September 2007

The new material called E255a has a high colour saturation making it ideal for a broad range of product applications in single colour and full colour displays. The material also has a very high efficiency delivering high brightness at low power making it ideal for mobile product applications with either passive matrix or active matrix driving.

The University of Hong Kong has manufactured OLED demonstrators using E255a and has reported a device efficiency of 40 cd/A at 1000 cdm-2 with a very saturated green colour coordinate of (0.28, 0.64) which is wider than commercially available LCD products.

E225a will be available for customer sampling from January 2008 and can be deposited onto any desired substrate by vacuum coating methods.

Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp will buy about $357 million worth of new shares from Pioneer Corp and work with its loss-making rival in developing DVD players, car electronics and displays.

The two companies said they were also considering joint efforts in the development of OLED displays.

MED, the designer and manufacturer of low-power microdisplays using light emitting polymers for portable consumer electronics products, today announces its intention to raise approximately £7.5 million (net of expenses) by way of a Placing.

Summary of the Placing:

• Placing of 15,720,000 Placing Shares at a price of 50p per share to raise approximately £7.5 million (net of expenses).

• Net proceeds of the Placing will be used to strengthen the Company’s balance sheet and fund the working capital requirements anticipated as a result of the ramping of production at the Company’s manufacturing facility, providing comfort to existing and prospective commercial partners.

George Elliott, Chairman of MED, said:

‘These additional funds will ensure that on completion of the conditional placing, MED has the financial resources required to ramp production and execute management’s strategy for growth.’

Digitimes reports that Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) recently announced it will make additional investments in its OLED subsidiary Chi Mei EL Corporation (CMEL) of NT$600 million (US$18.12 million).

Read more here (Digitimes)

Sony says their 11" OLED TVs will be on the market by December this year.

Sony will only sell a handful of these screens (a thousand or so a month) and it will be pricey. They will only be available in Japan.

With the release of the highly anticipated AMOLED displays, this segment continues to develop, experiencing unit shipment growth of 4% Q/Q and 24% Y/Y—hitting the 19.8 million mark in Q2'07. On a revenue basis, OLEDs hit US$123.4M in Q2'07, down only 1% Q/Q and up 13% Y/Y, even as ASPs fell 9% Q/Q. Over the last year, main display shipments were up 16%, sub-displays up 77%, car audio displays up 35% and industrial displays up 295%.

DisplaySearch revealed these Q2'07 OLED results in its Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report. The report's findings also show that active matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays are beginning to impact the market, as Samsung SDI moves into full production, and Chi Mei and LG begin to ship qualification units. Furthermore, Sony is expected to begin shipping their highly anticipated 11" AMOLED TV display in Q4'07.

The top five OLED manufacturers shown in Table 1 accounted for a combined market share of 85.4%. For the first time in several quarters, there were two new entrants in the PMOLED market, Visionox and Truly, which are both located in China. Next quarter, MED is expected to begin production of microdisplays and will be the first OLED competitor for eMagin.

Volume shipments of AMOLED displays continued in Q2'07, with Samsung SDI, Kodak and eMagin shipping a combined total of 1,445K displays for applications such as MP3s, mobile phones and near-eye panels. Overall, Pioneer led in units shipped with 5.1 million, closely followed by RiTdisplay at 4.8 million, Samsung SDI at 3.7 million, LGE at 3.1 million and TDK at 1.3 million units. Also of note, LGE will not ship any passive matrix OLED (PMOLED) displays in Q3'07, as the company is converting to AMOLED production.

Sub-displays and MP3 player displays continue to account for about 88% of OLED shipments at 14.1M and 3.5M, respectively. Of the remaining applications, main displays and industrial applications showed strong growth.

An independent administrative institution, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), contracted out the development of technology for OLED lighting as one of its fiscal 2007 projects to Matsushita Electric Works, Idemitsu Kosan and Tazmo.

The contracted companies aim to commercialize the technology in two and a half years from September 2007 through March 2010.

To fortify color rendering properties to more than Ra=90 in particular, the companies will develop a blue OLED material with high color purity, while seeking longer life and higher performance.

Read more here (TechOn)

Digitimes reports that CMEL has secured first orders (10,000 units) for 2.4-inch AMOLED panels from a European handset maker with shipments to kick off in September. Shipments will gradually increase after the handsets hit the market.

Read more here (Digitimes)

The product thickness of 0.25 mm is the value for the total profile of the panel and deflecting plate. This slimness was achieved by the use of a 50-mum thick glass substrate, which is thinner than photographic film.

The 4-inch ultrathin OEL prototype panel features a resolution of 480 x 272. The panel can be bent thanks to its slimness, and it was exhibited in a curved condition at Samsung's booth.

According to the company, the prototype panel can reproduce 16,700,000 colors, 100% of the NTSC color gamut, a luminance of 200 cd/m2, a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 and a service life of 20,000 hours. The company exhibited the 50-ìm thick glass substrate beside the panel together with a photographic film to underscore the slimness of the substrate.

Read more here (TechOn)