October 2005

Financially strapped display technology supplier eMagin Corp. has entered into definitive agreements with investors for the purchase of $9.14 million of common stock and warrants.

Under the agreements, investors agreed to purchase 16,623,636 shares of common stock at a price of 55 cents per share and warrants to purchase up to 6,649,455 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $1.00 per share exercisable after seven months and expiring Oct. 20, 2010. The investors will also receive warrants to purchase up to 3,324,727 shares at an exercise price of $1 per share exercisable after March 31, 2007, and expiring Oct. 20, 2010.

This year at FPD International 2005, Chi Mei Electroluminescence (CMEL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO), is presenting OLED panels including a 0.95-inch passive matrix PM (passive-matrix) OLED panel and a 1.02-inch passive matrix PMOLED panels.

CMEL claims it is setting up the world’s largest OLED vapor deposition process facility with the substrates being sized at 620mmª375mm, 1.3 times larger than current substrates (470mmª370mm). The facility is scheduled to enter volume production in the second quarter of 2006, according to CMEL general manager, Chen Zhe Nian (transliterated from Chinese).

CDT announced a red dendrimer OLED device with a 250,000-hour lifetime from an initial luminance of 100cd/m2, compared to the 150,000 hour-lifetime device announced this May and 15,000 hour lifetime in 2004. The company also said it will ally with Sumitomo Chemical for PLED material supply.

Lifetimes for devices using dendrimer technology using the new red materials at 400cd/m², 800cd/m² and 1000cd/m² are estimated at 15,600 hours, 3,900 hours and 2,500 hours respectively.

At a two-day conference in Frankfurt last week Thomas Reibe, from the European Commission’s unit for micro- and nanosystems, stated the Commission’s commitment to developing an industry around plastic electronics, with funding to be specified in the upcoming €73 billion Seventh Framework programme (FP7).

An R&D centre is being established in Eindhoven under the name Orgatronics to provide facilities geared towards OLED development, and in the UK Cambridge start-up Plastic Logic is putting together a technology centre in County Durham.

Samsung SDI said Tuesday its cumulative shipments of OLED flat-panel displays have exceeded 30 million units since mass production began in August 2002.
The 30-million mark came just eight months after the company's shipments of organic LED panels passed 20 million units in February this year, Samsung SDI said.
Samsung SDI is currently building a new organic LED plant in the southern port city of Busan with a monthly production capacity of 3.5 million units, it said.

Canon has demonstrated a prototype digital SLR camera using an OLED display, which will help extend battery life and be easier for photographers to view. Unlike traditional LCD screens, which use coloured filters and a backlight, an OLED generates its own light. This improves the screen's viewing angles and lowers power consumption, both of which are very useful for digital cameras.

Canon’s OLED demonstration used a 2.4" screen with QVGA (320 x 240) resolution, which delivered a bright and detailed image with 167 pixels per inch (ppi).

Its no secret that the Shadow Masking Process, widely used today, for OLED production has its resolution limitations. The highest resolution achieved by the process is around 170ppi. AUO has overcome this industry hurdle and revolutionized a pixel design that progresses the resolution of OLED to reach VGA grade standards (640 RGB x 480). AUO will debut this latest technology in its 3" VGA AMOLED prototype with resolution as high as 270 ppi (pixel per inch), bringing OLED resolutions to new level highs. With the added ultra high resolution, the panels are ideal for portable multimedia player (PMP), mobile phones, DSC, and DVC alike. Dr. JJ Lih, Director of OLED Division at AUO noted, " Our revolutionary design has been a breakthrough in dramatically improving resolution levels, without having to increase costs. Not only were we able to successfully improve our 3" AMOLED panel to VGA grade but we've also managed at the same time to maintain contrast ratio to >10,000:1 and fast response time

Canon, the world's largest maker of cameras and copiers, is to enter the TV panel market next year and expand its overall business to generate more than €40 billion ($A63.4 billion) in annual sales by 2010.

Canon would be working on developing three types of display technologies: SED panels, organic light-emitting diode displays (OLED) and projection displays.

Canon is aiming to use OLED panels in its digital cameras, printers and camcorders from 2007 as replacement for liquid crystal displays (LCDs).

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Liteye Systems announced today that it has placed an order for initial production quantities of OLED microdisplays manufactured by eMagin Corporation to fill orders received from military and industrial customers in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Liteye has been developing low-power rugged monocular displays based on eMagin's OLED microdisplays for more than two years.
Kenneth Geyer, vice president of development, Liteye Systems, noted that the new orders come from numerous military and industrial customers who are moving from the testing and evaluation phase into deployment. "The outlook for 2006 and 2007 is bright as we anticipate additional programs moving into deployment phases."
Geyer noted that Liteye products are now in use in areas as diverse as dismounted soldier programs, infrared cameras, telemedicine, portable ultrasound, and the maintenance and repair markets.