Air Liquide has been awarded two major long-term contracts by BOE Technology Group in China, to supply ultra-pure carrier molecules to its two latest cutting-edge flat panel display fabs. These plants will both manufacture large numbers of advanced flat panel displays. The first plant (called BOE Ordos G5.5 AMOLED fab) will be based in Ordos, Inner-Mongolia and the other plant (called BOE Hefei G8.5 TFT-LCD fab) in Hefei, Anhui province.

These contracts are the 20th and 21st long-term supply agreements signed by Air Liquide Group in the flat panel display industry in Asia. The total ultra-pure nitrogen newly-contracted will amount to 50,000 Nm3/h. The new BOE fab in Ordos will be commissioned in late 2013, and will produce small and medium-sized advanced LTPS & AMOLED displays for mobile devices on Generation 5.5 size glasses. Air Liquide will invest in a large on-site generator to produce ultra-high purity nitrogen and in bulk gases (oxygen, argon and hydrogen) supply infrastructure.

For the BOE fab in Hefei, located near the BOE Hefei G6 fab already supplied by the company, those same molecules will be supplied by pipeline from its facilities, located in Hefei. This fab will be commissioned in early 2014 and will produce displays on Generation 8.5 size glasses. It will also invest in the necessary back-up infrastructure for both sites.

TFT-LCD (Thin Film Transistor -- Liquide Crystal Display) relies on liquid crystal to control light transmission at sub-pixel level. LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-Silicon) and Oxide-TFT are highly conductive materials, such as alloys of Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide allowing the production of smaller TFTs for high-definition screens. AMOLED refers to the use of Active TFT Matrix arrays, here made of LTPS or Oxide-TFT, to control each OLED sub-pixel light emission.

Gen8.5 indicates the size of the mother glass substrate used to produce the panels, here it is 5.5 m(2).