Reading CE&N on OLED

[BarkingGhostar]

I was reading an article in the trade journal Chemistry & Engineering News about OLED. I wasn't expecting too much but I was surprised at something that bothered me. OLED is using the rare metal Iridium and the cost of the material is $19 per gram.

Ok, so i wondered how much mass they were using of the rare metal in the manufacturing of the OLED televisions (focus was on TV's >40"). I mean, OLED televisions are expensive so I wondered if they were using 5-10 grams of it. Frack no, not even close.

They were saying that they could make 2-3,000 televisions per gram of Iridium while complaining about the Iridium waste product being 70-90%. So wait, $19 divided by 2,000 units ain't going to make me look back at LCD.

Seriously, why talk about the cost of a rare metal ($19/gram) and then tell me it will take <1/1,000 gram to make the TV with Iridium. I was more than willing to pay the $19-38 penalty for the cost of Iridium in the OLED but they are talking about the costs per unit being <$0.02.

Why talk about the costs of one material when I am sure you can get the consumer to agree to 10,000 times that as a rare metal tax.

 

[Zivic]

I was reading an article in the trade journal Chemistry & Engineering News about OLED. I wasn't expecting too much but I was surprised at something that bothered me. OLED is using the rare metal Iridium and the cost of the material is $19 per gram.

Ok, so i wondered how much mass they were using of the rare metal in the manufacturing of the OLED televisions (focus was on TV's >40"). I mean, OLED televisions are expensive so I wondered if they were using 5-10 grams of it. Frack no, not even close.

They were saying that they could make 2-3,000 televisions per gram of Iridium while complaining about the Iridium waste product being 70-90%. So wait, $19 divided by 2,000 units ain't going to make me look back at LCD.

Seriously, why talk about the cost of a rare metal ($19/gram) and then tell me it will take <1/1,000 gram to make the TV with Iridium. I was more than willing to pay the $19-38 penalty for the cost of Iridium in the OLED but they are talking about the costs per unit being <$0.02.

Why talk about the costs of one material when I am sure you can get the consumer to agree to 10,000 times that as a rare metal tax.

I think it just speaks to how much these displays actually cost to make if they are discussing the impact of a less than 2 cents per unit has on costs

 

[tracerbullet]

How is the iridium being used? If, say, it's sputtered on then yeah it's a heck of a cost. The targets don't totally get used up and it's a slow, picky process with difficult to maintain equipment.

No idea how they use it, but it might be a lot more work than just the cost of the raw material. I'd guess they probably don't use it as easily as a baker uses flour in a recipe.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

It is used in a vapor deposition process with a mask being overlayed the substrate and then removed after deposition. I'm guessing the mask carries away 70-90%.

But the fact that the material cost is $19/gram and they can make +2000 displays with 1 gram then I fail to see how this material cost of a raw material is expensive. They were not relating any process cost, but material cost.

I actually found the article online. READ.