Merck - Page 5

Yesterday Merck inaugurated a new OLED Application Center (OAC) in Pyeongtaek, Korea. Merck invested over €7 million in the new center, and it hopes it will enable them to increase customer satisfaction and capture a larger share of the market - by shortening their time to market.

The OAC has a range of equipment for OLED evaporation testing and reliability analysis. In the future, it will introduce advanced processes such as inkjet printing. The OAC resides in the same site as Merck's Chemical Application Centre established in 2011. Merck also operates a technology development center in Taiwan - which also focuses on OLEDs.

Merck and FlexEnable (which was spun-off from Plastic Logic just last week to take over all OTFT development) announced a new partnership to develop plastic-based LCD technology. The two companies say that plastic-based LCDs enables conformal (maybe bendable), light and unbreakable LCDs. Those new displays will be based on FlexEnable's OTFT backplanes.

The two companies report that they are in fact already collaborating and have reached an important milestone towards plastic LCDs and have developed a prototype in a very short timeframe. The IPS demonstrate combines the OFTF array with Merck's LC and organic semiconductor materials.

Quantum Dots enhanced LCDs are starting to enter the market, with reports saying that both LG and Samsung will release such TVs in 2015. Michael Grund, the managing director of Merck Korea, however, says that this technology will not have a significant impact on the global TV and display markets - unlike OLED which could be a game changer.

Quantum Dots are used to enhance the color gamut and efficiency of LCD displays. Sony already commercialized quantum-dots TVs and smaller panel display, as the QD-LCDs are far easier to produce compared to OLED TVs.

The OLED Lighting Commercialization Alliance (OLCA) was formed a few days ago in Taiwan, with an aim to make Taiwan an important OLED lighting player. The alliance will promote OLED technologies and will include members from materials suppliers to product makers.

The OLCA seems to be led by Taiwan's ITRI. Other members include Merck, RiT Display, WiseChip, Corning, Tongtai Machine & Tool and the TLFEA (Taiwan Lighting Fixture Export Association). ITRI says that more than 60 companies have shown interest in collaborating with OLCA members.

Merck announced that the PrintOLED project successfully concluded. During the project, the partners investigate several technologies (such as gravure, inkjet printing, slot-die coating and others) and were able to demonstrated OLEDs with homogeneously coated active areas of 10 cm² and 27 cm² by classic gravure printing and slot die coating (at least two of the layers were processed from solution).

Merck says that printing two organic layers one on top of the other was a major challenge. The partners achieved significant improvements with specific material sequences. They say that they managed to print with speeds of up to 3 m/s semiconducting OLED layers with a homogeneity meeting the quality standards of industrial-scale OLED production. The knowledge was also applied to OPV and sDSC solar cells.

Merck published an article on OLEDs in their Explorer Magazine, and in that article they reveal that AU Optronics is developing OLED ink-jet technologies with help from Merck.

AUO developed their own inkjet printer (with collaboration with suppliers), and they used it to develop a 14" printable OLED panel. Merck is working closely with AUO to supply them with soluble OLED materials. There's no word yet on how close this technology is for commercialization yet, and Merck did not reveal any details (or even a photo) of the 14" panel.

Update: It turns out that Plastic Logic didn't actually demonstrate the flexible OLED prototype. They did show a presentation, in which they revealed that the current first-gen prototype is monochrome (red) and quite simple. They do intend to keep producing new demonstrators throughout 2014.

Novaled (owned by Samsung) and Plastic Logic announced that during 2014 they will demonstrate truly flexible, plastic, full-organic AMOLED displays. The first-gen display was demonstrated at the FlexTech conference in Phoenix last week. Plastic Logic hopes that the technology will be ready for adoption by display makers towards the end of 2014.

The two companies say that this is the first time an all-plastic AMOLED produced in a low-temperature manufacturing process is demonstrated. The display uses Novaled's PIN OLED materials and Plastic Logic's OTFT backplane. The display also used organic materials from Merck (probably the emitters).

Reports from Korea suggest that LG Display and Merck are in talks to co-develop OLED ink jet printing materials. Merck is already supplying evaporable OLED materials to LG Display for their OLED TVs, and now they want to also supply soluble materials for LGD.

Merck is focused on OLED printing technologies over evaporation technologies as the technological advantages will enable cheaper large area panels. According to a Merck presentation released earlier this year, it seems that Merck wants to become an OLED solution provider, not just a material supplier as this will maximize the value for both Merck and its customers. The company currently has around 80 OLED R&D experts and around 1,400 related patents.

Universal Display announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) revoked one of the company's basic phosphorescent OLED patents, EPO #1449238. The opposing parties included Sumitomo Chemical, Merck and BASF. This is one of more than 60 patents issued worldwide that cover four early fundamental phosphorescent OLED inventions developed at Princeton University and the University of Southern California.

UDC's CEO, Steven Abramson, said that they believe the EPO's decision is erroneous and they may file a petition to review the matter. In addition, UDC has a pending divisional EP patent application in which it intends to pursue substantial patent coverage that is similar to that provided in related patents that have previously been issued in the other jurisdictions. In any case, the company believes that any one decision in any one jurisdiction will not have a material effect on their business.

Merck participated in the Lightopia exhibition last month, and they showed a mock laboratory that displayed new lighting technologies - including three Tabola OLED lighting panels (made by Fraunhofer's COMEDD) and confirmed that the panels use Merck's materials.

This exhibition will be on display at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, and will later go on tour to other museums around the world. It also features BlackBody's I.RAIN chandelier, which you can see in the photo below in the background.