Chinese TV panel maker BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. showed off a prototype 55-inch 8K OLED TV display panel manufactured using the inkjet printing technique at an Innovation Partner Conference in Beijing last week. 

The prototype is BOE’s second inkjet-printed OLED display – it previously showed off a 55-inch 4K OLED display during an exhibition in May. 

The company said the new panel, built at its R&D pilot line in Hefei, China, achieves a maximum brightness of 400 nits and a color gamut of 95% DCI-P3. 

The prototype is one of two research efforts currently underway at BOE that aim to master the mass production of OLED panels. In addition to inkjet printing, the company is also exploring the white OLED- based deposition used by LG Display, and says it has yet to decide which of the methods it will commercialize. 

BOE's latest 8K 55-inch OLED panel prototype was reportedly praised for its relatively sharp image quality and deep black colours. However, BOE admitted it is still some way from being ready for mass production as yield rates remain too low.

BOE said one of the biggest challenges with using the inkjet method to produce 8K resolution OLED panels, as opposed to 4K, is that nine-times as many pixels have to be squeezed into the same area. To achieve this the pixels must necessarily be smaller, and so to is the spacing between the pixels. This requires the ink droplets to be dropped “more precisely and accurately”, ET News reported. 

The race to perfect the inkjet printing technique for OLED panels is quite exciting, with several companies pursuing the idea. Samsung Display has committed to investing millions into the technology in order to build its next-generation Quantum Dot OLED displays, while LG Display is also researching ways to apply inkjet printing to build computer monitors. And JOLED, a joint venture between Japan’s Panasonic and Sony, is also researching the technique, and actually showed off its first 4K resolution prototypes one year ago. 

BOE said it hopes to begin mass producing inkjet printed OLED panels by 2024 at the latest.