LG Display says it will throw additional millions at its endless quest to advance its OLED display technology, with the money to be spent on a combination of its research and development efforts and new production equipment.
The South Korean firm, which is the world’s largest supplier of large OLED panels used for televisions, has earmarked 1.26 trillion won (around £680 million) to be spent on the development of “new OLED technologies” over the next couple of years.
The investment underscores LG Display’s full commitment to OLED technology, coming just two months after it sold its last LCD panel manufacturing facility to the Chinese display maker, TCL CSOT for around £1.1 billion. The sale of that factory means that LG Display has completely exited the LCD production business, and it said at the time it will focus exclusively on OLED, going forward.
LG Display therefore joins Samsung Display in being laser-focused on advancing OLED, and that explains why it’s keen to step up its investment in the tech, which is widely regarded as being superior to LCD.
It said the latest funds will enable it to keep throwing money at OLED development until June 2027, when we assume it will likely need even more cash.
News of the investment was reported by The Elec, which cited officials from the company as saying that the money will be spent on R&D and increasing manufacturing capacity for “advanced OLED technologies”. Just over half of the money is being allocated to its main manufacturing hub in the city of Paju, in South Korea.
The expanded and updated facilities will eventually be used to “manufacture panels and modules with next-generation premium OLED technologies”, the company said.
The company declined to shed any light on what those premium OLED technologies are, but it seems reasonable to assume that it will be looking to improve its panels in some way. In recent years, LG Display has continuously improved its OLED displays, building on its standard OLED panels with its OLED Evo tech that debuted in 2022, then improving on that two years later with its Micro Lens Array OLED panels. Finally, this year, it introduced a fourth-generation in the shape of its 4-layer RGB Tandem OLED panels, with higher brightness and improved colour reproduction.
LG Display’s latest flagship OLED TV, the LG G5, is the first to feature that new technology, and going by our review, it’s going to be pretty tough for LG to improve on that:
Nevertheless, the money it’s planning to spend suggests the company still has a few ideas up its sleeve, likely involving its recently developed blue phosphorescent PHOLED material that promises to boost the energy efficiency of OLED.
Of course, the company doesn’t just make OLED panels for televisions. It’s also one of the biggest suppliers of OLED panels for smartphones, tablets, monitors, laptops and smart watches, and it will likely be looking to improve on these products too.
The company is also planning to construct a new 10.5G production operation that’s destined to manufacture “super-sized OLED panels” of more than 100-inches, but that project was first announced in 2017 and has been delayed numerous times since. It's not clear if any of the funds will be directed to that endeavor.
Additionally, the company may direct some of the money to experimental OLED panels that can be bent and stretched.
