Merck Korea (CEO Dr. Woo-Kyu Kim), the Korean branch of leading science and technology company Merck, has begun full-scale operation of its new OLED material production facility in Poseung, Pyeongtaek, and is expanding its supply from large-scale OLED materials to premium mobile OLED materials.

Merck Korea announced on the 22nd that it has begun mass production and supply of hole transport materials used in common layers for mobile organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels at its new production facility located in the Poseung Industrial Complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

Merck has been steadily supplying hole transport materials for large OLED panels, and with this mass production, it has expanded the application of high-quality materials to mobile panels.

The OLED panels are expected to be used in products targeting the premium OLED smartphone market.

Woo-Kyu Kim, CEO of Merck Korea, said, “Korea is a country that is truly leading the global OLED market, and Merck is investing in the relevant resources needed for Korean panel manufacturers to lead the OLED market. Since opening the OLED R&D Center in 2011, we have continuously strengthened our R&D facilities and personnel to provide close-range services to domestic panel manufacturers. We are currently building core OLED manufacturing facilities and are preparing to quickly respond to customer needs with the highest-quality materials produced in Korea. “We believe that this expanded application of materials has laid the foundation for closer cooperation with Korean OLED panel manufacturers in the future,” he said.

The hole transport layer is one of the common layers that smoothly transports holes generated between electrodes on a glass substrate or flexible film substrate with conductive electrodes in OLED, and the electron blocking layer is also a common layer that prevents holes from penetrating from the light-emitting layer to the electron transport layer.

Merck's OLED materials are applied to both of these layers, and help improve the efficiency and lifespan of the panel by maintaining optimal transport and blocking of holes and electrons.

Meanwhile, Merck, a display materials company, began its OLED and organic material-related business in 2005 to actively contribute to Korea's OLED infrastructure industry. In 2011, it opened a research institute for OLED synthesis and material development, and in 2014, it opened an OLED application research institute. In 2020, it decided to invest an additional 25 billion won to establish a next-generation OLED light-emitting diode manufacturing facility in its factory in the Poseung National Industrial Complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

This investment will be used to build a new modular production system that will expand OLED manufacturing capabilities, which is expected to contribute to the development of materials and stable supply for cutting-edge display panels pursued by Korean panel manufacturers.

Merck Electronics is a business division of the German company Merck with 353 years of history, and is responsible for research and manufacturing of semiconductor and display materials worldwide.

In Korea, we have a total of seven research and manufacturing facilities: six in Pyeongtaek, Anseong, Ansan, Sihwa, and Banwol in Gyeonggi Province, and one in Ulsan.

Since entering the Korean market in 1989, Merck Korea has achieved remarkable growth in the display and semiconductor fields over the past 32 years.In addition to Nix, it is a global company in the life sciences and healthcare fields, recording sales of KRW 1.8 trillion (EUR 1.35 billion) in Korea in 2020.