LG Display bets big on Tandem OLED in AI computing era

LG Display Co., the world’s top organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV panel maker, is raising the stakes in Tandem OLED technology to stay ahead of its rivals amid growing demand for artificial intelligence-powered computing.

The major South Korean display maker announced on Monday that it has begun mass-producing 13-inch Tandem OLED displays for laptops, the first of its kind in the display industry.

Tandem OLED refers to multiple panels stacked on top of each other. Since LG Display developed the industry’s first Tandem OLED display in 2019, the technology has mainly been used in automotive screens.

For the laptop display, LG Display stacks two OLED panels, which deliver triple the screen brightness of a one-layer standard OLED while effectively dispersing energy across OLED diodes for optimal stability with double the  lifespan.

Its Tandem OLED screen for laptops also uses up to 40% less power than a conventional OLED screen, making it a perfect display for high-performance information technology (IT) devices such as AI-powered laptops.

The company also said that its Tandem OLED laptop screen is about 40% thinner and 28% lighter than single-layer laptop OLED displays.

TANDEM OLED FOR AI LAPTOPS 

In a two-stack tandem structure, an OLED display has two emissive layers on which numerous red, green, and blue OLEDs are deposited to emit light when they receive electricity.

In the upcoming era of AI computing, the Korean display major will enhance its forte in IT OLED technology, such as the Tandem OLED, said the company.

According to Omdia, Tandem OLED display shipments are forecast to jump to 71.8 million units in 2031 from 8.1 million in 2024. The Tandem OLED display market is also expected to grow to $9.9 billion from $2.5 billion over the same period.

The global technology research company also expects demand for overall OLED laptop displays to grow with the advent of AI and premium laptops.

To meet the trend, LG Display is seeking to pull the plug on the liquid crystal display (LCD) business to focus on OLED technology, in which it has the upper hand compared with its Chinese peers. 

Write to Chae-Yeon Kim at why29@hankyung.com


Sookyung Seo edited this article.