Samsung Corning Advanced Glass had committed to selling its ‘targets’ plant in Gumi, South Korea. The facility produces inorganics (targets) that are used to coat various materials onto glass and other materials to create films, by sputtering, high-energy particles to dislodge atoms from the ‘target’ which then form a film on a substrate.

The buyer is Vital Materials Ltd, a $1B+ privately held company based in Guangzhou, China, that specializes in l ‘minor metals’, which include a wide range of semiconductor materials (III-V), including indium, used in a number of coatings (ITO–Indium Tin Oxide/IZO–Indium Zinc Oxide/IGZO–Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide). These materials are commonly sold as ‘targets’ for sputtering systems, which use a number of different methods (magnetic, heat, ion-beam, etc.) to separate atoms of the target material, usually with a charged plasma, mix it with an inert gas, and push the mixture under high pressure toward the substrate, where it forms a thin film.

Vital will use the South Korean factory to expand its product mix and geographical presence, with the Samsung-Corning JV being one of the largest suppliers of Indium based targets to the LCD and OLED industries.

Source: OLED ASSOCIATION