- TCL has started production of a 21.6-inch inkjet-printed OLED panel
- Inkjet printed panels are cheaper to produce and more efficient
- Larger IJP panels still remain in prototype stage
The OLED panel on your next monitor and TV could be made with an inkjet printer. It's a technology TCL has been talking about for more than a decade, but the Chinese panel maker has finally realized its screen printing ambitions.
TCL has officially started mass production of inkjet printed OLED panels. Its first application is not something you're likely to see in your living room: a 21.6-inch 4K OLED display designed for professional medical use.
TCL also unveiled a prototype 27-inch inkjet-printed OLED panel for monitors. It joins the catalog of prototypes we've already seen from the manufacturer, including the 65-inch foldable OLED TV that was shown at Display Week in Los Angeles last year.
What makes the production news exciting is that it indicates that TCL has finally made the leap to real-world implementation of the prototype technology. It is the first concrete evidence that the OLED panels of the future could be produced using inkjet printers.
TCL has long touted the benefits of panels made this way. The new production method has lower costs and produces OLEDs that last longer and require less power. The question has always been whether the technique is viable for mass production and capable of producing the larger panels that appear on our list of the best OLED TVs.
What's new?
Traditionally, OLED panels are made by depositing organic materials onto a layer of glass via a template. This is achieved through an evaporation process within a vacuum chamber. In contrast, inkjet-printed (IJP) OLEDs use large printers to precisely deposit material.
This significantly reduces the amount of production waste, which in turn means that IJP panels can be manufactured for less money. TCL believes that its IJP panels are 20% cheaper overall and can be manufactured 30% faster than traditional OLED displays, and also that the materials used have a longer lifespan.
It also claims that its printed RGB OLED loses 50% less light due to internal reflection, resulting in “higher light output efficiency compared to traditional OLED displays.” According to TCL, this means it can display brighter images with the same amount of power.
However, that improvement in efficiency does not mean that IJP panels are brighter. With a maximum brightness of 350 nits, the 21.6-inch display that TCL has put into production is significantly dimmer than rival OLED panels from LG and Samsung, which max out at 1,000 nits.
The benefits for the consumer are rather a possible reduction in the cost of OLED screens. IJP panels should be cheaper to operate and last longer. And assuming the lower production cost is reflected in retail prices, TVs with IJP displays could significantly reduce the cost of owning an OLED display.
Questions remain about whether the technology can be effectively applied to produce larger panels. While TCL has demonstrated larger prototypes, there is a long way to go from its production 21.6-inch panel to the 55- and 65-inch panel sizes that the best OLED TVs require.
Still, with a density of 204 PPI and 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, TCL's IJP panel is competitive.