OLED Lifetime: introduction and market status - Page 19

In an interesting article by the Financial Times, both Idemitsu Kosan and Sumitomo executives estimate that "2012 will be the year when OLEDs hits the big times".

Idemitsu Kosan also says that they are working on a new way to 'spray' small-molecule OLED materials. The new method should be ready by 2015. Spraying OLEDs (instead of using vapor-deposition) will mean less material loss, and thus cheaper displays. It will also make it easier to fabricate large panels.

NEMO (NEw Materials for OLEDs) is a new EU project focusing on new emitting systems based on soluble small molecules with long lifetime and efficiency. NEMO is led be four companies (coordinated by Merck) and seven research and academic institutions (including the Fraunhofer institute). The project is scheduled to last for 2.5 years, and is funded by the German government with 32 million euros.

Idemitsu Kosan is showing some new OLED lighting prototypes using their own fluorescent and phosphorescent OLED materials. Phosphorescent OLEDs are more efficient than fluorescent ones. In the following photo, the panel on the left has a high-color temperature, and uses both fluorescent and phosphorescent materials (it is targeted mainly for the EU market). The other 3 panels use just fluorescent materials, and have a low color temperature.

Idemitsu has already commercialized their red phosphorescent, and almost commercialized the green one. They still do not know when they'll be able to release a blue color material, currently the lifetime is about 10% of what the clients need.

Here's the data sheet for the OLED materials, where you can see the lifetime and efficiency of each color:

IGNIS Innovation, in partnership with Kodak and Prime View International (PVI), has developed a 5" segment of a 32" OLED HDTV AMOLED display, using industry standard amorphous silicon thin film transistors (TFT). The prototype uses IGNIS' MaxLIfe solution, which compensates separately for both the TFT and LED degradation using only an electrical feedback - an industry first. This technology does not use any optical sensors which are unreliable.

IGNIS reports 20 years lifetime (when watching 12 hours a day), there is no burn-in images (the MaxLife technology keeps differential aging to 3% or less). The prototype was built using an amorphous silicon backplane from PVI using their standard a-Si LCD mass production process while the frontplane uses Kodak's long life and low power RGBW technology that delivers a vivid and outstanding viewing experience. They say that this combination provides the first reliable, low ost and scalable architecture.

IGNIS has also shown a 2.2" QVGA (181ppi) display module, using their AdMo (Advanced Mobile) compensation platform. They report over 50,000hrs lifetime (in house testing), large temperature range (-30c to 80c), suitable for automotive applications. The sophisticated compensation technology is built entirely in-pixel, meaning low-cost driver ICs are used, lending itself to a simple ‘drop-in’ display that is easily swappable into devices using legacy LCDs. The AdMo prototype use an amorphous silicon backplane, the standard TFT of the LCD industry that has traditionally been regarded as unusable for AMOLED displays. However, through its patented technology IGNIS is able compensate for the low mobility and in-stabilities of amorphous silicon, and as a result, for no additional capital investment costs, enables the manufacture of AMOLED backplanes at existing TFT plants.

Visionox (a Chinese company) is showing new 'decorative'  OLED lighting and display prototypes. There's an OLED lamp, and an OLED digital photo frame.

Visionox say they have achieved the following technology breakthroughs:

• Long lifetime (over 100,000 hours halftime at brightness of 1000 cd/m2) fluorescent white OLEDs with a composite blue emitting structure.
• Highly efficient hybrid OLEDs with an efficiency of over 40 lm/W at the brightness of 1000 cd/m2 without any light out-coupling technology.
• Flexible OLED lighting and transparent OLED lighting samples.

Visionox say that their decorative OLED-Lighting products are actually available in small volumes. They hope to enter the general lighting markets in a few years.

The lamps look very much like the TOPLESS project lamp prototypes (shown back in August).

Mitsubishi Electric is showing a new flexible OLED display (they call it the Diamond-Vision OLED) which is a modular display made from small OLED panels. Each panel is one 'pixel', and together they can be made into a large high-res image. There's no limit to the size of this display - it can be used to cover buildings, trains, or even 'entire-cities' like Mitsubishi says...

Mitsubishi 155-inch Diamond-Vision OLED TV

They are now demonstrating a 155" Diamond-Vision OLED TV prototype. Each pixel pitch is 3mm, which means that you have to watch the TV from about 2 meters away. 

Mitsubishi thinks that this screen is better than large LED displays used in sports stadiums and other places, because of the better resolution that can be achieved. The lifetime is said to be 20,000 hours. No word yet on pricing or availability.

Note - the OLEDs themselves are not 'flexible', but the display can be curved because it is made from individual OLED panels...

Mitsubishi entered the OLED market back in 2007.

When the Zune HD launched, there was an interesting blog post on the Apple-Insider site. They wanted to 'smash' five myths on the Zune HD, and one of the Myths is about the OLED display. They claim that OLEDs consumer more power than LCDs, are less bright, do not last long and are bad in direct sunlight. Barry Young from the OLED Association has responsed in his own blog post - basically saying that OLEDs look better, have even longer lifetime than most LCDs and consume less power.

Barry also says that when Steve Jobs first saw an OLED display, he said that's the best looking display he had ever seen. We're all waiting for Apple's first OLED product...

The only truth in the Apple-Insider article is probably about the sunlight visibility. We have discussed this issue before, and Zune HD users are indeed complaining.

The Zune HD has actually got great reviews, and it was sold-out within days of its launch. Some consider it as the first real competitor for the iPod touch, and most people love the OLED display. The Zune HD costs 290$ for the 32Gb version, and 219$ for the 16Gb.

In June 2008, I interviewed Corey Hewitt and Dr. James Buntaine from Kodak OLED Systems.

Mr. Corey Hewitt is the co-general manager, operations manager and VP of Kodak OLED Systems. Dr. James Buntaine is the second co-general manager, and also the CTO and VP.

They were kind enough to send us an update on Kodak's OLED program and market outlook:

Kodak OLED Technology Update & Advancements

Kodak expertise and experience lies in material discovery, organic layer design, mechanistic understanding, image science, panel/module design, and manufacturing technology. These key value drivers associated with the Kodak technology, know-how and patents, maintain Kodak as an industry leader in enabling both the OLED flat-panel display and OLED solid-state lighting industries. Provided below are selected key areas technology and Kodak accomplishments:

Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) has developed new, efficient, coated phosphorescent-polymer-based OLEDs. The new devices achieved about 40% in light output (the quantity of light emitted from light source, divided by electric power consumed.) - which they claim is the highest level in the world. The efficiency is 30 lm/W, and the lifetime is approximately 10,000 hours.

SDK says that OLED made by coating is attracting keen attention because it consists of a few layers formed by coating polymer without the use of vacuum, providing the opportunity for substantial cost reductions and for the production of large
area-emission panels in the future.

CDT is one of the leaders in OLED research, focusing on Polymer-based OLEDs (PLEDs, also called P-OLEDs). While these OLEDs are lagging behind small-molecule OLEDs in current products (all AMOLEDs today are based on SM-OLEDs), some companies believe that PLEDs are actually the better tech for the future.

CDT's CEO, David Fyfe has agreed to answer a few questions we had on CDT's technology. David joined CDT in 2000 as Chairman and CEO. David saw CDT go public in 2004, and then negotiated the sale of CDT to Sumitomo for $285 million (in September 2007). David is also a director of Soligie, an electronics printing company, Acal Energy, a fuel cell technology developer and the Plastic Electronics Foundation.

Q: David - thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Since the Sumitomo acquisition, CDT has been rather quiet... can you give us an update on where's the company now, and where's it is headed?
Since the merger of CDT into Sumitomo Chemical in September 2007, CDT has grown substantially and received considerable capital investment to enable it to remain a leading developer of PLED technology. It works very closely with SCC laboratories in Japan and most recently has been transferring manufacturing process knowhow to SCC's own PLED manufacturing development line, recently commissioned at Ehime on Shikoku, Japan. CDT in partnership with SCC has made large strides in materials lifetimes and efficiencies. SCC prefers to take a lower profile in announcing these advances since its business model is to work with selected display maker partners in a collaborative, confidential relationship. We have also made big strides in the development of top emitting structures and in printing PLED displays. SCC's strategy is that CDT will continue to be its leading development center for PLED technology with Ehime scaling process technology to a yielding process status. CDT is also working very closely with Semprius of North Carolina, USA to develop single crystal silicon TFT structures on which PLED devices can be deposited and driven using Semprius’ proprietary stamping technology.

Q: It seems that OLED displays are finally entering the mainstream - we hear of new devices (mainly by Samsung, but also from Sony, Microsoft, LG and others) almost daily. What are your thoughts on this? what are the challenges that still exist for OLEDs?
Sony broke the logjam of resistance to the adoption of OLED in large displays by major display makers with the introduction of its XEL-1 11 OLED TV in 2007. Samsung SDI’s investment in small screen OLED production in 2007, based on LTPS backplanes was another major impetus. Since then, Chi Mei has brought on small OLED screen capacity, TMD (now wholly owned by Toshiba) has built an OLED line to manufacture small screens, LG Display will start up their Gen 3.5 line late this year and if press reports are to be believed, Toppoly will commission their capacity with Nokia as a lead customer and Panasonic have a major OLED development program for large OLED displays.