OLED no replacement for LCD: Merck
DARMSTADT, GERMANY - Germany's Merck KGaA expects televisions based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to complement but not replace liquid crystal technology in an $82 billion market dominated by LCD and plasma.
Energy-efficient OLED panels make for thin and light displays. They offer crisp pictures and are good at showing fast-moving images common in sports events and action movies.
But making large OLED screens has proved difficult.
Proponents have hoped they could potentially replace liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma TVs.
"The reality is that OLED will come one day as an additional technology for flat displays. I say this with a lot of confidence," the head of Merck's chemicals business, Walter Zywottek, told Reuters in an interview.
Merck, the world's largest supplier of liquid crystals for use in TVs, notebook and mobile phones, dominates the high-tech niche industry with about two thirds of the liquid crystal market.
Top LCD makers such as Samsung Electronics, LG Philips LCD, Sharp Corp. and AU Optronics are its customers.
The LCD makers have invested about $82 billion in plant capacity over the past 11 years. In 2008, some $28 billion in new investments has been announced. In contrast, plasma screen makers invested about $12 billion over the last decade.
"Forget replacement. Delete replacement from your vocabulary, it's not going to happen. Would you be spending so much money if you were thinking about replacement?" he asked.
He said any serious commercial OLED application would not arrive before 2010.
Zywottek said Merck is also boosting its investment in OLED but is not expecting it to play the role that liquid crystals now have at the company.
"It will not be one dominating supplier in OLED. Not a single supplier will have such a strong position as we have in liquid crystals," he said.
"There will be different companies with different materials and we will be one of them," he added.
Zywottek said more than 100 researchers have been working on OLED technology for a couple of years at Merck.
Merck announced it is investing 47 million euros in a new research and development centre at its Darmstadt headquarters for the chemicals business, including for OLED.
This is its largest single investment to date in chemicals research and development.
Sony Corp. showcased its OLED TVs this year and will start selling an 11-inch version of the 3-millimeter thick TV for about $2,000.
Related News
COVID-19 pandemic zaps electricity usage in Ontario as people stay home
TORONTO - Demand for electricity in Ontario last year fell to levels rarely seen in decades amid shifts in usage patterns caused by pandemic measures, new data show.
The decline came despite a hot summer that had people rushing to crank up the air conditioning at home, the province’s power management agency said.
“We do have this very interesting shift in who’s using the energy,” said Chuck Farmer, senior director of power system planning with the Independent Electricity System Operator.
“Residential users are using more electricity than we thought they would and the commercial consumers are using less.”
The onset of the pandemic last…
