Solution based OLEDs - Page 7

China's BOE Display is building a 5.5-Gen LTPS fab in Ordos by the end of 2013. This fab will first produce LTPS LCDs, but BOE wants to switch it to AMOLED production. According to OLEDNet, during the FPD International 2013, BOE's Dawei Wang (their flexible technology R&D director) said that in addition to the 5.5-Gen line in Ordos, they are also working towards a Gen-8 Oxide-TFT line in Hefei.

BOE Ordos 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab

This new line will use high-resolution FMM deposition and a WRGB architecture. We know that BOE is also developing ink-jet printing technology, it's not clear from OLEDNet's article whether printing technologies are also planned for the Hefei line.

Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer have been jointly developing OLED lighting technologies for a long time, including printed OLED panels. The companies are currently producing OLED lighting panels in which the bottom layer is coated and the emissive layer and the top layers are deposited by evaporation in vacuum (VTE).

Now the two companies presented a prototype panel in which both the bottom layer and the emissive layer were coated (the top layer was still deposited using VTE). The companies say this new process will reduce the cost of the panel to 10% compared to current OLEDs due to improved material utilization. They also say that the new panels will feature much longer lifetimes.

The EU launched a new project (called ENAB-SPOLED) that aims to use solution-based OLED materials to enable high performing cost competitive OLEDs for the lighting market and to develop a functional luminaire demonstrator. More specifically, the project partners will develop new materials (transport materials, emitters), new optical technologies for light guiding, and also process technologies for solution processing of small molecule and PLEDs.

This 2-year project has a budget of €4 million and is supported by Germany, Austria and the UK. The project partners are Novaled, Cambridge Display Technology, Tridonic, Zumbotel, the University of Durham and the Fraunhofer IAP. More information can be found here.

Researchers from the University of Utah, Bonn and Regensburg developed a new wagon-wheel (or rotelle-pasta) shaped OLED molecule that emits non-polarized (random) light.Those oligomers, or wrapped-up polymers may enable OLEDs more efficient than polymer based OLEDs (PLEDs).

The researchers explain that current poylmer OLED molecules (which are shaped like spaghetti pasta, to continue the same metaphore) emit polarized light. Some of that light get trapped inside the OLED device and this makes it less efficient. They say that up to 80% of the generated light may be trapped in the OLED because it is polarized.

Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron (TEL) will merge into a new company that will have a market value of $29 billion. Applied shareholders will own approximately 68% of the new company and Tokyo Electron shareholders approximately 32%. The new company name is still unknown. Applied Materials is considered to be the world's leader in deposition and process control. According to Gartner, In 2012 Applied held 14.4% of the global semiconductor manufacturing equipment market and TEL had 11.1%.

Both companies are engaged with OLED manufacturing equipment. Applied Materials is offering two film deposition systems suitable for LTPS or Oxide-TFT backplane deposition (for both LCD and OLEDs panels). The AKT-PX-PECVD system (shown below) is sed to deposit LTPS films on large glass substrates (sized from 1.6 m² to 5.7 m²). The AKT-PiVoT PVD system is used to deposit metal oxide-based TFTs (IGZO in particular).

According to the OLED Association, Panasonic said that they are progressing fast enough to launch the 55" (probably 56") UHD OLED TV in Q4 2013. Panasonic will start mass production in its Himeji Pilot Gen-5.5 line (which means initial production will be very limited). If this report is true it means a real acceleration as Panasonic previously said they will only be ready in 2015 (although you may say that the current Himeji line will not be real mass production in any case).

Panasonic OLED TV prototype, IFA 2013

Panasonic's OLED TV panel, unveiled in January 2013, is produced using ink-jet printing and uses an RGB subpixel matrix (direct-emission). Panasonic is using Sumitomo's PLED materials, and AUO's oxide-TFT Substrates. The company is collaborating with Sony on OLED technologies.

Cynora and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) launched a new project called cyFLEX that aims to develop develop flexible and luminescent surfaces for smart packaging and advertising applications based on OLED lighting panels. The project follows-up to Cynora's cyFLEX panel demonstration shown in October 2012 and uses the company's solution-processable copper-based TADF OLED emitters.

Cynora will develop OLED materials that can be applied for mass-market applications - integrated into packaging. They hope to develop a low-cost, efficient manufacturing process based on printing and coating.

Researchers from the University of Utah developed a new polymer light emitting device that can be tuned to emit light of different colors, including white (without the need to mix several emitters). The new material is a polymer molecule doped with platinum. The same material can also be used to develop efficient OPVs or Spintronics-based memory devices.

The device currently being developed at Utah isn't an OLEDs as it only emits light when stimulated by other light (such as a laser) and not when simulated by an electrical current. But the researchers say that a white OLED based on this technology is possible and predict that it will be developed within two years. The current device isn't actually white, it emits colored color (more on this below) and they say it will take about one year till they manage to develop a white Pt-1 device.

In 2012 we posted about a the Spin-OLED, a new spin-polarized polymer efficient OLED device developed at the University of Utah and the Israeli Technion. Now Professor Z. Valy Vardeny from Utah gave a talk (titled "Spin Effects in Organic Optoelectronic Devices") describing the Spin-OLED in more details:

Professor Vardeny also gives an introduction to organic Spintronics and introduces the hybrid organic/inorganic spintronics device and explains how OPV can be enhanced by spin 1/2 radical additives.

As promised, Panasonic showed 56" 4K (3840x2160) OLED TV panel at the IFA 2013 exhibition. The company had several prototypes on display, and I believe these are the same panels as the ones Panasonic unveiled at CES 2013 in January 2013.

Panasonic panels are made using an "all-printing" method, and Sumitomo Chemical revealed that these prototypes use the company's PLED materials. Panasonic's panel uses a substrate (probably Oxide-TFT) provided by Sony (which are actually made by AU Optronics) - as part of the two companies collaboration. According to the latest reports, they only plan to start OLED production at around 2015.