The future development of the touch screen industry will present three major development trends

Beijing time on December 31 news, China's touch screen network news, the huge demand for the future touch screen market, ignited the passion of enterprises. Terminal brands, touch panels and TFT panels have entered the touch screen market, and the scale of the touch screen market will continue to grow. The development of the touch screen industry will present three major development trends.

1. Alternative materials in the touch screen industry will continue to emerge

From the touch screen industry chain, glass substrates, Petfilm, and rubber materials are the main materials in the upstream of the industry, while the supply of glass substrates and Petfilm is monopolized by US and Japanese companies. ITO glass, ITO film, sensor (including touch IC), coverlens is the middle part, and the downstream is the touch module glass. From the research and development of touch materials in recent years, the research and development of alternative materials is mainly in the upper and middle reaches.

Currently, touch sensors are undergoing a film-type replacement glass process. The thickness and weight brought by the G/G touch technology still have a great room for improvement in the end market and consumers, replacing the glass touch sensor with a thin film touch sensor, in order to simultaneously improve the thickness and weight. .

The development of CoverLens' replacement of glass with plastic is also accelerating. At present, some large manufacturers have begun to evaluate the replacement of glass with plastics, which can overcome the problems of high weight and insufficient impact resistance. In general, the hardness and rigidity of the glass material are higher than those of the plastic material, and it is resistant to deformation and cracking due to extrusion. In contrast, plastic materials are more resistant to impact and fall than glass. However, the plastic material has poor light transmittance, and in the full bonding process of the touch module, if the curing temperature is high, or after a long time of use, yellowing and white fogging are likely to occur. However, with the demand for lighter and thinner products, these problems will soon be overcome, and the trend of plastics replacing glass will be greatly accelerated.

At present, the OPS (OnePlasticSolution) touch solution is being evaluated by Taiwanese and Japanese manufacturers to see if a new touch technology can be made. OPS touch technology is to change the material of CoverLens to plastic, and then make the ITO touch sensor on its CoverLens. This is the OPS touch solution. Compared with OGS touch panel technology, it is different from OGS in making ITO touch sensor on CoverLens with glass material, which is relatively lighter and thinner. For example, an OGS-type touch panel module can be added to a 13- to 14-inch notebook computer, and the overall weight will increase by about 180g. This is another additional weight burden for consumers. At present, nearly 95% of touch notebooks adopt OGS-type touch panel structure. As for the two-piece glass touch panel structure, it will not be applied to notebooks or superbooks. Brand manufacturers will continue to look for thinner, more impact-resistant materials and touch technologies due to the strength, thickness and weight of touch panels.

Glass and plastic are the two most used materials for touch screens, and both materials are monopolized by US and Japanese manufacturers. For example, in the CoverLens part of the touch panel, tempered glass is the mainstream product of Corning's GorillaGlass and Asahi Glass's Dragontrail, while plastics include Showa Denko, Teijin, Mitsubishi Chemical Group, Dainippon Printing, Nippon Steel & Metal Chemical Co., Ltd., and Japan. Research and development by manufacturers such as the synthetic chemical industry. At present, the two camps have launched a fierce battle. Japan's synthetic chemistry developed an ORGA plastic material that replaced glass as early as 2011. ORGA itself has the same transparency as glass, and its heat resistance is above 200 °C, and the hardness is 3H-7H. Therefore, as a substitute for tempered glass required for smartphones and flat panels, the cost is not only stronger than glass. Low and only one-third of its weight. However, whether it is the plastic camp wins or the glass camp exits, it is the monopoly of the competition for the touch screen market. In the future, this competition will become more intense.

New soft transparent conductive materials such as conductive polymers, nano-silver wires (metal mesh), carbon nanotubes, and graphene have been rapidly developed in recent years and are rapidly commercialized. These materials are highly alternative to ITO transparent conductive films, especially in the field of medium and large size touch screens.

Traditionally, the G/F/F type touch panel produced by low-temperature ITO has a fixed resistance per unit area, so the sensitivity of the sensor will decrease with the increase of the area, which becomes a key point for the improvement of the yield of the large-sized GFF type touch panel. In view of this, G/F/F touch panel manufacturers such as Shunhong, Yanghua, Interface, Mudong Optoelectronics, Helitai, Yingmao, Oufeiguang, Yili, etc. have stepped up the development of low-resistance nano-silver and High-temperature TOTG/F/F touch panel deployment to improve the yield of large-size G/F/F touch panels.

At present, the thin-film transparent materials of nano-silver wire are mainly in the hands of Japanese business UbeIndustries, Industrial Research Institute and Changxing Chemical, and the main suppliers of PI are Panasonic, Mitsubishi, etc., their nano silver wire and high temperature ITO film. The yield and progress of materials are highly concerned by the touch panel industry. It is estimated that in the second half of 2013, the G/F/F type touch panel with nano silver wire film material can be introduced into mass production, and it will be applied to the touch panel of smart phones in the early stage. It is expected to be applied in 2014. One machine.

2, the large and large size touch screen market force to promote panel manufacturers involved in the field of touch screen

For touch-screen companies, maintaining high profitability is nothing more than winning by scale and integrating upstream and downstream. For ordinary touch screen manufacturers, with the first-mover advantage, it can achieve a relatively large scale, but its inability to integrate upstream and downstream, even its scale can be done before the LCD manufacturers did not cut into the touch screen industry. As the popularity of touch screens increases, the participation of LCD manufacturers will become higher and higher. For example, Shanwei Xinli, due to its good LCD business foundation, has achieved the world's fourth largest touch screen manufacturer (mainly resistive) in just two years.

Due to the huge shipments of small-sized touch panels and LCD panels, panel manufacturers need a lot of manpower and material costs, so a large number of touch modules and touch panel manufacturers are engaged in this field. The market for large-size touch screens is becoming more and more mature, especially the in-cell touch screen technology OGS and In/On-cell are constantly developing, and the participation of panel manufacturers is getting higher and higher. The main reason is that the rear-end processing of the touch screen is more complicated, and the rear-end processing is in line with the needs of the end customer, such as shape, color, structure, and the like.

In the field of OGS touch screen, in July this year, BOE invested 5.397 billion yuan to build the Hefei Xinyu touch screen production line project. The project will adopt OGS technology. The production process includes two parts: Sensor engineering and bonding engineering. The size of the glass substrate is 1500mm×1850mm. The production capacity is 60K/month, and the main products include touch screens for mobile phones and tablet computers.

In-cell touch is the most in-depth field combined with panels. At present, Sharp, JDI, LGD, etc. have mass-produced panels with In-cell touch, mainly for Apple. In-cell technology of mainland deep-sky panel manufacturers is still in the stage of mass production feasibility technology development. To achieve mass production, further verification of product stability, improvement of related supporting resources and mass production verification of large-scale production are required.

In the field of On-cell touch panels, Samsung and LGD are two companies with strong strength.

As the industry is increasingly demanding display technology, some traditional panel manufacturers in China are eyeing the touch screen field. At present, the touch screen industry is not yet fully integrated in the business layout, and the probability of being merged by panel manufacturers in the future is very high.

3, touch screen and LCD two industries eventually "converge"

The touch screen industry is very similar to the TFT industry. The raw materials of the two brands account for a large proportion in the value chain, at around 60%; the two industries have been developing in parallel. At the end of the development of the touch screen industry, it will be matched with LCD manufacturers' production lines, and LCD manufacturers and touch screen manufacturers have obvious production synergies. Therefore, in the long run, the two industries will eventually “converge”, and perhaps the touch screen will return to the LCD industry and become a department of LCD manufacturers.

According to the news of Taiwan FPD manufacturing, TPK Yuhong plans to form an alliance with LGD to jointly strengthen the single-chip glass touch panel (TOL) and introduce Apple's next-generation iPad, which is expected to significantly increase TPK revenue, profit and Capacity utilization rate broke through the deadlock in the price competition of mainland touch controllers. If TPK and LGD form an alliance, it will form a strong and powerful downstream estuary of TPK to solve the problem of overcapacity. At the same time, LCD panel and touch panel will be integrated into the same manufacturer and shipped to Apple, or shipped to other brands. The industry will help reduce the supply chain process and reduce the cost of touch.

Zhuang Zhengdao, senior project manager of IEI, Institute of Industrial Technology, Taiwan, said that the merger of touch panel operators and LCD panel factories, strategic alliances, or virtual integration will be the trend in 2014, and it is also the practice of touch factories to break through the difficulties. Touch factory capacity utilization and performance have positive help.

Integration will be one of the trends in the touch industry in 2014. With the current overcapacity, virtual integration is not only a trend, but also an important means for the survival of touch screen manufacturers.

(This article comes from: China Touch Screen Network (http://www.51touch.com/) Detailed Source Reference: http://www.51touch.com/material/news/dynamic/2013/1231/27269.html)

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