Canon Tokki Explained

Canon Tokki Corporation is a Japanese manufacturer of material deposition equipment for making OLED displays. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon Inc. and has a near-monopoly in its main business field.

History

The company began producing Factory Automation systems, machine tools and production tools. In 1983 it began to produce vacuum thin film deposition equipment. In 1986, Tsugami Specialty Machine, Nagaoka Precision, Tsugami Robotics, and UPR Co., Ltd. merged to form Tokki Corporation Ltd. It began OLED material deposition equipment research in 1993, and in 1996, it started to sell its OLED material deposition equipment.

In 1999, Tokki developed the first OLED mass production system that processes both OLED and electrode material deposition as well as encapsulation by one system.^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]} The company also produces commercial encapsulation tools for laboratory and mass manufacturing.^[8] Canon Tokki and Sunic of Korea are the only two major manufacturers of production-scale OLED thin-film deposition equipment of G6 and above.^[9]

In 2001 it purchased the Niigata Factory from Niigata Keiso Co., Ltd., which became Tokki's main production base. In 2004, Tokki spun off its Factory Automation division forming the subsidiary Tokki Industries Co., Ltd. In 2009, Tokki moved its headquarters from Tokyo to its factory in Niigata. In 2010, Tokki sold Tokki Industries Co., Ltd to Marubeni Corporation. In 2010, Tokki was bought by Canon Inc., and in 2012 it changed its name to Canon Tokki.

An increase in orders enabled the company to double production capacity in 2016, but in 2018 the demand went down as a recovery in the equipment market had been lagged behind that of the display market.^[10]

External links

• Canon Tokki website

Notes and References

1. Web site: Corporate Profile | About Canon Tokki. Canon Tokki Corporation.
2. Web site: Tokki to double its vacuum evaporation equipment capacity to meet OLED demand | OLED-Info. www.oled-info.com.
3. Web site: Apple Buys Specialist Machinery to Set Up OLED Panel R&D Line in Taiwan. Tim. Hardwick. www.macrumors.com.
4. Web site: LG orders two 6-Gen flexible OLED deposition systems from Canon Tokki | OLED-Info. www.oled-info.com.
5. Web site: Sunic System aims for IPO as sales grow following 6-Gen equipment sales to LGD | OLED-Info. www.oled-info.com.
6. Web site: Canon Tokki OLED Equipment Production Shortages Might Not Be Able to Match iPhone 8 Demands . LEDinside . TrendForce Corp . 8 October 2018 . December 23, 2016.
7. Web site: Alpeyev . Pavel . Amano . Takashi . Apple's Search for Better iPhone Screens Leads to Japan's Rice Fields . bloomberg.com . Bloomberg L. P. . 8 October 2018.
8. Book: Gaspar . Daniel J. . OLED Fundamentals: Materials, Devices, and Processing of Organic Light-Emitting Diodes . Polikarpov . Evgueni . CRC Press . 2015 . 978-1-4665-1519-2 . Boca Raton, FL . 32 . en.
9. Book: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine . Assessment of Solid-State Lighting, Phase Two . National Academies Press . 2017 . 978-0-309-45257-1 . Washington, D.C. . 84 . en.
10. Web site: Canon says demand for its OLED production equipment is lower than expected. 8 October 2018. OLED-Info. Metalgrass software.