Last month Seiko Epson has unveiled a new inkjet-printing technology for OLEDs, suitable for large sized panels. We have talked to Satoru Miyashita, General Manager of Seiko Epson's Core Technology Development Center about this new technology and their plans for OLED production.

Q: You have shown a new ink-jet based OLED technology. You say it will enable 37" or larger HD-OLED TVs. Do you have any plans to actually make such TVs? When do you think products can be made with this new tech?
Epson is currently considering a variety of options regarding the commercialization of this technology, but at this point no specific announcements have been made about plans. We see 2012 as being the year that 37"+ OLED TVs will be launched by various makers, and 2015 as the year that sales will really take off for this market.

Espon 14-inch Inkjet processed OLED

LG Display is one of the leaders in OLEDs, but they have recently sent some mixed messages - great OLED TV prototypes, promises of new OLED TV products soon, no AMOLED phones plans... Mr Won Kim, Vice President of OLED Sales and Marketing from LG Display has agreed to answer a few questions we had, and set things straight.

Mr Won Kim has a BA in business management from Korea University, and has been working for LG since 1984. Now he's VP of OLED sales and marketing (since 2005).

Q: What kind of OLED products are LG currently selling? What is your current capacity for OLED production?
Mobile phone only. Current capacity is 7k sheets(365 x 460) per month, which is equivalent to 200k pcs of 3" size.

Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company based in Germany. The company designs, develops and manufactures a wide range of specialised materials including high performance light emitting materials for OLEDs. The OLED business belongs to Mercks' Liquid-Crystal (LC) unit.

I managed to conduct an interview with Dr. Udo Heider, the VP of the LC business unit at Merck (it's called the LC/OLED unit) about their OLED program.

Q: Hello Dr. Heider, and thank you for this interview. Can you describe your range of OLED products in more detail? Are you just into OLED materials, or other IPs as well?

The Fraunhofer IPMS is one of the leading OLED research centers, mostly focused on OLED lighting. I've had the good chance to interview Prof. Karl Leo, the Director of the Institute.

Large Area OLED lighting panel,Fraunhofer

Karl talks about COMEDD (their new OLED research/production center), his views on OLED lighting and Europe's plans for this market, their transparent OLED research program, OLED Television, and even an OLED based pico-projector. I think this is a very interesting interview!

Link to interview

I recently had the chance to talk with the nice guys over the Fraunhofer IPMS in Germany, and the Institute Director (Prof Karl Leo) have agreed to do a short interview and talk about their OLED program.

These guys have been working on OLED since 2000, now organized under the name Center for Organic Materials and Electronics Devices Dresden (COMEDD). COMEDD's aim is to do not only research, but also pilot fabrication. More on COMEDD here.

Prof. Dr. Karl Leo, since 1993, is full professor of optoelectronics at the Technische Universität Dresden and starting 2007 institute director of the Fraunhofer IPMS. Additionally he is one of the founders of the Spin-Off Novaled AG.

Back in June I interviewed Mr. Corey Hewitt and Dr. James Buntaine from Kodak OLED Systems. Now the nice guys at Kodak agreed to another interview - this one is focused on OLED for lighting, and I talked to Mr. Steven Van Slyke (R&D directory) and Dr. Yuan-Sheng Tyan, a Research Fellow. So first of all, let's introduce them properly:

Mr. Steven Van Slyke, R&D Director, Kodak OLED Systems 

Steven Van Slyke received his Bachelors degree in Chemistry from Ithaca College and Masters degree in Materials Science from Rochester Institute of Technology.  He joined Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories in 1979 where his work has centered on OLEDs. He has been active in all phases of OLED technology, from basic research on organic materials to development of manufacturing technologies for high volume OLED display production. Mr. Van Slyke is recognized as a co-inventor of small-molecule organic light emitting diodes and is a leading authority on OLED technology. He has published and presented over 40 papers and holds 36 patents in the areas of OLED materials and device architecture.

In July 2008, I had the chance of interviewing Elijah Ebo, manager of product division at Densitron. Densitron has been in the displays industry for over 30 years and is well known for offering custom display and complete product design. The company sold the other 2 division it had, gaming and Digital signage, a couple of years ago and the management decided to re-focus on displays.

Elijah got his degree in Surrey University, and worked at Vertu (Nokia's luxury mobile phone brand) and at Philips before joining Densitron, to be the Product Division manager - managing a team of technical display experts at Densitron and supporting design activities with their customers.

In July 2008, I had the chance of interviewing Gildas Sorin, Novaled's CEO. Novaled is engaged in the commercialization of the new generation of OLEDs. Novaled developed an innovative doping technology (Novaled PIN OLED) enabling large area OLED display and lighting.

Novaled claims to deliver the highest power efficiencies in combination with longest lifetimes and holds several OLED world records.

Novaled, established 5 years ago, is located in Dresden, Germany. Dresden city is becoming the biggest European organic electronic centre with a network of university, R&D centers and companies acting in the organic fields.

In July 2008, I had the chance of interviewing Dr. Michael Fiebig from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. Dr. Michael Fiebig gained his PhD in Physics at the University of Hanover in 1998. He joined OSRAM Opto Semicondutors in 2001, and since 2008 he is leading the Marketing and Business Development in the business segment Solid State Lighting at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.

OSRAM is part of the Industry sector of Siemens and one of the two leading lighting manufacturers in the world. Its subsidiary, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors GmbH in Regensburg (Germany), offers its customers solutions based on semiconductor technology for lighting, sensor and visualization applications. OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has production sites in Regensburg (Germany) and Penang (Malaysia).

I recently had the chance to interview Mr. Corey Hewitt and Dr. James Buntaine from Kodak OLED Systems. Kodak is where OLEDs were first discovered, and they are still in the fore-front of the technology. This is going to be a long article - these guys have given me a lot of background info, even before answering my questions. But first let's introduce Corey and James:

Mr. Corey Hewitt, Operations Manager & Vice President, Kodak OLED Systems
Mr. Hewitt's responsibilities include worldwide operations, finance, marketing and business development. Corey has traveled and worked closely on a worldwide basis with Dr. Buntaine in determining the future strategy for OLED technology and how it relates to Eastman Kodak Company. Corey received his Business Administration/Finance degree from the University at Buffalo and subsequently completed his Masters of Business Administration from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Corey has joined Kodak in 1999, and held several positions before becoming the Operations Manager and VP of Kodak OLED Systems.