Modu, the world's first "modular phone" is now available in Israel (in the Cellcom network). The Modu is a tiny phone, that can be 'extended' using jackets with different looks and functionality (music phone, GPS, car-audio, etc.). The Modu has a 1.5" 128x96 pixels OLED display.
Basically the Modu is an "extended-SIM" with basic display and keys, GPRS phone and flash memory...
Samsung SDI posted good financial results yesterday - a 17% increase in profits. They say that demand for AMOLED displays "is looking solid".
Just last month Samsung said that they got 2M pre-orders for the JET phone, and over 1.8M pre-orders for the ultra-touch.
CDT is one of the leaders in OLED research, focusing on Polymer-based OLEDs (PLEDs, also called P-OLEDs). While these OLEDs are lagging behind small-molecule OLEDs in current products (all AMOLEDs today are based on SM-OLEDs), some companies believe that PLEDs are actually the better tech for the future.
CDT's CEO, David Fyfe has agreed to answer a few questions we had on CDT's technology. David joined CDT in 2000 as Chairman and CEO. David saw CDT go public in 2004, and then negotiated the sale of CDT to Sumitomo for $285 million (in September 2007). David is also a director of Soligie, an electronics printing company, Acal Energy, a fuel cell technology developer and the Plastic Electronics Foundation.
Q: David - thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Since the Sumitomo acquisition, CDT has been rather quiet... can you give us an update on where's the company now, and where's it is headed?
Since the merger of CDT into Sumitomo Chemical in September 2007, CDT has grown substantially and received considerable capital investment to enable it to remain a leading developer of PLED technology. It works very closely with SCC laboratories in Japan and most recently has been transferring manufacturing process knowhow to SCC's own PLED manufacturing development line, recently commissioned at Ehime on Shikoku, Japan. CDT in partnership with SCC has made large strides in materials lifetimes and efficiencies. SCC prefers to take a lower profile in announcing these advances since its business model is to work with selected display maker partners in a collaborative, confidential relationship. We have also made big strides in the development of top emitting structures and in printing PLED displays. SCC's strategy is that CDT will continue to be its leading development center for PLED technology with Ehime scaling process technology to a yielding process status. CDT is also working very closely with Semprius of North Carolina, USA to develop single crystal silicon TFT structures on which PLED devices can be deposited and driven using Semprius’ proprietary stamping technology.
Q: It seems that OLED displays are finally entering the mainstream - we hear of new devices (mainly by Samsung, but also from Sony, Microsoft, LG and others) almost daily. What are your thoughts on this? what are the challenges that still exist for OLEDs?
Sony broke the logjam of resistance to the adoption of OLED in large displays by major display makers with the introduction of its XEL-1 11 OLED TV in 2007. Samsung SDI’s investment in small screen OLED production in 2007, based on LTPS backplanes was another major impetus. Since then, Chi Mei has brought on small OLED screen capacity, TMD (now wholly owned by Toshiba) has built an OLED line to manufacture small screens, LG Display will start up their Gen 3.5 line late this year and if press reports are to be believed, Toppoly will commission their capacity with Nokia as a lead customer and Panasonic have a major OLED development program for large OLED displays.
TCZ today announced that they recieved their first purchase order for the TCZ-900A, a production tool for flat panel display (FPD) fabrication. The TCZ-900A is designed to manufacture both advanced LCDs and OLEDs (small mobile panels, and larger OLED TV panels), and the shipment is scheduled for 3Q 2009.
TCZ says that the order came from a 'market leader in OLED manufacturing in Korea' - probably Samsung or LG, but can also be CMEL.
TCZ, using Cymer's industry-leading light source technology and the innovative optics expertise of Carl Zeiss SMT, has developed a patented laser crystallization technology which improves uniformity, while increasing throughput and reducing the cost of crystallization by up to 50 percent compared to current industry standards. The TCZ Crystallization System uses a 600W laser, twice the power of current systems, to form a very narrow line focus that is 730 mm long, allowing a gen 4 size glass plate (730mm x 920mm) to be processed in a single pass.
Universal Display is working on a ceiling OLED lamp, together with Armstrong World Industries. This is partly funded by the US Department of Energy, in a 2-year 2M$ grant (started July 2008). UDC have now released this video showing the OLED panel, which is 24-inch wide:
LG Display's CEO, Kwon Young-soo, says that they will focus on OLED TV panels rather then smaller ones for mobile phones. Interestingly there are reports that LG are in talks with Nokia to supply smaller panels, so it's not clear which way LG are really headed.
LG 15-inch OLED TV prototypeLG Display plans to launch 30" OLED TVs in 2012. That's actually a delay - previously those TVs were planned for 2010. In a recent interview, LG claimed that they will launch 15" OLED TVs in Korea in December 2009.
Kwon Young-soo further said that LG plans to hire 1,700 employees for their R&D department, many of these will probably work on OLEDs.
Scientists from the National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, designed an OLED that can display color temperatures between 2300K and 8200K - covering the entire range of sunlight during the day. The color temperature is controlled using different voltage.
That's the first time this has been achieved - and no other light source can have that kind of color range. They used fluorescent OLEDs, but plan to switch to phosphorescent, to make it more efficient.
A research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has discovered a way to make OLEDs more efficient. This new method can be used for flexible OLEDs, too.
The idea is to use surface plasmon. Silver nanoparticles were thermally deposited in a high vacuum on cathode. Since plasmons provide a strong oscillator decay channel, time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) results displayed a 75% increased emission rate, and continuous wave PL results showed a twofold enhanced intensity.
DisplaySearch has released a new edition of their Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast report.
The report says that:
According to the report, several manufacturers are planning OLED TV panels in 2009. LG will debut their 15" AMOLED TV by the end of the year. DisplaySearch estimate that it's likely (they give it 70%) that Sony will release their 27" OLED TV this year. It's a bit uncertain because of Sony's financial situation.
Samsung might (DisplaySearch gives it 40% chance) release their 14.1" OLED TV - but there's no announcement yet.
OLED-Info readers get a 5% discount on this report, follow this link
Research and Markets has released a new report on low-power next-generation displays. The report highlights the basic structure of the low power consuming next generation display market and its various sub-segments.
Technologies covered in this report includes electrochromic displays, electrophoretic displays, electrowetting, thermochromic, LED, OLED, Field Emitting Displays (FED) and electroluminescent.
