It is predicted that a generation where OLED is produced through a inkjet printing equipment is almost near. As organic deposition process, which is difficult to secure yields from, disappears, it is expected that production cost of OLEDs will also drop greatly in long term. It is also possible now to produce OLEDs that are cheaper than LCDs.
Kateeva, which is an inkjet printing equipment manufacturer, made an announcement on the 31st that it will be commercializing RGB (Red Green Blue) inkjet equipment within this year. This is the first time when inkjet printing equipment is used for actual mass-production of flexible OLEDs. Global display industries are interested whether or not there will be more instances where next-generation inkjet printing equipment are used for mass-production.
“We are going to supply our RGB inkjet printing equipment shortly to businesses that are planning to mass-produce large flexible OLEDs.” said Chairman Alain Harrus of Kateeva at an exclusive interview with Electronic Times.
Although Chairman Harrus did not disclose any detailed information about names of suppliers and sizes of boards, he had shown high expectations on this project. If inkjet printing technology is introduced to production of large flexible OLEDs, panels can be produced at a cheaper cost and faster. Areas of applications are also diverse as these panels can be used for TVs, vehicles and others.
“Strengths of inkjet printing equipment are that it minimizes particles and has high level of uniformity. Kateeva’s high-tech inkjet printing technology is widely recognized as its TFE equipment, which is used for encapsulating process of OLEDs, was supplied to South Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan.” said Chairman Harrus. “Although it is heard that there are limitations to inkjet equipment as it is not easy mass-produce panels stably with inkjet equipment, I want to create a new successful story in RGB inkjet markets based on Kateeva’s high technical skills.”

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<Chairman and CEO of Kateeva (Reference: Kateeva) >

TFE (Thin Film Encapsulation) equipment, which had been supplied by Kateeva, is equipment for encapsulating process that covers OLED organic material with thin film so that moisture and oxygen do not go into these organic materials.
RGB inkjet equipment that is newly developed is receiving many expectations as it will be able to solve problems such as efficiency of material, length of production, and overall cost of process that are problems of current OLED deposition equipment (Chemical Vapor Deposition). Because current deposition equipment sprays powder-type organic materials onto boards while they are in vacuumed state, level of efficiency of materials decreases greatly. It is heard that level of efficiency of material for RGB OLED is only 10%.
Inkjet equipment finely sprays liquid-type material with a nozzle and its ability to rapidly spray fine amount of material onto an exact location is its major technology. Time and cost that are needed for production can be reduced as there is not much material that is thrown away and steps of processes can be reduced.
Major technologies of inkjet printing equipment are nozzle technology and fast and stable glass movement technology. By using Kateeva’s own algorithms, it was able to secure inkjet head-control technology that sprays exact amount of material onto an exact location. It also has floating system technology that allows mother glass to rapidly move in the air without any shaking. A technology that was able to implement an environment with stable use of nitrogen and very low particles is also Kateeva’s major technology.
“Although Kateeva is a new business that was established only 8 years ago, we had focused on securing very strong intellectual property rights by only working on developing major technologies for the first 5 years from the establishment of company.” said Chairman Harrus. “Because it is hard for our competitors to copy our intellectual property rights, they have become huge driving forces for Kateeva’s growth.”
Kateeva is also planning to expand its business towards variety of fields such as OLED lights, printing method PCB, BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic System) and others. Kateeva is currently researching on technologies and materials that are related to BIPV along with foreign universities after seeing that its market will quickly expand in the near future.
Staff Reporter Bae, Okjin | withok@etnews.com