications for TDDI include tablets, automotive display and others.”

Meanwhile, Samsung, the leading supplier of OLEDs, continues to improve the technology. Samsung developed a new OLED adaptive frequency technology, which reduces the power consumption of a display. “High-definition video streaming and gaming are expanding their capabilities in line with 5G commercialization, creating a widespread need for display panel technologies that can enable greater power savings,” said Ho-Jung Lee, vice president of mobile display products at Samsung Display.

Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone 11 line consists of three models, including two OLED-based systems and one LCD product. For the upcoming iPhone 12, Apple will incorporate OLEDs in all models. The iPhone 12 also represents Apple’s entry into 5G.

Here’s what to expect for two iPhone 12 models: “The iPhone 12 Max is expected to be 5G using sub-6GHz technology and will feature a 6.1-inch flexible OLED sourced from BOE and LG Display with an add-on touch sensor and a rumored resolution of 2540 x 1174 or 460 PPI,” according to DSCC. “(The OLED for the) iPhone 12 Pro Max is expected to be exclusively supplied by Samsung Display and will have a 6.67-inch 2785 x 1293 flexible OLED panel.”

Other OLED segments also are growing. After years of hype, smartphones/tablets using foldable OLED displays are finally shipping. Samsung is shipping the Galaxy Fold, which features a 7.3-inch AMOLED display that can be folded into a compact 4.6-inch cover display.

Foldable systems, however, face some challenges, such as power consumption, component readiness, mechanical issues and cost. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold sells for a retail price of $1,980, according to Omdia.

In terms of total area, LCDs for TVs represents the biggest market in the flat-panel display business. LCD TVs are commonplace today, but so-called advanced TVs are making inroads.

Bob O’Brien, president of DSCC, defines an advanced TV as a system with an advanced display. In the advanced TV arena, consumers have a dizzying array of technology choices — 8K, dual-cell, microLED, miniLED, OLED TVs and quantum dot TVs.

The advanced TVs incorporate dazzling displays, but they are expensive and the market is still tiny. “Turning to the long-term forecast, we expect that advanced TV shipments will grow from less than 10 million in 2019 to nearly 35 million in 2025, a 24% CAGR for that time period,” O’Brien said.

LCD TV technology is identical to LCDs for smartphones, but it’s on a much bigger scale. All LCDs are built in giant fabs using various equipment. The LCD manufacturing process takes place on an entire sheet of glass or substrate. Some glass sizes are the size of a garage door.

Today’s mainstream LCD TV fabs are based on Gen 8.5 and 10.5 technology. The term “Gen,” or generation, denotes the glass size. Gen 8.5 fabs produce panels at sizes of 2,200 x 2,500mm, while Gen 10.5 are 2,940 x 3,370mm.

The idea behind LCD manufacturing is to reduce the cost of the panel. To drive down the cost, a giant panel is fabricated in the fab and then cut into smaller displays. For example, Gen 10.5 fabs, the world’s largest plants, are ideal for making 43-, 65- and 75-inch LCD TV panels.

Nonetheless, in 2017, China took the lead over South Korea in terms of overall LCD fab capacity. In 2020, China will have 57% of the world’s TFT LCD fab capacity, according to Omdia. Taiwan is in second place (25%), followed by Korea (13%) and Japan (6%), according to the firm.

China continues to build LCD fabs. By 2022, China is projected to have 22 large-screen LCD display fabs. Some 15 fabs are in production with 6 in the works. That also includes China-based LCD fabs from both LG and Samsung, which are on the block.

For example, LG Display is developing and selling large-screen OLED TVs with mixed results. OLED TVs have bright displays, but they are still expensive. OLED technology is similar for both TVs and smartphones.

OLED TVs continue to improve. At Display Week, LG Display presented a paper that outlined a new OLED display with a motion blur reduction technology. A key to the technology is a new gate driver IC. “The MPRT (moving picture response time) value of the 65‐inch ultrahigh‐definition OLED panels decreased by 3.4ms by using an integrated gate driver circuit,” said Hong Jae Shin, a researcher at LG.

OLEDs involve a complex manufacturing process, especially the development of the RGB sub-pixels. For this, a fine metal mask process is used to produce the sub-pixels.

Instead of the traditional methods, a company called JOLED is developing OLEDs using an inkjet printer. Using this technology, JOLED has developed 4K OLED monitors. “We have developed our own printing technology as a manufacturing method that can be developed in various sizes while maintaining high definition of over 200 ppi,” said Kazuhiro Noda, an executive officer at JOLED, in a paper at Display Week.

In another advanced TV category, Samsung and TCL are pushing quantum dot TVs. Quantum dots are inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals. When inserted into an LCD TV, quantum dots can boost the color gamut in the display.

8K TVs are also in the mix. Based on LCD technology, an 8K TV consists of a 7,680 x 4,320 screen, which equates to 33 million pixels, according to Samsung.

In displays, the big buzz revolves around two technologies — microLEDs and miniLEDs. Both are smaller versions of an older technology called light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Traditional LEDs, which convert electrical energy into light, are used for backlights in LCD displays, billboards, consumer electronic items and lighting. LEDs come in different configurations, such as monochrome and multi-color. An RGB LED, one popular type, consists of the primary colors in the gambit. These can create a number of different colors.

The size of an LED is 200μm and above. In comparison, a miniLED ranges in size from 50μm to 200μm. Like LEDs, miniLEDs are targeted for backlights in displays.

Measuring smaller than 50μm, microLEDs are self-emissive and don’t require a backlight. In theory, a display using microLEDs provides more color and higher brightness with lower power than competitive displays.

“MiniLEDs, which are larger than microLEDs, are now being incorporated in consumer devices such as TVs,” said Subodh Kulkarni, president and CEO of CyberOptics. “But microLED is an even more exciting area of innovation that is poised for growth. The disruptive technology enables products that are brighter, thinner, lighter and more dynamic than those currently on the market, with lower power consumption than LCDs or OLEDs. Tiny microLEDs can also be placed on flexible substrates. These advantages will continue to propel this technology forward.”

Apple, Facebook and Samsung are just a few of the companies developing microLEDs. Companies are working on microLEDs for a range of applications, such as displays for AR/VR, TVs and watches.

But microLEDs are still several years away from being a mainstream technology. There are too many technical hurdles. “A major challenge is the small size and complex structure of microLED chips. For microLEDs, these dimensions are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than traditional LEDs,” said Steve Hiebert, senior director of marketing at KLA. “From a process control perspective, the transition to microLED displays creates a number of major challenges that must be overcome. In order to have economic viability, there are complicated tradeoffs between microLED size, wafer-level yield, microLED redundancy and microLED repair.”

Take an 8K TV, for example. For this, a company must make millions of microLEDs in the fab and then transfer them onto the backplane at high speeds and with good yields.

“An 8K display requires close to 100 million individual microLEDs. To ensure proper interconnection and eliminate certain image artifacts, the required placement accuracy is typically ±1µm,” said Eric Virey, an analyst at Yole. “Today’s best die bonders can’t manipulate the very small die (3 to 15µm) required to enable high-volume consumer applications. In addition, they typically have throughputs in the range of 1,000 die per hour. At this pace, it would take more than 11 years for such equipment to manufacture a single 8K TV.”

To speed up the process, companies are developing new and faster transfer methods. For example, PlayNitride is developing a high-speed pick-and-place process. In another approach, V-Technology is developing a laser lift-off system.

Several vendors are developing the technology. For example, AU Optronics (AUO) recently unveiled a 17.3-inch miniLED full-HD gaming laptop display with a 300Hz refresh rate. AUO also introduced a 27-inch 240Hz gaming monitor display using the technology.

In 2021, Apple is expected to roll out a high-end iPad using miniLEDs as a backlight. “The size is 12.9-inch, and the resolution is a high pixel density (2732 x 2048). One of the reasons for the Apple iPad to adopt the miniLED backlight is due to the very high color gamut,” Hsieh said.

For a notebook PC display, a vendor must make roughly 10,000 to 20,000 miniLEDs in the fab, according to Omdia. Each miniLED is transferred onto a backplane at high speeds.

Clearly, the flat-panel display market is dynamic. Smartphones are moving towards brighter displays. TVs are also moving towards bigger screens with better quality. And the advanced TVs offer dazzling screen quality.

Despite the innovations, it’s up to the consumer to decide what sticks. The screen quality is just one factor. As before, it often comes down to the prevailing factor–price.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak in early 2020, the flat-panel display (FPD) market was gloomy. Oversupply, falling prices and losses were the common themes in the market.

It’s been a different story during the outbreak. In 2020, the FPD market rebounded. In the stay-at-home economy, consumers went on a buying spree for monitors, PCs, tablets and TVs. As a result, demand for displays exploded. And shortages soon surfaced for display driver ICs and other components.

Cars, industrial equipment, PCs, smartphones and other products all incorporate flat-panel displays in one form or another. The majority of TV screens are based on liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). TVs use other display types, such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and quantum dots.

Smartphone displays are based on LCDs and OLEDs. Other display technologies, such as microLEDs and miniLEDs, are in the works. Flat-panel displays are made in giant fabs. Suppliers from China, Korea and Taiwan dominate the display market.

It’s been a roller coaster ride in the arena. “Before Covid, the FPD market in the second half of 2019 was not very pretty,” said Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), in a presentation at Display Week 2021. “We had declining revenues, declining prices, declining margins, companies announcing their exit in the LCD market, CapEx was falling, and there was little interest from investors.”

Basically, demand for computers, TVs and other products were sluggish. Plus, there was too much display manufacturing capacity. So product prices fell and many suppliers were swimming in red ink. Driven by higher-margin OLEDs, the smartphone display market was slightly better.

The result? “From a demand standpoint, Covid-19 led to strong demand from the IT market. The education market saw very robust demand. Students and teachers needed more home computers, and schools accelerated their IT investments. Workers made home PCs a priority. There are also millions of workers that went from jobs not requiring a PC to jobs requiring a home PC,” he said.

Demand for PCs, TVs and other products fueled renewed growth for displays. In total, the flat-panel display market reached $118 billion in 2020, up 6% over 2019, according to DSCC. That’s above the previous 2% growth forecast.

The numbers include LCDs, OLEDs and other displays. Of those figures, the LCD market reached $84 billion, while OLEDs were $33 billion in 2020, according to DSCC.

Then, the market is projected to hit a record $152 billion in 2021, up 29% over 2020, according to the firm. Of those figures, the LCD market is expected to reach $113 billion, while OLEDs are $39 billion, they said.

Average selling prices are up, but the market is still beset with component shortages. “Panel prices have risen significantly, particularly since August of last year. They’ve more than doubled in some cases,” Young said. “Adding to the pricing pressure have been components shortages in driver ICs, touch controllers, glass substrates compensation film, polarizers and other materials. We do expect prices to peak in Q3 (of 2021) as a result of shortages easing and the impact of double booking, leaving some potential air pockets in demand. We expect panel pricing to fall in the fourth quarter, but we’re not expecting sharp downturns, as in the past, due to slower supply growth.”

most of the traditional LED electronic screens are flat, but there are limitations in the use of special occasions. With the advent of P3.91 P4.81 P2.6 P2.9 P10 P8 LED arc curve screen products in the LED video wall industry market, people began to pay attention to this new LED screen. What are the application advantages of this arc-shaped display compared with the traditional flat LED electronic screen?

Led arc-shaped display screen in the eyes of a certain degree of protrusion, and the radian is just enough to ensure that after the eyes see the screen, they will reach the human eyes equally. The same principle applies to TV and display screens. The curved screen can provide a good sensory experience, whether it is in the central position or not, to achieve a consistent sensory experience.

Nowadays, most TV, tablet and notebook screens are flat. However, if we want to make a watch, the flat screen may be subject to great limitations. At this time, the curved LED electronic screen can play its flexibility, it can make some specific radians to meet the product requirements. Similarly, many large-scale commercial squares have adopted the transition type omni-directional arc-shaped LED display screen, which can help advertisers make better use of space and accurately convey information to more people.

Information on two types of flat-panel display at the Zürich Hauptbahnhof railway station: an orange LED display (top right) and a LCD screen (bottom)

A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment.

Flat-panel displays are thin, lightweight, provide better linearity and are capable of higher resolution than typical consumer-grade TVs from earlier eras. They are usually less than 10 centimetres (3.9 in) thick. While the highest resolution for consumer-grade CRT televisions was 1080i, many flat-panel displays in the 2020s are capable of 1080p and 4K resolution.

In the 2010s, portable consumer electronics such as laptops, mobile phones, and portable cameras have used flat-panel displays since they consume less power and are lightweight. As of 2016, flat-panel displays have almost completely replaced CRT displays.

Most 2010s-era flat-panel displays use LCD or light-emitting diode (LED) technologies, sometimes combined. Most LCD screens are back-lit with color filters used to display colors. In many cases, flat-panel displays are combined with touch screen technology, which allows the user to interact with the display in a natural manner. For example, modern smartphone displays often use OLED panels, with capacitive touch screens.

Flat-panel displays can be divided into two display device categories: volatile and static. The former requires that pixels be periodically electronically refreshed to retain their state (e.g. liquid-crystal displays (LCD)), and can only show an image when it has power. On the other hand, static flat-panel displays rely on materials whose color states are bistable, such as displays that make use of e-ink technology, and as such retain content even when power is removed.

The first engineering proposal for a flat-panel TV was by General Electric in 1954 as a result of its work on radar monitors. The publication of their findings gave all the basics of future flat-panel TVs and monitors. But GE did not continue with the R&D required and never built a working flat panel at that time.Aiken tube, developed in the early 1950s and produced in limited numbers in 1958. This saw some use in military systems as a heads up display and as an oscilloscope monitor, but conventional technologies overtook its development. Attempts to commercialize the system for home television use ran into continued problems and the system was never released commercially.

The Philco Predicta featured a relatively flat (for its day) cathode ray tube setup and would be the first commercially released "flat panel" upon its launch in 1958; the Predicta was a commercial failure. The plasma display panel was invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois, according to The History of Plasma Display Panels.

The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959,Paul K. Weimer at RCA developed the thin-film transistor (TFT) in 1962.Bernard J. Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

The first active-matrix addressed electroluminescent display (ELD) was made using TFTs by T. Peter Brody"s Thin-Film Devices department at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1968.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) using TFTs in 1974.

By 1982, pocket LCD TVs based on LCD technology were developed in Japan.Epson ET-10Epson Elf was the first color LCD pocket TV, released in 1984.Sharp research team led by engineer T. Nagayasu demonstrated a 14-inch full-color LCD display,electronics industry that LCD would eventually replace CRTs as the standard television display technology.high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active-matrix displays.

The first usable LED display was developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and introduced in 1968.research and development (R&D) on practical LED technology between 1962 and 1968, by a research team under Howard C. Borden, Gerald P. Pighini, and Mohamed M. Atalla, at HP Associates and HP Labs. In February 1969, they introduced the HP Model 5082-7000 Numeric Indicator.digital display technology, replacing the Nixie tube for numeric displays and becoming the basis for later LED displays.

Ching W. Tang and Steven Van Slyke at Eastman Kodak built the first practical organic LED (OLED) device in 1987.Hynix produced an organic EL driver capable of lighting in 4,096 colors.Sony Qualia 005 was the first LED-backlit LCD display.Sony XEL-1, released in 2007, was the first OLED television.

Field-effect LCDs are lightweight, compact, portable, cheap, more reliable, and easier on the eyes than CRT screens. LCD screens use a thin layer of liquid crystal, a liquid that exhibits crystalline properties. It is sandwiched between two glass plates carrying transparent electrodes. Two polarizing films are placed at each side of the LCD. By generating a controlled electric field between electrodes, various segments or pixels of the liquid crystal can be activated, causing changes in their polarizing properties. These polarizing properties depend on the alignment of the liquid-crystal layer and the specific field-effect used, being either Twisted Nematic (TN), In-Plane Switching (IPS) or Vertical Alignment (VA). Color is produced by applying appropriate color filters (red, green and blue) to the individual subpixels. LCD displays are used in various electronics like watches, calculators, mobile phones, TVs, computer monitors and laptops screens etc.

Most earlier large LCD screens were back-lit using a number of CCFL (cold-cathode fluorescent lamps). However, small pocket size devices almost always used LEDs as their illumination source. With the improvement of LEDs, almost all new displays are now equipped with LED backlight technology. The image is still generated by the LCD layer.

A plasma display consists of two glass plates separated by a thin gap filled with a gas such as neon. Each of these plates has several parallel electrodes running across it. The electrodes on the two plates are at right angles to each other. A voltage applied between the two electrodes one on each plate causes a small segment of gas at the two electrodes to glow. The glow of gas segments is maintained by a lower voltage that is continuously applied to all electrodes. By 2010, consumer plasma displays had been discontinued by numerous manufacturers.

An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes; typically, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens, computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld game consoles and PDAs.

QLED or quantum dot LED is a flat panel display technology introduced by Samsung under this trademark. Other television set manufacturers such as Sony have used the same technology to enhance the backlighting of LCD TVs already in 2013.wavelength such as blue LEDs. This type of LED TV enhances the colour gamut of LCD panels, where the image is still generated by the LCD. In the view of Samsung, quantum dot displays for large-screen TVs are expected to become more popular than the OLED displays in the coming years; Firms like Nanoco and Nanosys compete to provide the QD materials. In the meantime, Samsung Galaxy devices such as smartphones are still equipped with OLED displays manufactured by Samsung as well. Samsung explains on their website that the QLED TV they produce can determine what part of the display needs more or less contrast. Samsung also announced a partnership with Microsoft that will promote the new Samsung QLED TV.

Volatile displays require that pixels be periodically refreshed to retain their state, even for a static image. As such, a volatile screen needs electrical power, either from mains electricity (being plugged into a wall socket) or a battery to maintain an image on the display or change the image. This refresh typically occurs many times a second. If this is not done, for example, if there is a power outage, the pixels will gradually lose their coherent state, and the image will "fade" from the screen.

Amazon"s Kindle Keyboard e-reader displaying a page of an e-book. The Kindle"s image of the book"s text will remain onscreen even if the battery runs out, as it is a static screen technology. Without power, however, the user cannot change to a new page.

Static flat-panel displays rely on materials whose color states are bistable. This means that the image they hold requires no energy to maintain, but instead requires energy to change. This results in a much more energy-efficient display, but with a tendency toward slow refresh rates which are undesirable in an interactive display. Bistable flat-panel displays are beginning deployment in limited applications (cholesteric liquid-crystal displays, manufactured by Magink, in outdoor advertising; electrophoretic displays in e-book reader devices from Sony and iRex; anlabels; interferometric modulator displays in a smartwatch).

William Ross Aiken, "History of the