Researchers at Purdue University and Northwest University have developed a flexible and transparent transistor using a combination of zinc-oxide and indium-oxide nanowires. These invisible and bendable transistors actually preform better than conventional transistors, and can be easily built onto sheets of flexible plastic.

Their work also revealed a promising new development in the control of OLED's. They found that when conformist nontransparent transistor circuitry is placed around the OLED, it could be inadvertently be emitting its own light. But these transparent transistors can actually be placed beneath the crest of the OLED. This would help to obscure the already invisible transistor, but making its light source a part of the OLED's light source. The transistor would control the OLED  as well. There is also the added benefit of less space used, bringing the hope of a higher resolution display with a small dot pitch.

DisplaySearch revealed in its latest Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report that Q1'07 OLED shipments were 19.1M, up 71%Y/Y and revenues were $121M, up 56% Y/Y. Shipments and revenue were down Q/Q, 14% and 13%, respectively, due to seasonality. OLED displays compete with LCDs in small/medium applications such as mobile phone main displays and sub-displays, MP3s, and automotive consoles.

Active matrix OLEDs displays continued volume shipments with Samsung SDI, Kodak, Sony and eMagin shipping 335K displays in Q1'07.  By Q2'07, the volume is expected to grow to 685K displays. Applications include MP3s, mobile phones and near eye.

Overall, RiTdisplay led in units, with 5.1M closely followed by Pioneer, also at 5.1M, Samsung SDI at 3.7M, LGE at 3.1M and TDK at 1.5M.  Univision, which had shut down due to financial problems has restarted production and shipped 900K units in Q1'07 and is expected to grow volume to 1.5M units next quarter, recovering to a leadership position.

Sub-displays and MP3 player displays combined to account for about 87% of shipments at 12.6M and 4.0M, respectively. Of the remaining applications, main displays and industrial applications showed strong growth, but volume remained low.

Sub-display volume is very strong in Japan and is the major cause of the growth in the category. Main display growth is primarily due to the Kyocera cell phone which uses the Samsung SDI 2.4" QVGA AMOLED panel.

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The new set of materials rely on DuPont hole-injection layer (HIL) material and include those essential in the construction of an OLED display, such as light-emitting and charge-transport materials.

DuPont Displays said it has also exceeded the reported performance of other solution-based OLED materials and has measured accelerated lifetimes of the three primary colors that could translate in a display to 20,000 hours of white lifetime (which is extended by as much as five times when showing video) at a normal viewing brightness (200 cd/m2). At 1000 cd/m2 -- the standard test luminance used in the industry -- the DuPont materials have lifetimes (T50) of 14,000 hours for blue with CIE 1931 color coordinates of (0.14, 0.16), 230,000 hours for green with color coordinates of (0.29, 0.65), and 46,000 hours for red with color coordinates of (0.66, 0.34).