Corning, which received a 21.8 billion stake, cooperates with BOE for Micro LED support

On May 20, BOE announced that the company signed a memorandum of cooperation with Corning Incorporated of the United States on that day. The two parties will cooperate in the fields of glass-based packaging carriers, foldable glass, perovskite glass substrates, and optical interconnect-related applications. The memorandum will be valid for three years.

Among the four areas of cooperation, BOE’s folding screen business has achieved stable mass production and supply, and the remaining three cooperations belong to a new growth curve. However, it is worth noting that in the field of optical interconnection, Corning received a US$3.2 billion (approximately RMB 21.76 billion) bet from NVIDIA not long ago. Why are leaders in two different fields focusing on Corning?

▋ NVIDIA invests 3.2 billion in Corning on May 6

Before interpreting BOE’s cooperation, let’s move the time to May 6. NVIDIA and Corning jointly issued an announcement announcing a multi-year business and technology partnership.

Including pre-financing warrants and traditional warrants, Corning has received a total of US$3.2 billion in investment. Corning will increase its optical connection product manufacturing capacity in the United States by 10 times and expand its optical fiber production capacity in the United States by more than 50% to meet the accelerated growth demand brought about by the construction of artificial intelligence factories. This expansion plan includes the construction of three new advanced manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Texas.

Judging from the original words of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, the direct reason for this expansion of the factory is to "provide power for artificial intelligence infrastructure and deliver intelligence at the speed of light", and AI infrastructure requires massive high-speed optical interconnection.

Summarizing Nvidia’s investment this year, including Lumentum’s 2 billion to lock indium phosphide laser and light source production capacity; Coherent’s 2 billion investment to lock in high-power lasers and optical devices; Marvell’s 2 billion investment to lock in DSP and silicon optical platforms, and Corning’s 3.2 billion to focus on optical fibers, optical cables, and connectors.

Current AI clusters, 800G/1.6T high-speed interconnection, and optical fiber can carry extremely large traffic data. Ultra-low-loss optical fiber is the optimal medium for long-distance, large-bandwidth transmission, and is also the key to forming a high-speed optical interconnection network. In the CPO technology route, optical fiber must not only transmit data, but also achieve high-density wiring in a very small space, which places extremely high requirements on the flexibility, loss rate and manufacturing process of optical fiber. Corning's optical fiber and cable technology has also become an important part of it.

▋ BOE’s Micro LED optical interconnection layout

Returning to BOE’s announcement, BOE’s subsidiaries will invest in the construction of Micro LED chip production lines in 2023. At present, the company's subsidiaries have produced relevant samples of MicroLED optical interconnect chips and sent them to customers. As of now, this business has not yet generated sales revenue.

According to the production line situation, the company is mainly BOE Huacan. BOE Huacan has established the world's first 6-inch Micro LED mass production line in Zhuhai (put into production in March 2025). At present, the project has formed a facility with a production capacity of 23,500 MicroLED wafers and 18,000kk MicroLED pixel devices. In January this year, BOE Huacan Optoelectronics officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghai New Phase Microelectronics, focusing on optical interconnection technology based on Micro LED, and officially launched the research and development and production of Micro LED optical modules.

According to Microsoft's Micro LED optical interconnection solution, Micro LED can achieve extremely low power consumption, ultra-high bandwidth, high reliability and long transmission distance in a small size, matching the current AI computing power needs.

However, Micro LED optical interconnection still requires full-chain cooperation. Generally speaking, BOE Huacan can produce light sources, lasers, and optical devices, while Corning cooperates with optical fibers, optical cables, connectors, and connection layers. Moreover, Corning is the world's leading company in special glass and advanced materials. It has a business supply and procurement relationship with BOE for many years, and can cooperate in Micro LED optical interconnection.

▋ Other cooperation between BOE and Corning

In addition to optical interconnection, BOE also plans to enter into multiple cooperation with Corning.

■ Glass substrate

The announcement stated that BOE will invest 993 million yuan in 2024 to build a glass-based packaging carrier board test line. At present, samples have been sent to some domestic customers, and some customers have passed concept certification and entered the technical testing stage. As of now, mass production has not yet been achieved, the business has not yet achieved mass production revenue, and the yield rate of the pilot line has not yet reached mass production levels.

From the perspective of demand, advanced packaging of AI chips on glass-based packaging carriers is urgently needed, which can replace traditional organic substrates (ABF) and solve bottlenecks in warping, high-frequency loss, and interconnect density; BOE has built a test line and sent samples for testing, and Corning can provide low thermal expansion glass and TGV yield improvement solutions.

■ Perovskite glass substrate

Since 2024, BOE has built three major platforms: glove box (25mm*25mm), experimental line (300mm*300mm) and pilot line (1200*2400mm), using rigid/flexible/laminated component technology routes for parallel development. The total investment in the three major R&D platforms is nearly 10 billion, it is currently continuing to develop related product technologies and carrying out life verification work with relevant domestic customers. The current productization process is mainly focused on the implementation of demonstration projects, and mass production revenue has not yet been achieved.

As a new growth curve, BOE has mass-produced large-size components. Corning can provide high-transmittance and high-stable glass to solve the life-span pain points of perovskites.

■ Foldable glass

BOE began producing folding products in 2019 and has successfully introduced them to many brand customers around the world, achieving stable mass production and supply. Foldable glass is BOE's most mature cooperation content. The penetration rate of foldable screens has gradually increased. It has been supplied to Samsung, Huawei, Apple, etc. Corning can provide ultra-thin glass to consolidate BOE's flexible display position.

In summary, it can be seen that this cooperation covers four high-growth curves of LED, semiconductor, photovoltaic, and computing power. It is the direction for BOE to start new growth and is also the independent development of China's high-end materials.