Development status and trend of small and medium-s

Development status and trend of LCD raw materials in Chinese mainland
Liquid crystal displays, whether active or passive, in addition to liquid crystal materials, Glass substrates are also required (conductive glass), color filter, polarizer, backlight, etc. auxiliary materials include orientation agent, sealing adhesive and pad materials. Of course, TFT-LCD needs to make TFT array on a glass substrate, and the materials it needs are almost the same as those in the semiconductor industry. In addition, the cost composition of different LCD materials is very different.
Liquid crystal material: still in the middle and low level
Major manufacturers of liquid crystal materials in the world: Merck in Germany, CHISSO and DIC in Japan, and Yongsheng Huaqing in China. Merck has the largest output, accounting for about 50% of the global total. It has factories in Germany, Japan and Taiwan. The sales in 2005 increased by 27% over the previous year.
The research work of liquid crystal materials in China began in 1969. The official production of liquid crystal materials began in 1987, breaking the long-term technological monopoly of Germany and Japan. Limited by a variety of subjective and objective factors, at present, China's liquid crystal materials are only low and medium grade TN and STN, and most high-grade materials (mainly TFT materials) only stay in the laboratory.
China's four liquid crystal material enterprises sold 223.5 tons of liquid crystal in 2005 (including 180 tons of monomer and 44.35 tons of mixed liquid crystal), with sales of 731 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 89.87%. In recent years, various liquid crystal material manufacturers have been committed to improving product quality, expanding varieties and improving product structure. In 2005, the most prominent export of liquid crystal monomer formed a scale, among which Shijiazhuang Yongsheng Huaqing has the largest scale and the most varieties among the four.
Substrate glass: in its infancy
At present, the suppliers of substrate glass are mainly Corning in the United States and Asahi Glass, neg and NH technology in Japan. They almost monopolize the glass production and supply of the whole industry. Pilkington in Europe also supplies TN and STN glass in a small amount.
In recent years, driven by the rapid development of TFT-LCD industry, the demand for substrate glass has been in a period of rapid growth. In 2005, the global output reached more than 74 million square meters, an increase of 56.6% over the previous year.
The production of substrate glass in China is still in the start-up stage. It is reported that Ancai hi tech announced in 2005 that it would invest 2.2 billion yuan to build a TFT substrate production line, with a target of 3 million square meters per year for 5g glass substrates.
Rainbow recently announced an investment of 1.3 billion yuan to complete 5g and above TFT glass substrates in two phases. The investment in the first phase is 800 million yuan, and the main goal is to produce an annual output of 750000 square meters ~ 900000 square meters of 5gtft glass; Phase II is determined according to the algebra of actual domestic TFT investment in the future. However, the above two projects are still in the stage of demonstration and application.
Henan Luobo group actually started production. After completing the investment of 260 million yuan to build a CSTN sheet glass production line, it produced a CSTN glass substrate with a thickness of 0.55 mm in May this year. It has been supplied to the market in batches.
Color filter film: built in trend of panel Enterprises
At present, all kinds of LCD, especially LCD TV, have higher and higher requirements for color, and the pressure to reduce cost is also increasing. Therefore, a color filter film production line is built in large TFT-LCD enterprises to reduce transportation and cost. This built-in CF accounted for 50% of the total CF production in 2005 and is expected to account for 60% in 2006.
In 2006, the world's three major color filter film manufacturers were: LPL accounted for 16.4%, built-in; Letterpress printing accounted for 12.6%, professional; Samsung accounted for 11.4%, built-in.
At the same time, all production enterprises have done a lot of work in improving raw materials, improving optical properties of color films, improving production processes and reducing costs, among which transfer printing and inkjet technology deserve attention. It is reported that the cooperation between Japanese letterpress and Guangcun printing to develop the transfer method is estimated to reduce the cost by 1 / 2, but the mass production progress is still uncertain. DNP is imported into inkjet method. In fact, the technical threshold of inkjet method is low. Sharp's built-in 6-generation color filters have been mass produced by inkjet method, and Taiwan Zhanmao optoelectronics has also cooperated with Taiwan Industrial Research Institute, and its 5-generation production line will also be mass produced by inkjet method.
Another challenge of color filter membrane technology is not to use color membrane, Field sequential color technology is used to realize colorization. This technology has been developed for many years and has only been applied in a very limited field. However, the situation has changed. Samsung first introduced CFL (color filter less) 32 inch LCD without filter at FPD international 2005, which has attracted much attention.
 
The panel adopts field sequence mode (FS) to realize color. It adopts rgb-led backlight and OCB panel. The response speed is 5ms and the resolution is 1366 × 768 pixels, brightness of 500CD / m2, contrast of 1000:1, aperture ratio of 78%, color performance range of 110% of NTSC, power consumption of 82w, driving frequency not published. Because no filter is used, the panel can reduce the cost and reduce the price by 20%. No specific data have been published on the number of LEDs used.
Transparent electrode: developed into an independent category
As China is still an important production base of TN and STN-LCD, ITO conductive glass has developed into an independent industry category. At present, there are about 40 ITO conductive glass production lines in mainland China. The main manufacturers include wholly foreign-owned enterprises - Suzhou bannitrate, imported large-scale production line enterprises - Shenzhen CSG, Shenzhen Laibao, etc., and domestic production line enterprises - Anhui Bengbu Huayi, Shenzhen South Asia, Anhui Wuhu Changxin, Jiangsu Jintan kangdak, Shenzhen howei, etc.
According to incomplete statistics, China's actual output in 2005 has exceeded 10 million square meters. Not only can it basically meet domestic demand, but also the proportion of exports has reached a certain level. At the same time, the technical level and product quality have been greatly improved.
Polarizer: supply continues to be tight
With the rapid growth of the demand for LCD panels in the world high-tech market, the demand for the quality and quantity of polarizers is also rising. In 2001, the global polarizer market was US $805 million; In 2002, driven by the growth of TFT-LCD demand, the growth of polarizer was as high as 46%, and the total output value reached US $1.173 billion; It is expected to reach US $1.8 billion in 2006.
According to DisplaySearch, according to the current production expansion plan of raw material suppliers, the supply of polarizers will continue to be tight until 2008.
At present, the largest manufacturer in the global polarizer market, nitong electrician, Sumitomo chemical and Sanli chemical account for about 40% to 50%, 20% and 15%, and the rest are lite and LG Chemical. The production of polarizers in China is still in its infancy. The main manufacturers are Shenzhen shenfang Lekai, Wenzhou qiaoye, Foshan Weida, etc. the products are narrow amplitude (500mm) polarizers for TN and STN. At present, wide amplitude (1330mm) products cannot be provided.
The main raw material cost of polarizer accounts for 60% - 70% of the product sales cost, and TAC film and PVA film account for 75% of the raw material cost.
Backlight system: mainstream or CCFL
The backlight module mainly includes: light source (CCFL or LED), light guide plate, reflector, diffuser, frame, etc. at present, the backlight CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) and LED (light emitting diode) are most used on LCD.
CCFL is still the mainstream of backlight system. There are dozens of enterprises producing CCFL backlight modules, mostly from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Half of the global output of backlight modules comes from Taiwan manufacturers, followed by South Korea and Japan. Shenzhen Diguang is one of the earliest and largest enterprises in the mainland. There are few enterprises producing cold cathode fluorescent tubes. Nanjing Languang is the largest in the mainland, and only horison (Japan), Sanken (Japan), Jinfu electric (Korea) and Weili League (Taiwan) are relatively large in the world.
At present, the more mature CCFL alternative light sources include, in addition to LED, FFL (flat fluorescent lamp), OLED and carbon nanotube technologies. Although the latter two have been developed as prototypes, they have not yet reached the stage of mature application.
As a backlight, LED has attracted more and more attention. It has been widely used in small displays such as mobile phones, and is expanding towards Desktop PC displays, portable PCs and LCD TVs. Although OLED products appear in the market now, and its randomness and ultra-thin are better than led, its service life and color are not as good as LED. Therefore, LED is still the best choice for LCD backlight.