Samsung Display to Release Final QD Prototype Within the Year

Scheduled Display Quality Testing for Clients Including Sony and Panasonic

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Samsung Display plans to complete the development of the final prototype of its Quantum Dot (QD) display within this year and begin actively securing customers. Before starting QD production next year, the company intends to receive quality tests and evaluations simultaneously from clients using mass-production-level samples.

According to industry sources on the 24th, Samsung Display is expected to deliver the final QD display prototype to global OLED TV set manufacturers by the end of this year. Potential customers include global set companies producing OLED TVs such as Japan's Sony and Panasonic, China's Hisense, and Philips Electronics headquartered in the Netherlands.

In particular, Samsung Display plans to focus on premium line manufacturers like Sony (18.2%) and Panasonic (10.5%), which ranked second and third respectively in the global OLED TV brand market share as of the first half of this year. Since these two companies hold about 30% market share excluding the OLED TV leader LG Electronics (57.2%), securing them as clients is considered essential for expanding the QD display market in the future.

Samsung Display aims to highlight the advantages of the QD display, which have been maximized through the final prototype. The QD display features a blue OLED light source emitting blue light with a QD color filter layered on top to enhance color reproduction. It allows brightness control at the pixel level, making it advantageous for rendering clear black colors. Additionally, QD technology is highly scalable, enabling the use of both organic and inorganic light-emitting materials as light sources, which can innovatively improve performance and lifespan.

However, product yield (the ratio of acceptable products) and high production costs remain challenges to overcome. The industry consensus is that the high defect rate during the production process of large panels for OLED TVs requires considerable technology and time to raise the yield to 80%.

While the average production cost for OLED is in the mid-$900 range, the initial production cost for QD-OLED is around $2,000, nearly double. Samsung Display plans to focus on strengthening its technology to reduce the initial production cost. An industry insider said, "Samsung Display is expected to complete the final prototype within this year ahead of QD mass production to prepare for testing by global customers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.