Nanosys announced it has raised $15 million (this is the company's sixth financing round) - to expand its QDEF production capacity. Nanosys says that response from manufacturers has been great and demand for their QDEF film (which improves the color performance and efficiency of LCD displays) has grown - so much they will now expand their capacity tenfold, which will make them the largest quantum dot producer in the world.
QDEF films are drop-in films that are placed on a phosphor-less gallium nitride LED backlight. They act like a phosphor - absorbing the blue light from the LED and producing red and green light, which is then combined with the original blue light to generate a high-quality white light. They say that a QDEF-powered BLU is more efficient, too. Back in June I visited Nanosys' booth at SID 2012, you can read more about this interesting technology here.
Adding a QDEF film to your LCD production line is not difficult as it simply replaces a different film that was already part of the process. While OLED TVs still provide a better color gamut and better contrast, this may mean yet another significant LCD TV advancement that will make it even more difficult for OLED TVs to compete.
