Korea backs 369 billion won OLED research push to widen lead over rivals

South Korea's industry ministry said Thursday it will fund a 369 billion won ($275 million) national research program to develop next-generation display technologies, as it seeks to widen an OLED lead over fast-moving competitors.

The program, which runs from 2027 through 2033, was approved this week by the government's overall committee for evaluating national research and development projects, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. State funds will cover 279 billion won ($208 million) of the total.

The work is organized around three areas: strengthening OLED performance, extending OLED into new applications, and developing technologies that go beyond OLED. The first track targets displays that reproduce 100 percent of natural color under the REC. 2020 standard and sharply reduce power consumption, while a second effort aims at high-resolution displays for extended reality that use glass substrates to keep manufacturing costs down.

The ministry also wants displays to evolve from simple screens into platforms that sense information. That includes displays with built-in sensors that can read fingerprints and vital signs such as blood pressure anywhere on the screen, and stretchable displays that adhere to curved surfaces for uses such as humanoid robot skin and smart clothing.

A key part of the program is an open research platform, the Advanced Display Research Institute, to be built in Asan, South Chungcheong Province. It will be linked in a hub-and-spoke arrangement to existing facilities including the Cheonan display innovation process center and the Asan smart modular center, as well as the Korea Electronics Technology Institute, the Korea Photonics Technology Institute and the Korea Automotive Technology Institute.

In all, the program covers 20 core technology development tasks. The ministry expects the shared infrastructure to cut prototype verification times from six months to one month.

"We take seriously the situation in which competing countries are aiming at display supremacy through intensive government support," said Choi Woo-hyuk, the ministry's director-general for advanced industry policy. He said the government would also pursue industrial technology protection, workforce training and efforts to ease companies' investment difficulties so that the research infrastructure and technologies secured through the project lead to actual products and global market leadership.