OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 29

Sumitomo now says they have been "misquoted" - they will not be able to make large OLED TVs in 2009. They are still working on the tech (with several partners), and a source at CDT (who was acquired by Sumitomo a year ago) says the displays might indeed be ink-jet "printed"

DuPont and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. today announced their intention to form a strategic alliance to develop integrated manufacturing equipment for printed organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. The companies have also signed an agreement relating to their intention to bring together the elements needed--materials, technology and equipment--to mass produce OLED displays, delivering higher performance at a lower cost.

"The flat panel display market is about $100 billion annually and growing. DuPont is applying its science to make possible more vivid displays that are lower cost than current LCD displays," said David B. Miller, group vice president, DuPont Electronic & Communication Technologies. "We are excited to combine our strengths with Dainippon Screen's unique printing technology to bring to market the core technology that will enable improved high definition televisions and other flat panel displays."

Lighting utilizing OLED could benefit from printing as a manufacturing technique because it can add to its cost effectiveness, says a new report from NanoMarkets, an industry analysis firm.

OLEDs have advantages over other lighting technologies because they combine high brightness with an ability to be fabricated on a thin, flexible display. These are properties that open up opportunities for OLED lighting in architectural lighting, vehicular lighting, and other areas says NanoMarkets. With the improvements in functional printing and the arrival of small molecules inks, it is likely that a higher proportion of OLEDs will be printed because of greater cost effectiveness, states the report. NanoMarkets projects that OLED and other printed lighting markets could possibly reach almost $2.5 billion in the next seven years.

About the report: As new opportunities rapidly emerge in energy efficient solid-state lighting, new manufacturing approaches are also assuming more importance and these include printing. Electroluminescent (EL) lighting has been printed for years, but this report goes beyond EL and includes discussions of other forms of printed lighting, including systems based on carbon nanotube emissions and especially on OLEDs. The report, Printable Electronics Market Outlook: Printed Lighting, reviews the market potential for all of the main applications for printed lighting from simple backlighting applications to sophisticated architectural lighting. It also provides data on the performance criteria for printed lighting and profiles some of the leading firms and government projects exploring printed lighting technology, discusses recent events in this field. Finally, it provides an eight-year market forecast of the revenues that NanoMarkets expects from printed lighting with break outs by both technology and applications segment.

Mitsubishi Chemical is considering making OLED panels by an ink-jet printing process in order to lower production costs.

The ink-jet process is believed to be more efficient than the existing evaporation coating.

Universal Display Corporation today reported significant progress in the development of P2OLED printable, phosphorescent OLED materials for use with solution-based manufacturing processes, which display manufacturers consider a prospective solution for the cost-effective production of large-area OLED displays.

Reported in a joint paper with Seiko Epson Corporation (Epson) given today at the Society for Information Display’s 2007 International Display Workshop (IDW) Conference in Sapporo, Japan, these advances are the result of a three-year joint development program during which the two companies focused on the successful demonstration of Universal Display’s P2OLEDs for application to Epson’s proprietary ink-jet printing process technology.

Given by Epson’s Takuya Sonoyama, the paper reported progress in red, green and blue P2OLED device performance in spin-coated devices and ink-jet printed devices. Demonstrating the high luminous efficiency of PHOLED technology, the team made significant progress in extending the operating lifetimes of its red and green material P2OLED systems: Red with CIE(0.66, 0.33), luminous efficiency of 9 cd/A and > 50,000 hours of operating lifetime to 50% of initial luminance (at 500 cd/m2) and green with CIE(0.33, 0.63), 35 cd/A and > 50,000 hours (at 1000 cd/m2). The team also reported data for a new sky blue P2OLED with CIE(0.19, 0.40), 18 cd/A and > 3,000 hours (at 500 cd/m2). In addition, results with ink-jet printed P2OLED devices were reported which demonstrate the excellent film-forming ability of the small molecule layers. Ink-jet printed green P2OLED devices were also demonstrated to have the same efficiency as those of the spin-coated control P2OLEDs following an in-depth study of solvent selection and process optimization.

Universal Display’s PHOLED technology and materials, which offer up to four times higher energy efficiency than traditional OLED systems, are today being used in products manufactured using conventional vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) equipment. P2OLED materials and technology, based on this same PHOLED technology, are designed for use with solution-based processes such as ink-jet printing.

The 160 ppi three inch full color display incorporates CDT's PLED technology and was produced by CDT using a Litrex Gen 2 inkjet printer on amorphous Si TFT substrates provided by Casio. The company stated that since starting the project in fall of 2006, CDT has been able to demonstrate that it can achieve the accuracy required to produce the displays over 14-inch substrates.

The achievement of printing 160 ppi high resolution is the combination of Casio backplane design, Litrex printer droplet accuracy, CDT's know-how on ink formulation, and optimized print strategy.

Universal Display Corporation today announced significant advances in the development of P(2)OLEDs printable, phosphorescent OLEDs as part of an ongoing joint development program with Seiko Epson Corporation. The demonstration of P(2)OLED materials that possess the high-efficiency of Universal Display's PHOLED phosphorescent technology, as well as ink-jet printing potential, is an important step toward the realization of cost-effective, large-area OLED displays. OLED displays are currently used in cell phones, MP3 players and PDAs, and are widely recognized as a strong candidate for use in the next generation of flat screen televisions.

After working together for less than two years, Universal Display is reporting key achievements in the development of a P(2)OLED system based on solution-processable, small-molecule PHOLED materials. These results include significant lifetime and efficiency advances for red and green color emitters.

UDC and Seiko Epson signed a settlement and license agreement over OLED patents and inkjet printing patent. There is not a lot of information available yet, besides the Following Form 8K:

UDC entered into a Settlement and License Agreement with Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson"). Under the terms of the agreement, the Registrant licensed one of its ink jet printing patents and certain related patent filings to Epson. Epson's license rights include the right to grant sublicenses to third parties, subject to specified limitations in the agreement. In consideration of the license, the parties resolved outstanding issues concerning the licensed patent rights and Epson agreed to pay a fixed amount to the Registrant. If, within a specified period of time, the parties enter into a broader license agreement covering other aspects of the Registrant's OLED patent portfolio, this amount is creditable against license fees and royalties payable under that broader license agreement.

CDT has entered new geographical territory with the sale of inkjet printing equipment to the Genius Institute of Technology in Brazil. The Institute will use the equipment to develop its expertise in inkjet printing for polymer organic light emitting diode (PLED) technology.

The Litrex 70 printer is capable of printing on substrates up to 200 mm square at up to 120 pixels per inch, and is ideal for research and development of PLED materials and devices.

Cambridge Display Technology and Litrex Corporation are paving the way for the production of a new generation of high resolution polymer organic light emitting displays (PLED, or P-OLED) through the development of an inkjet printing solution capable of producing PLED displays at up to 200 pixels per inch (ppi).

Cambridge Display Technology announces the sale of a sophisticated Eclipse display test system to Merck OLED Materials GmbH, based in Frankfurt, Germany. The equipment will be used to enhance productivity in the development and evaluation of materials for organic light emitting diode displays. The Eclipse system to be supplied to Merck consists of 192 digital source-measure channels and associated hardware and software, some of which has been customized for Merck's particular requirements.