AU Optronics secures OLED fab

Dan Rogers - 22 Jul 2010

AU Optronics (AUO) has completed its acquisition of Toshiba Mobile Display's subsidiary, AFPD, as part of a strategic move into OLED display production.

The Taiwanese company bought the Singapore-based subsidiary and its Gen 4.5 low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) fab earlier this month, for an undisclosed fee.

The acquisition means AUO is able to produce backplanes for OLED displays to serve the emerging consumer electronics markets.

Yusin Lin, director of the OLED technology division at AUO, comments: '[The acquisition] will further strengthen AUO's competence in high-end display market, securing a strategic position for applications to slim notebooks, smartphones and tablet PCs.'

OLED demand

The deal will enable AUO to capitalise on intense demand for OLED displays.

Lin remarks: 'At the moment, the demand for small and medium-sized AMOLED panels is enormous, even with the supply from Samsung and others.'

As well as buying AFPD's facility, AUO is also working on its own manufacturing line, as reported in March.

'In view of this [increasing OLED demand], AUO is devoting steady and continuous efforts to the development of AMOLED. It is expected that next year the production lines for small-sized AMOLED panels will enter mass production,' says Lin.

Portable displays

The company is focused on smaller displays for portable electronics, having demonstrated new technologies for OLED touchscreens.

Lin notes: 'The combination of OLED and touchscreen technology mainly serves the needs for applications including smartphones, GPS, MID and digital frames.'

In June, the company created a transparent OLED touchscreen, which it claims is a world first, as part of its development of applicable OLED display technology.

'The AMOLED in-cell touch panels produced by AUO display impressive performance in terms of vivid images, wide viewing angles, better response time and high contrast ratio,' Lin explains.

'AUO's 2.4-inch transparent AMOLED in-cell multi-touch panel at Display Taiwan showcased the possible future applications of the technology, where users could navigate much more easily by capturing their actual locations with the transparent GPS panel and make use of the convenient touchscreen interface to find their ways easily.'

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