Making an OLED panel has traditionally required first producing a fine metal mask (FMM) riddled with microscopic holes, through which light passes to deposit organic light-emitting material onto the panel, pixel by pixel. This mask is notoriously troublesome and expensive to make, and once you scale it up — say, for a TV panel — it tends to sag under its own weight, throwing off alignment precision. This is the decades-old headache LG is now tackling head-on.
LG's new tech is called FLiPP (FMM-less Innovative Pixel Patterning) — and as the name suggests, it eliminates the metal mask entirely. Instead, RGB pixels are printed directly onto the panel in precise sequence, then a photolithography process using UV light "etches" away the excess material to complete the pixel pattern. LG's numbers are specific: panel brightness can be boosted to 1.6 times the original, lifespan extended to 2.4 times, and power consumption cut by another 13%.
The most immediate benefit of removing the metal mask is that this technology is no longer constrained by panel size or resolution — in principle, the same process can be applied to large TV panels as well as the tiny displays used in VR headsets. In testing, LG also noted that using FLiPP to produce OLED laptop panels on a single mother glass improved glass utilization by 64% compared to the older technology, meaning less substrate material is wasted. According to the company, this "translates directly into higher production efficiency and lower manufacturing costs."
LG says it will first roll out FLiPP for tablet and monitor products, before gradually expanding to a full lineup "from 1-inch wearables to ultra-large TVs," adjusting based on customer demand. As for when the first FLiPP-equipped OLED products will hit the market, the company has yet to provide a timeline.
