OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 24

Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer announced that they managed to fabricate a white OLED in which the emissive layer was formed in a coating process (not sure if they mean spin-coating or printing). The OLED is efficient (52 lm/W) and the lifetime (LT50) is 20,000 hours (at 1,000cd/m² luminance). The upper layers in this OLED are made using vapor-deposition method. The companies plan to commercialize printed OLEDs at around 2014.

Mitsubishi's Velve panels (which will start shipping soon) use a coating process only for the foundation layer and not the emissive layer. In September 2009 we interviewed Verbatim's OLED team (which will market Mitsubishi's OLED panels).

Universal Display reports advances in its UniversalP2OLED solution-processable material's performance: lifetime, efficiency and operation voltage. Solution-processable OLEDs can be used in ink-jet printing and other manufacturing techniques that can result in cost-effective production of large-size OLED panels. UDC says that commercial viability is now "in sight".

• The green P2OLED system, which offers a luminous efficiency of 68 candelas per Ampere (cd/A), has now achieved 175,000 hours of operating lifetime. This is a 34% increase over the last reported value (130,000 hours).
• The red P2OLED system, with a luminous efficiency of 18 cd/A, now offers an operating lifetime of 125,000 hours (a 100% increase over the last reported value of 62,000)
• The light blue P2OLED system now offers a luminous efficiency of 29 cd/A and 8,000 hours of operating lifetime (a 60% increase in efficiency and lifetime).

Back in 2006, we published an interview with Andy Hannah, Plextronics' president, CEO and co-founder. Andy agreed to do a follow-up interview to update us on Plextronics' business and technology.

Plextronics is a US-based company (established in 2002, as a spin-out from Carnegie Mellon University) that is developing technology that enables broad market commercialization of organic electronic devices - including OLEDs, plastic chips, polymer solar cells and organic sensors.

Q: Andy, can you give us a short introduction to your OLED technology?

Q: The benefits of OLEDs include, of course, being printable, low cost and demonstrating enhanced device performance. Plextronics’ technology plays a key part in achieving these benefits by reducing operating voltage in devices and thereby increasing lifetime and power efficiency.

Kaneka announced that it will start accepting orders for OLED lighting panels on March 22nd, 2011 in Japan (and later in April in Europe). Kaneka will offer OLED square panels in five colors (warm white, red, orange, blue and green). The panels will be dimmable (in the range from 1,000cd/m² to 5,000cd/m²).

Kaneka's OLED panels will cost around ¥2 million (approx $24,000) per square meter - and the company believes that the price will drop to ¥200,000 ($2,400) next year and to ¥50,000 ($600) or less by 2020. Production capacity in 2011 will be 10,000m² - and this will grow to 100,000m² in 2015. Kaneka panels will not be very efficient - around 20lm/W and will offer around 10,000 hours lifetime. But the company plans to improve this to about 60lm/W and 25,000 by 2014.

Back in May 2010 Dupont announced that they can print a a 50" OLED TV in under two minutes, using their new printable OLED materials and a custom-made printer from Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Today we learned that Dupont estimates that their new OLEDs will be cheaper than LCDs - by about 40%! Regular OLEDs cost about twice as much  as LCDs to manufacture.

Dupont's new manufacturing process uses a continuous stream of ink (rather than droplets used in 'classic' inkjet design), and moves over a surface at rates of four to five meters per second while patterning a display. The spray-printer developed with Dai Nippon Screen works on Gen-4 substrates (730x920). Dupont is using a common structure for each pixel (red, green and blue) and isn't optimizing each pixel. This is less efficient, but results in faster throughput. 

Israel's Yissum Research Development Company (the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Korea's Vaxan Steel announced a new agreement to co-develop silver nanoparticles and silver-coated copper nanoparticles for conductive inks. These inks can be utilized in a variety of printing technologies, including inkjet printing, and can be used in applications such as OLEDs and RFID tags.

The new inks were invented by Professor Shlomo Magdassi, Dr. Alexander Kamyshny and Michael Grouchko from the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. Yissum granted Vaxan a license to commercialize the technology exclusively in Asia, excluding Israel and former Soviet Union countries, and will receive in return research fees and royalties from future sales. This is the first time a Korean company collaborates with an Israeli university.

Sony published an interesting interview with their display unit team about rollable OLED displays. Back in May (during SID 2010) Sony unveiled a new 4.1" rollable OLED display (with 423x240 resolution at 121ppi, 16.8 million colors - and the whole thing is just 80um thick). In the interview, Dr. Kazumasa Nomoto reveals that Sony's end target is a rollable large-screen OLED TV: "The time will come when the very idea that an enormous black box (TV) was ever placed in rooms will seem strange."

In the interview, the team discusses the new technologies that Sony created for this new display. First was a new Organic TFT based on a new material: a peri-
Xanthenoxanthene (PXX) derivative (this took Sony 5 years to develop!). Sony also developed a flexible gate driver circuit. Finally, an insulating layer for the O-TFT and OLED materials using flexible organic materials. Those three technologies enabled sony to create a rollable video display.

Samsung Electronics is showing a new 19" OLED TV that was produced using an ink-jet printing method. The resolution is only 960x540 at 58ppi and the luminance is 200cd/m². And it has a 62% color gamut.

Samsung declined to say whether they have plans to commercialize this technology. They only said that it's "still under development".

Tokyo Electron (TEL) and Seiko Epson will jointly-develop OLED display manufacturing technology. This project will integrate Epson's inkjet printing method and TEL's production equipment. The aim is to create next-generation OLED manufacturing technologies as a total-solution-package.

Espon 14-inch Inkjet processed OLED

Back in 2009, we posted an interview with Satoru Miyashita, General Manager of Seiko Epson's Core Technology Development. Back then, Satoru estimated that by 2012 we'll see inkjet-printed OLED TVs.

We had the good chance to talk with Gerd Guenther, Novaled's Chief Marketing Officer. He was kind enough to answer a few of our questions, and give us some information and updates from Novaled.

Gerd, thanks for your time. Can you explain Novaled's business model to us?

When Novaled started as a spin-off from Fraunhofer and Technical University of Dresden in 2001 with just 3 people, the idea was to market its doping technology Novaled PIN OLED^®) along with its proprietary materials. Today, quite an impressive number of well known display and lighting makers are customers of Novaled. That means we offer IP, licensing and technology transfer packages but also R&D contracting as well as trainings.

Novaled 15x15 cm white OLED