LG Display Unveils FLiPP OLED Tech Without Fine Metal Masks

LG Display announced on August 19 a new manufacturing technology for organic light-emitting diode panels that eliminates the traditional fine metal mask process, claiming the method significantly improves brightness, lifespan, and production efficiency. The company unveiled FLiPP, which stands for FMMLess innovative Pixel Patterning, at the International Meeting on Information Display conference in Busan.

The fine metal mask, or FMM, has been a standard step in conventional OLED production, acting as a stencil through which red, green, and blue organic materials are deposited to form pixels. LG Display states that this approach has inherent limitations, as large masks can sag under their own weight, causing alignment errors, and new masks must be created whenever the desired panel size or resolution changes. FLiPP replaces this process with a photolithography-based method. According to the company, it coats RGB pixels sequentially and uses ultraviolet light to precisely etch away unnecessary areas, patterning the subpixels without masks.

LG Display says this shift yields substantial performance benefits. In identical conditions, panels produced with FLiPP demonstrate 1.6 times...