Kateeva - Page 4

Kateeva unveiled a new mass production flexible OLED thin film encapsulation (TFE) system based on their ink-jet technology. The YIELDjet FLEX can enable cost-effective encapsulation deposition, and Kateeva says that the first mass-production system will ship to a customer in Asia later this month. This customer is probably Samsung Display (which recently invested in Kateeva), but this is not confirmed.

Kateeva says that inkjet printing enables superb particle performance, high efficiency and excellent scalability. The YIELDjet system is enclosed in a pure-nitrogen chamber, which is the best OLED processing environment, shielding the OLED materials from moisture and air. The ink-jet system provides exceptional planarization of substrate surface structures and particles and results in unprecedented film uniformity.

Several OLED markets are heating up - OLED TVs, Flexible OLEDs, wearables, OLED lighting, the automotive market... Barry Young from the OLED Association, one of the world's top OLED experts, was kind enough to offer his views and opinion on the OLED market.

Q: What is your expectation from the OLED TV market in the next 1-3 years? Will LG be the only player (and if so what will be their capacity) or will Samsung and perhaps other enters the market too?

LG chose to implement the metal oxide/White OLED approach and has succeeded, where Samsung’s choice of LTPS/Small Mask Scanning (SMS) has proven too expensive to pursue even with ~80% yields.

Dr. Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke are two OLED pioneers - in fact you can say that they invented OLEDs back in the late seventies when they worked for Eastman Kodak. The two wrote a seminal paper on OLEDs in 1976 that has been cited in more than 5,000 publications, and have been inducted to the CE hall of fame.

The two scientists have been named for this year's citation laureates by Thomson Reuters - which quite accurately forecast Nobel Prize winners (since they started listing scientists in 2002, they accurately forecast 35 Nobel Prize winners). It will be great to see those two esteemed inventors receive the Nobel Prize! The winners will be announced on October 8th.

Kateeva announced that it closed its Series D financing round - the company raised $38 million dollar, with Samsung venture Investment Corporation joining existing investors, including Veeco Instruments. Since 2008, Kateeva raised over $110 million.

After years of development, Kateeva finally unveiled their OLED inkjet systems in November 2013. During the unveiling, we discussed Kateeva's technology and business with Dr. Conor Madigan, the company's President and Co-founder. The company already deployed several R&D tools at customers sites in Asia, are are now focusing on commercial systems - including a Gen-8 system that can be configured as either mass production or a pilot tool.

US-based OLED inkjet startup Kateeva announced that it is expanding its facilities to create a dedicated manufacturing space - to build YIELDjet OLED ink-jet printing systems. The company aims to deploy YIELDjet systems in the "near future". The company also hired a new senior VP for customer satisfaction.

After years of development, Kateeva finally unveiled their OLED inkjet systems in November 2013. During the unveiling, we discussed Kateeva's technology and business with Dr. Conor Madigan, the company's President and Co-founder.

Kateeva announced that the company is expanding its Korea operation, by absorbing the assets of Seoul-based OLED Plus - an OLED equipment design, sales, service and support company headed by OLED industry veteran, KB (Kyung Bin) Bae, who will become the general manager of Kateeva Korea, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kateeva.

Two months ago Kateeva unveiled their YIELDJet OLED ink-jet printing system. The company now says that interest in this technology is high - especially in Korea, and commercial shipments are "imminent".

Kateeva is a US based startup that was established in 2009 to develop OLED ink-jet deposition technology originally developed at MIT. The company has been been in stealth-mode for years, and now finally they have unveiled their technology and system, branded YIELDJet.

So YIELDJET is an inkjet printing system that can be used to produce OLEDs in high volume. Kateeva claims that their system, the first one engineered from the ground up for OLED mass production, will dramatically improve yields and drive production costs lower. Kateeva says that this was achieved by three major technical breakthroughs: is features a production-worthy pure nitrogen process chamber, which doubles the lifetime in certain applications, it reduces particles by as much as 10X thanks to a specialized mechanical design and it offers exceptional film coating uniformity with a process window that’s 5X wider than standard technologies.

Dr. Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke are two OLED pioneers - in fact you can say that they invented OLEDs back in 1987 in Eastman Kodak. The two wrote a seminal paper on OLEDs that has been cited in more than 5000 publications. Now the two pioneers were inducted into the 2013 Consumer Electronics hall of fame.

Dr. Ching Tang is currently a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Rochester. Steven Van Slyke is the CTO of Kateeva - developing an inventive inkjet printing manufacturing equipment solution for mass production of flexible and large-size OLEDs. We interviewed Steven back in 2008 when he was still at Kodak.

Back in September we reported about Kateeva, a new startup that developed a method for printing OLEDs. Now we hear that the company is testing a prototype printer that can print displays sized 1.8x1.5 meters. Kateeva's CEO says that they are in talks with 'leading display makers' to test the printer and inks in 2011.

Kateeva is a new startup, that has developed a new way to deposit OLEDs - using an inkjet printer and a micro-dryer called a T Jet (thermal Jet) along with proprietary inks. This will allow makers to use Gen 8.5 and larger substrates to make OLEDs.

Kateeva say that in four years (or more...) OLED TVs made using Kateeva's way will cost around 70% of what it costs to make a standard LCD.

Kateeva's T Jet sits between the inkjet nozzles and the substrate. The material is first heated to 100 Celsius to evaporate the carrier liquids. The remaining solids then get heated to 300 Celsius, turned into a gas, and deposited onto the substrate, where it solidifies.