OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 14

Dr. Andreas Haldi was appointed as CYNORA's Chief Marketing Office in 2016. CYNORA develops efficient blue TADF OLED emitters, and Dr. Haldi was kind enough to participate in this interview and help us understand CYNORA's business and technology.

Q: Thank you Andreas for helping us understand CYNORA's business and technology better. CYNORA has set up on a focused mission to develop a commercial blue TADF emitter. What will you consider to be a market-ready material, in terms of lifetime, efficiency and color point?

For the last 5 years, CYNORA has worked on developing thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) OLED emitters. End of 2015 we started to focus on efficient blue materials, which are still a key issue for OLED displays. Compared to the red and green pixels, the blue pixel is much less efficient. An increased efficiency of the blue pixel would therefore significantly reduce the power consumption of the display.

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display (10-30 inch) producer. The company is aiming to start mass production in 2019, although some panels may ship in limited volume earlier.

Last week at Cebit 2017 JOLED demonstrated some of its latest OLED prototypes. In the photo above you can see JOLED's 21.6" 4K (3840x2160, 204 PPI) "medical applications" monitor. JOLED also demonstrated what seems to be the same panel for "consumer" application (they call this private viewing). The whole panel weighs just 500 grams and the color gamut is 130% sRGB.

Four companies in Germany have established a new industry alliance, the German OLED Technology Alliance, or GOTA. The aim of this alliance is to combine the experience of its partners in the area of OLED manufacturing. Each partner's expertise lies at a different stage of the value chain, and the four partners will support a joint sales effort - mostly in China, Taiwan and Japan.

The four partners are VON ARDENNE (systems engineering and technology development for PVD vacuum coating system), Notion Systems (functional materials inkjet platforms), Fraunhofer IAP (organic electronics research) and MBRAUN (protective gas atmosphere solutions).

OLED ink-jet developer Kateeva announced that it expanded its headquarters in silicon valley - in fact it doubled its manufacturing space in order to meet the demand for its inkjet systems.

Kateeva leased a new building adjacent to its HQ adding 75,000 sq. ft - mostly for manufacturing and business operations. Kateeva's current headcount has reached 330 people as orders for its YieldJet systems soared.

Researchers from Michigan State University (MSU) developed a stretchable circuit that includes an OLED display, produced entirely using an ink-jet printer.

The researchers used special developed inks to produce both the circuits and the organic elements - and they say that the ink was also used to produce the substrate, but that seems rather unlikely.

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic with an aim to become an OLED medium display (10-30 inch) producer. JOLED is using a printing process which should result in lower cost production (but of lower performance displays) compared to evaporation printing.

JOLED's R&D Division Manager spoke at the PF&E China conference a couple of weeks ago, detailing the company's process. JOLED is producing RGB-strip OLED panels using ink-jet printers made by Panasonic and PLED materials produced by Sumitomo. The OLED structure is based on Sony's technology and the backplane is a transparent amorphous oxide semiconductor.

Meyer Burger announced that it has shipped a CONx TFE OLED thin film encapsulation system to an Asian customer. This system includes two deposition technologies, inkjet printing and PECVD to offer a complete encapsulation solution for flexible OLEDS.

The CONx TFE system compreses of Meyer Burger's proprietary remote plasma PECVD for inorganic coating and its PiXDRO inkjet printing technology for the deposition of accurately positioned and homogeneous organic layers. Meyer Burger says that the system provides excellent water and oxygen barrier properties without compromising the optical transparency of the encapsulation layer all the while operating at low temperatures and low ion bombardment.

Last week we posted that Japan Display is set to raise its stake in JOLED for $100 million, following a $650 million USD cash injection from INCJ to grow its LCD and OLED business. JDI today confirmed this plan. The company received 45 billion yen ($382 million US) from INCJ in the form of unsecured subordinated convertible bonds and these funds will be used for R&D expenses on printing OLED technologies (and will probably include the $100 million for JOLED).

JDI also received 30 billion yen (about $255 million US) from INCJ in the form of subordinated loan, and this money will go towards OLED R&D in the field of evaporation OLED technologies.

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display (15%), Sony (5%) and Panasonic (5%) with an aim to become an OLED medium display producer using printing technologies. The Innovation Network Corp of Japan (INCJ), which funded JOLED, had a 75% stake.

In early 2016 it was reported that Japan Display (JDI) aims to acquire JOLED, and this deal is finally taking place - JDI will pay around $100 million USD to INCJ and will raise its stake to over 50% (which values JOLED at around $300 million). Reuters say that the financing transactions, though, will only end towards the end of 2017.

UBI Research predicts that OLED TVs produced using a solution-based process will start to appear in the market in 2019. Evaporation-processed WOLED TVs will still be the market leader with a 85% market share (of the total OLED TVs) in 2021.

Solution-based OLED emitters are not as efficient or long-lasting as evaporation OLEDs, but ink-jet printing will enable to reduce costs compared to evaporation, and for OLED TVs this can make business sense, especially as a WOLED (WRGB) structure is less efficient than a direct-emission RGB architecture. UBI sees solution-based OLEDs competing with WRGB OLEDs for the mid-range TV market, not the premium one.