Samsung Display has begun talks with several partner companies to build an inkjet OLED pilot line, with laptops and monitors among the IT panels it may prioritize.

According to Sina Finance, industry sources said on the 19th that Samsung Display is assessing the line’s feasibility and has selected inkjet printing from among the non-FMM technologies it has studied over several years.

Fine metal masks (FMMs) use tiny openings in a metal sheet to deposit organic emissive materials precisely; all RGB OLEDs previously mass-produced have used FMM. The process is difficult to scale to larger panels and consumes materials, while inkjet printing forms RGB emissive pixels directly without a mask. If stable yields can be achieved, manufacturing costs could theoretically fall by more than 30%.

Samsung Display has also been developing photolithographic patterning, a project named Micro-pattern OLED (MPO), while LG Display has announced another non-FMM technology called Flip. The pilot-line effort marks a further step for inkjet OLED beyond the laboratory stage, and competition in non-FMM technologies is expected to intensify.