Samsung to End LCD Manufacturing by Late-2020, Focus on AMOLED and QLED

[btarunr]

Samsung Display, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics that develops and manufactures display panels, is reportedly ending the manufacturing of all its LCD panel products by the end of 2020. These include TN-film, various kinds of VA, and IPS. This would see an end to even LED-backlit LCD panels that make up a bulk of the company's low-cost PC monitors and TVs. The company will focus on more advanced panel technologies, such as AMOLED and QLED. Samsung manufactures LCD panels at plants in South Korea and China. With LCD being phased out, the production lines will be re-tooled to manufacture quantum-dot LED (QLED) panels. The company will spend the rest of 2020 shipping out pending orders of LCD panels.



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[londiste]

Hype is hype is hype. And marketing bullshit.
QLED is LCD and LED-backlit LCD at that.

 

[Chomiq]

So no more curved VA panels from Samsung? Interesting.

 

[londiste]

Samsung will not stop making LCDs. QLED is a LED-backlit LCD and can be IPS, VA or TN just fine.

QLED is Samsung's answer to LG's threat of OLED in high-end televisions. Sounds similar and high-tech and whatnot. As you can read from the source article - LG announced previously they would stop producing LCD TV screens domestically and Samsung had to answer. LG's announcement is of course not as direct either. They will continue making LCD TV panels abroad and they have an actually technically different panels in form of OLED that they can't seem to make enough.

 

[Ferrum Master]

The headline is wrong indeed.

The fact that QLED is a stupid marketing term from Samsung seems to backfire.

QD is a layer, that can be applied to LCD or OLED, uLED and more... Samsung markets QLED as LCD with added quantum dot layer... it is not a OLED screen. Basic stuff...

Samsung is selling actually same core panels with QD layer and without it... I cannot see anything new about it.

Yeah the vintage monitor with win7 seems to be fitting too... sure...

The headline should use term conventional LED back-lit LCD's. No matter the fact for Samsung QLED does mean Quantum dot layer + LED(the same old thing) either way... so the fairy tales about factory retooling kinda seems odd.

 

[Vayra86]

LCD died.

Long live LCD.

Seriously Samsung, you don't think we are THAT stupid, do you. First you tried to make us read an O by using a Q and somehow marketing it as the former. Now this? I smell a sour loser that needs every trick in the book to feint being a key player in displays. You got surpassed, and you simply have no answer. Admit that already, instead of these steaming piles of BS.

 

[Joss]

I find interesting that tech (and others) companies are announcing plans as if there had been no such thing as a Covid pandemic.
In 2 years time the world will probably be unrecognisable Mr. CEOs, and upgrading hardware won't be in most peoples list of priorities.

 

[Valantar]

"Samsung to End LCD Manufacturing by Late-2020, Focus on AMOLED and QLED ... wait, moar fancier LCD? But that's still LCD. I'm confused."

 

[Flanker]

LCD died.

Long live LCD.

Seriously Samsung, you don't think we are THAT stupid, do you. First you tried to make us read an O by using a Q and somehow marketing it as the former. Now this? I smell a sour loser that needs every trick in the book to feint being a key player in displays. You got surpassed, and you simply have no answer. Admit that already, instead of these steaming piles of BS.

Who surpassed Samsung? I haven't paid attention to the display industry for like 5 years.

 

[Lordken]

I find interesting that tech (and others) companies are announcing plans as if there had been no such thing as a Covid pandemic.
In 2 years time the world will probably be unrecognisable Mr. CEOs, and upgrading hardware won't be in most peoples list of priorities.

Because of covid there is no reason the word should stop, right? If it would have lethality of ebola or mers the picture may have been different, with huge spread and mortality around 30-40%, but as it is now its fairly low <5% (korea shows ~1%), except Italy (lets see what happens in Spain and US). So the biggest problem will be stopped economy and ppl loosing jobs, or eventually die out of hunger (instead of covid) if quarantine restrictions will be too big for too long time. There is not many countries that are food self sufficient and with hampering international trade thats asking for problems. Even within EU shipping lines are impacted because individual states are ignorant and act indenpendently closing borders even for trucks etc.
So yes Samsung and CEOs needs to keep running their shops in order to pay ppl, contractors, vendors etc.

Recently i was badly surprised that electricity companies were hit hard and are bleeding, I never thought we could possibly have problem with such basic infra as electricity. Reason being smaller companies stop paying checks (cause they went/are going down), than big industries using less electricity (due to lowering production), since electric grid booked high demands based on their prediction on usual load now there is too much of it and grind needs to balance stuff. And electricity price on spot market hit bottom so they are forced to sell it for huge loss or give it for free, or even pay for it to the seller (yes it had negative price at some point), so everything is connected, its going to be chain reaction if situation is not handled with care and calm. Hysteria is only going to wreck [much bigger] havoc.

 

[Flying Fish]

Based on peoples interpretation of this announcement I think clarification is in order.

Yes. Current Samsung QLED TVs are LCD with a "Quantum Dot" layer applied.
Does this announcement mean the continuing manufacture of QLED panels mean LCD tech will still be made for this hybrid panel type?

OR does it mean LCD manufacture will end entirely and Samsung will transition to true QLED technology such as AMQLED?

The comments on this article all see it as Samsung QLED + LCD + quantum dot layer but that isn't really what QLED is (or what it should be) so it would be interesting to know if this signals the shift to mass production of true QLED panels.

 

[londiste]

The comments on this article all see it as Samsung QLED + LCD + quantum dot layer but that isn't really what QLED is (or what it should be) so it would be interesting to know if this signals the shift to mass production of true QLED panels.

This is exactly what QLED is.
None of the other technologies are ready for manufacture and will not be any time soon. Much less at the level where Samsung could stop producing LCDs (whether these are branded LCD, LED or QLED).

 

[ARF]

Who surpassed Samsung? I haven't paid attention to the display industry for like 5 years.

AU Optronics, LG Display, Panasonic LCD, you name it.

 

[Vayra86]

Who surpassed Samsung? I haven't paid attention to the display industry for like 5 years.

LG most notably in terms of truly new display tech, being OLED, because its realistically the perfect (and only) technology that is capable of producing HDR that doesn't burn your retina out, it has perfect contrast ratios and 0.0 black point, perfect color accuracy as a result of that, there is no motion blur from G2G response time etc etc. It just degrades a bit faster than LCD and has image retention problems.

Its much like the old plasma days, really, except now LG owns the patent.

We will be seeing more OLED production lines outside LG but not very soon. Samsung on the other hand lost this race and desperately tries everything to produce something else that is also self emissive and with similar characteristics to OLED. They have candidates. But they're all not ready for market. Meanwhile, they do mix up their new candidates with actual products with similar stickers and a minor improvement, in this case QLED, being nothing more than an added filter, but its still a backlit panel.

Based on peoples interpretation of this announcement I think clarification is in order.

Yes. Current Samsung QLED TVs are LCD with a "Quantum Dot" layer applied.
Does this announcement mean the continuing manufacture of QLED panels mean LCD tech will still be made for this hybrid panel type?

OR does it mean LCD manufacture will end entirely and Samsung will transition to true QLED technology such as AMQLED?

The comments on this article all see it as Samsung QLED + LCD + quantum dot layer but that isn't really what QLED is (or what it should be) so it would be interesting to know if this signals the shift to mass production of true QLED panels.

What, and them dropping their LED production lines (and product stacks!) in one go? Risk assessment says NO. But maybe, maybe they could shift their conventional product to external suppliers... There is just no way Samsung will toss out its volume market to risk everything on state of the art product with a premium. Its the immediate end of their TV branch. All that will happen is, LG undercuts them with OLED for a couple of years and that will be all.

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah, LG really has Samsung beat in the display department tech wise. They've even made great strides in reducing burn-in by making the leds in the OLED white with a color filter layer on top to reduce color-based burn in. You still get the great contrast and it's still emissive tech, but the burn in on a color basis is perfectly even, at least.

 

[TristanX]

of course this does not mean that stop selling LCD monitors / TV. Just buy LCD panels from Chinese LCD makers

 

[Andrea deluxe]

we had to wait for the coronavirus to start the production of oled monitors !!!

 

[Valantar]

Yeah, LG really has Samsung beat in the display department tech wise. They've even made great strides in reducing burn-in by making the leds in the OLED white with a color filter layer on top to reduce color-based burn in. You still get the great contrast and it's still emissive tech, but the burn in on a color basis is perfectly even, at least.

Are all LG OLEDs like that? That's pretty clever. Sounds tricky to get good colors that way (unless the color filter is variable like... an LCD? That sounds expensive and dim though.), but their TVs certainly don't seem to struggle with that. Their new 48" OLED is pretty far up my list for a future gaming display purchase.

 

[illli]

I for one will welcome our SED overlords

 

[Vayra86]

Are all LG OLEDs like that? That's pretty clever. Sounds tricky to get good colors that way (unless the color filter is variable like... an LCD? That sounds expensive and dim though.), but their TVs certainly don't seem to struggle with that. Their new 48" OLED is pretty far up my list for a future gaming display purchase.

If you go there make sure you always put the TV on some setting that makes it go in sleep mode/standby (no lighting!) after a few minutes of idle time on the input device.

Otherwise the fun is short lived. Games already have static UI elements, so that's a problem as it is. Same goes for TV with the network logo in some corner... worth avoiding!

And yes the filter tech is common in OLED displays, because otherwise they won't wear evenly, think of wear levelling on SSDs, they all have it

I am happy with my LED VA LCD Panasonic panel from 2016..

View attachment 149882

Hard to go wrong with Panasonic, IMO. They really do know how to make TVs.

 

[ARF]

I am happy with my LED VA LCD Panasonic panel from 2016..

 

[Valantar]

If you go there make sure you always put the TV on some setting that makes it go in sleep mode/standby (no lighting!) after a few minutes of idle time on the input device.

Otherwise the fun is short lived. Games already have static UI elements, so that's a problem as it is. Same goes for TV with the network logo in some corner... worth avoiding!

And yes the filter tech is common in OLED displays, because otherwise they won't wear evenly, think of wear levelling on SSDs, they all have it

Yeah, I've been very negative towards OLED in general due to burn in issues (selling Samsung phones and tablets for a few years showed me how quickly it can get really bad), the only reason for considering the 48" is that it represents a pretty unbeatable combination of features (good HDR, great color, 120Hz, HDMI 2.1 with VRR, etc.). Still on the fence though, and can't afford anything now anyway, so I'll happily wait. It would also be a secondary display used >90% for gaming (and unless I get really hooked on Rocket League again nothing for long enough to burn in the UI). I think I would go blind from eye strain if I tried using a 48" TV as my main monitor.

As for the color filters I absolurely get how they help for avoiding burn-in, but I still wonder how exactly the filter works - if the OLED just serves as a per-pixel variable backlight with a wide color gamut the filter pretty much has to be an LCD, no?

 

[londiste]

I have an LG OLED TV from 2015. I don't play much on it but it does get considerable amount of TV hours. Nothing of note so far.

 

[mtcn77]

Hype is hype is hype. And marketing bullshit.
QLED is LCD and LED-backlit LCD at that.

Correction, the backplane is dotted with quantum nanoparticles which acts as a better wave guide than a standard diffuser plate. It increases emissive efficiency.

Notice, this image involves a couple of implementations. The first variant is the one I describe, dots that serve the same fresnel prism, but at the lgp light guide plate. The second is quantum wavelength converter, the red and green dots that aren't specific to this.

 

[Valantar]

Correction, the backplane is dotted with quantum nanoparticles which acts as a better wave guide than a standard diffuser plate. It increases emissive efficiency.
View attachment 149885
Notice, this image involves a couple of implementations. The first variant is the one I describe, dots that serve the same fresnel prism, but at the lgp light guide plate. The second is quantum wavelength converter, the red and green dots that aren't specific to this.

None of this says it's not an LCD or not an LED-backlit(/edge-lit) LCD, so I don't see what you're correcting.