Display market to boost OLED encapsulation

OLED firms have begun to recognize that high quality encapsulation is an area of strategic importance. NanoMarkets believes that we are now seeing some real opportunities for the firms that have been working on the encapsulation issue, many of whom have poured resources into this area for several years. In fact, encapsulation is the key enabling technology for the larger-format/longer lifetime OLEDs that will be entering the market in the near- to mid-term, and thus can unlock entire market segments.

Small, rigid OLED displays are now widely commercially available and expected to continue to expand, principally in smartphone and other mobile computing displays. OLED TV market is finally poised to take off within the next few years, as display manufacturers launch newer, bigger models with better value propositions for customers.

Glass encapsulation technologies heavily dominate the market today, and glass will continue to dominate in the near- to mid-term. However, the consensus is that glass will not be sufficient for the types of OLEDs expected to emerge in the next decade. OLED panels are getting larger, and the emerging lighting and TV markets expect OLED panels to last much longer than the mobile phone and mp3 sub-displays of the past. Furthermore, cost pressures are getting more serious. The days in which manufacturers were willing to pay high premiums for good encapsulation strategies are long gone, and low-cost options for encapsulation are now demanded.