LC Hsieh, president and CEO of TPK Holding, a Taiwanese touch panel maker, said recently that the company plans to start mass production of nano-silver wire touch panels in the fourth quarter of 2019 to meet the growing number of flexible OLED mobile phone screens. demand.
The company's capital expenditure in 2019 is expected to be reduced to NT $ 4 billion (US $ 129.7 million) from NT $ 6.08 billion in 2018, but Hsieh revealed that half of the cost will be used to build a silver paste processing, Complete nanosilver production line for coatings and touch panel modules. The initial capacity is set at 20,000 square meters.
Hsieh said that it is expected that flexible displays will become the mainstream of the market, with better performance and cost-effectiveness than ITO-based touch screens. Ye Hong Technology has set the establishment of nano-silver production capacity and complete process verification as the company's main tasks in 2019.
Nano-silver technology can be applied to small and medium-sized touch panels to achieve high ductility, and due to its low resistance, it can also be used for large-size applications. Hsieh said that Henghong Technology will first perform nano-silver technology verification on large-size panels, and then apply it to OLED mobile phone panels in the second stage, and then completely replace ITO panels in the third stage.
Hsieh said that it is expected that the nano-silver panel solution will begin to realize revenue in early 2020, and its profitability will be higher than other product lines.