We can all agree that the real market in OLED deposition tools is not QD-OLED. Therefore, why has Aixtron been focusing OVPD on QD-OLED? I understand that Samsung has tremendous power and certain historical events led Aixtron to work solely with Samsung on something that Samsung demands: QD-OLED. As a result, Aixtron has dedicated its very limited resource to developing OVPD tool for that particular application. And I would not be surprised that there is an unwritten MOU that Aixtron cannot work with Samsung's competitors, aka LG and the Chinese OLED companies.
Aixtron has said at the AGM that it does not have additional manpower and $ to dedicate to another OVPD application.
Samsung is clearly the leader on OLED screen (Gen 6 half cut) for smartphone applications using the VTE from Canon Tokki and FMM technologies to form individual RGB pixels. Nobody else, i.e. LG and the Chinese comes even close to compete with Samsung in this arena. Apple relies on Samsung and has been trying to break that monopoly, but is having a very hard time.
Strategically, do you really think Samsung wants Aixtron to come up with an OVPD tool that can do full Gen 6 (not half cut) and overcomes all the problem of FMM and VTE? If that were to happen, Samsung loses all its competitive advantage of VTE+FMM. So even an OVPD tool for Samsung would lower Samsung's production cost, Samsung does not want that to happen. It does not want that Ginny to fly out of the bottle.
We of course wants Aixtron to succeed in QD-OLED, but, there is another 80% of the TAM that Aixtron has not touched, yet. Am I beating a dead horse? I believe Aixtron understands. Stay tuned, Aixtron might be making some move. |