Recently, Hitachi decided to sell its listed subsidiary Hitachi Metals to the US investment fund Bain Capital, Japan's domestic fund Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), Japan Industrial Solutions (JIS) and other Japan-US fund alliances. Sales are expected to exceed US$8 billion.
Hitachi Metals is one of Hitachi`s most important subsidiaries, and Hitachi holds 53% of its shares. Hitachi Metals is involved in a wide range of businesses. In addition to special steels, there are alloys, magnets, wires and cables, fighter parts, etc. Many products occupy a high market share. For example, in the field of display upstream materials, the main material used in the production of ultra-fine metal masks (FMM) used in OLEDs-Invar alloy (iron-nickel-cobalt alloy) is monopolized by Hitachi Metals. This Invar alloy material can make the FMM thinner than 20 microns, and finally form a more delicate ultra-high-definition display.
Unfortunately, Hitachi Metals does not supply Invar materials below 30 microns. Because Hitachi Metals related patents come from Japanese FMM manufacturer DNP, DNP prohibits Hitachi Metals from supplying Invar materials below 30 microns. At present, in order to obtain timely and stable FMM supply and promote OLED mass production, most OLED manufacturers must sign relevant exclusive agreements with them. Samsung Display has signed an exclusive supply agreement with Hitachi Metals and DNP to allow Samsung to have a higher resolution. This also means that other display manufacturers, even if they bought the vapor deposition machine, also bought the mask, but because they can't buy the 20-micron Invar board, the final display will be slightly weaker than the Samsung screen. .
At present, although some European and American manufacturers are also conquering Invar materials and have achieved initial results, the materials have not yet reached the level of mass production FMM due to insufficient stability, and the technology gap with Hitachi Metals is at least about 3 years. However, after Hitachi sells all of its shares, perhaps Hitachi Metals' control of its high-performance materials will be slightly relaxed.