June 2005

Universal Display Corporation announced a fundamental technical achievement in the development of its blue PHOLED phosphorescent OLED technology: a sky blue PHOLED with over 15,000 hours of operating lifetime. This is the first blue PHOLED which has broken through, by an order of magnitude, the 1,000 hour lifetime barrier - a challenge that some people thought might be insurmountable. The announcement was made today at Universal Display's annual shareholders' meeting, held in Philadelphia, PA.

The Company's proprietary blue PHOLED demonstrates a lifetime that exceeds 15,000 hours at 200 cd/m2, and also offers excellent efficiency, a trait for which the Company's PHOLED technology is renowned, with 9.5% external quantum efficiency and 22 cd/A luminous efficiency. With CIE coordinates of (0.16, 0.37) and a 474 nm peak emission wavelength, which is equivalent to a sky blue color, this material system is not yet saturated enough for commercial full-color applications.

Earlier this year, Universal Display had disclosed a deep blue PHOLED. The Company is now continuing its research efforts to unify the deep blue color, efficiency and lifetime in one system to meet the needs of the commercial OLED market.

Univision Technology plans to expand its monthly capacity for OLED panels from 5,000 substrates at present to 12,000 in July, thanks to rising demand for handset-use sub-displays and MP3 players, according to the company.
Demand for MP3 players is expected to top 50-60 million units this year, and the proportion of MP3 players shipped that feature a full-color OLED display will expand from the current 5% of the total, Univision indicated.
Sources indicated that Univision has secured orders for handset sub-displays from BenQ and South Korean Pantech. The OLED maker declined to comment on the orders, but noted that it is currently in talks with several handset makers for 1.5-inch OLED main displays.
In addition, Univision is currently sampling its OLED panels for car-use monitors.

Read more here

Luxell Technologies announced today that the Company has received, from the Government of Canada, an investment commitment for up to $1.95 million for the research and development of flat panel display technology for the aerospace and defence industry. This Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) investment is part of a $6.5 million project being undertaken by Luxell Technologies Inc.

The three key desired outcomes of this project include the development of a tool-kit that allows flat panel display components to be cost-effectively adapted for use in the harshest environments; an Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display (AMLCD) process that permits re-configuration of components and alleviates obsolescence issues; and an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) process that enables use in the harshest of environments.

Shipments of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays grew sequentially by 31 percent to 9.9 million units the first quarter of 2005, despite a significant drop in subdisplay sales, according to market research firm DisplaySearch Inc.
Total OLED market revenue was $101.9 million, with South Korea-based Samsung SDI ($28.1 million) and Taiwan-based RITdisplay ($19.2 million) the leading suppliers.

RITdisplay captured 24.7 percent of shipments, with Samsung second at 23.2 percent.
DisplaySearch noted that small molecule OLED designs continue to drive volume, with monochrome polymer (P-OLED) and active-matrix OLED displays remaining in low volume.
Although OLED subdisplay usage fell, MP3 OLED display usage rose substantially in both revenue and unit sales, according to DisplaySearch.

Philips GoGear SA178 - has 512MB of memory, a two-color OLED screen, an integrated FM tuner, and support for playback of MP3 and WMA files. You can already tell from the pics that it’s small, but it’s also pretty damn light (not sure exactly what it weighs, since the press releases omits that info) and the screen was crisp and easy to read. Should hit stores in August with a retail price of $119.
From the press release - The display is an OLED display, 2 colors (yellow and blue).
4 Lines of text, with a resolution of 128 X 64 pixels -
"2-Color OLED display (OLED) offers color combination (e.g. yellow and blue) in a super-bright display and also allows for animation. This makes for easier reading of the display, and for fun sharing with friends."

Read more here

As manufacturers of OLED displays target mass production, suppliers of OLED materials are also boosting their capacities to expand their market by releasing light-emitting materials, electron transporting materials and ITO coating glass.

South Korea's OLED materials market earns an average of Krw50 billion ($49 million at Krw1,011:$1) annually. Nevertheless, the industry has been relying on overseas companies for their raw materials.

Due to surging demand for MP3 players, RiTdisplay estimates its OLED shipments will reach four million panels in the second quarter, helping the company remain on target to ship 20 million OLED panels in 2005, up from eight million last year, according to RiTdisplay CEO Wang Ding Chang.
In the first quarter of this year, the company shipped around 2.4 million panels, with DisplaySearch estimating that the company overtook Samsung Electronics to become the top OLED supplier worldwide. RiTdisplay expects its second quarter shipments to grow 67% sequentially.
However, Chang also mentioned that the company would postpone its schedule for active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLEDs) production due to the limited market. The company will not begin volume production for full color AMOLED panels until 2006.

Read more here

Varitronix International Ltd said it plans to enter the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) market as it seeks to buy up to a 29.91 pct stake in Ness Display Holdings Ltd, a developer and marketer of OLED.

Varitronix will be banking on Ness Display's experience in the OLED business to penetrate the market, Chang said.

Toppoly Optoelectronics expects to double its monthly small-to-medium-size panel shipments to 3.5-4 million units in the fourth quarter of this year, up from 20 million in the second quarter, due to improving yields and increasing orders, according to company chairman Ray Chen.
Toppoly plans to add more international clients to its existing clients based in Taiwan and China, Chen indicated.
Also, the company expects to finish building its second low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) plant this December and will also move in OLED equipment next January, with monthly capacity to be 40,000 units. Also, the new plant will produce active-matrix (AM) OLED panels, with initial and maximum monthly capacity of 4,000 and 20,000 panels, respectively, Chen added.
To increase its self-sufficiency, Toppoly plans to move its color filter (CF) line from its first LTPS plant to the second plant and raise the monthly capacity at its first plant to 80,000 panels, up from 30,000, Chen said.

Read more here

NanoHorizons, a developer of applied nanoscale materials and solutions, announced today that it has received a notice of allowance from the US Patent Office for its innovative nanoscale photovoltaic cell design. NanoHorizons' design enables dramatic improvements in solar cell efficiency and breakthrough reductions in fabrication costs. Brighter, more efficient OLEDs are also made possible.

The new technology will be available via NanoHorizons' new Technology Licensing Program.
NanoHorizons' design utilizes a single nanoscale-engineered structure to perform both absorption and collection: An array of efficient vertically- aligned collector "nano-spikes" (made of nanofibers, nanowires, nanotubes, or nanoparticle chains) rise throughout a layer of light-absorptive material. By integrating vertical nano-spike collectors into the absorption material itself, energy collection now occurs at 90 degrees to the absorption process.