Patents - Page 11

A year after two Samsung OLED TVs were lost in Germany during shipment to the IFA 2012 show, it is reported today that those two TVs were finally found in Germany. The two 55" flat OLED TVs were found in Germany and were not damaged (the paper boxes were ripped open though). Samsung asked the German police to continue its investigation due to the possibility of its link to a technology leak.

It's been a while since we heard anything regarding Samsung and LG's OLED technology feud. The two Korean companies have been fighting over OLED (and other technologies) patents for a long time.The companies agreed to resolve their OLED dispute outside of the court of law and SDC's CEO even said the two companies are considering cross-licensing patents - but the OLED issues between the two Korean giants obviously isn't over and in April 2013 it was reported that the South Korean police searched the offices of Samsung Display as part of the investigation into alleged large-sized OLED TV technology theft from LG Display.

Universal Display announced their financial results for Q2 2013. Revenues were $49.4 million and net income was $15.4 million - this was higher than expected and was driven by high green materials (emitter and host) sales to Samsung (green was finally adopted for the GS4). UDC says material sales grew 111% compared to Q2 2012 to $12.8 million, and royalty and license fees were up 37% (to $21.2 million, out of which $20 million were from SDC).

UDC said it expects full-year results to reach the high-end of its previous forecast - which was $110-125 million.

In past months, Samsung filed several patents for a smart wrist-watch with a flexible display. Samsung already confirmed they are working on such a device, but this is the first time we see an actual patent that may offer a glimpse into what this future device will look like. I don't know if the patents actually detail an OLED display - such a design could also use a flexible E Ink panel. Although I think that Samsung will probably opt for a full-color OLED.

Apple is also working on such a device - at least according to rumors. Back in December 2012 we reported on the iWatch: a bluetooth smart watch that has a 1.5" touch PMOLED, apparently made by RitDisplay. In February 2013 the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both posted about this rumor. In May 2013 Taiwan's Economic Times reported that Apple had made some prototypes with a 1.8" PMOLED, but decided they were too large and they will indeed opt for a 1.5" display.

The US PTO published a new patent from Apple (filed in 2012) that describes how to use sensors to compensate for ambient lighting (see DisplayMate's related recent article) and lifetime brightness degradation in OLED displays. The patent describes that photo-diodes can be placed inside the OLED array or above and below it.

Putting photo-diodes inside the display will enable them to more accurately measure light levels. So if a part of the screen is dimmer than the rest of the screen (for example because only a part of the display is under direct light) - the photodiode will detect it and then the display brightness in that area can be increased. This is something that cannot be achieved with a single sensor. Those photodiodes can also be used to learn whether certain OLED pixels (or pixel groups) have lowered brightness due to aging. Then the display can compensate and drive these pixels higher.

Researchers from Germany's TU Darmstadt University developed new glowing fibers by coating them with white OLED emitters. They call their technology reproducible rotational coating and they envision all sorts of possibilities in the area of smart textiles, as in the future it'll be possible to coat all sorts of semiconductor components (such as transistors or solar cells) on fibers.

The researchers use vacuum deposition and small-molecule OLEDs for this process. They deposit seven different layers but the whole OLED is just 200 nanometers thick. OLEDs require a very smooth substrate and so currently they use glass fibers - which aren't really useful in wearable applications as they are too brittle to be woven into textiles. They are now starting to experiment with polymer-coated glass fibers that may be flexible enough to be used in textiles.

Sichuan CCO Display plans to construct a 4.5-Gen AMOLED production fab in Chengdu (western China) in a 7 billion yuan ($1.15 billion USD) investment. This fab will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates.

Construction will begin in mid-2014 and will be completed in 2015. Mass production will begin in 2016. This fab will produce small and medium panels (2.6" to 10" in size) - to be used in mobile devices.

Last week we reported that Philips is looking for licensees for their OLED display IP portfolio. Today IPXI (Intellectual Property Exchange International, a financial exchange for licensing and trading of IP rights) gave some more information about the contract.

Philips has a portfolio of more than 600 patents (including 225 granted globally) that are all related to AMOLED displays, and represents nearly two decades of research. IPXI are offering Unit License Right (ULR) contracts - and each unit provides the right to manufacture, use, sell, offer to sell or import five square meters of an OLED display for application in any display screen device.

Intellectual Property Exchange International (IPXI), a financial exchange for licensing and trading of IP rights, is going to help Philips license its OLED display IP portfolio (which has over 600 patent assets, including 225 issued patents worldwide).

IPXI will two public web presentations on June 5 at 10:00 CT and 20:00 CT to unveil the contract offering, present details and launch the marketing campaign.

The USPTO revealed a new Apple patent application (#306554) that describes a device with a flexible OLED display (the patent application specifically says it's an OLED) that can detect when force is applied - which means that you can press the screen as part of the user interface.

The force-measurement layer, which will be placed on top of the OLED (or embedded inside the OLED panel itself, like the touch layer in Super AMOLED panels), will track whether the panel is being flexed using magnitude detectors such as strain gauges and optical sensors.

Panasonic Corporation developed a white OLED lighting panel that is the world's highest luminous efficiency - 114 lm/W for a light-emitting area of 1 cm². Panasonic also developed a larger panel (25 cm²) with 110 lm/W. The panels also feature long lifetime - over 100,000 hours (LT50) and a brightness of of 1,000 cd/m². The panel thickness was less than 2 mm.

Panasonic 114 lm/W OLED panel

To achieve this high efficiency, Panasonic focused on an all-phosphorescent design (with an optimal stacked layer design) and new light extraction technology. Panasonic used a Built-up Light Extraction Substrate (BLES) by optimizing the arrangement of the film, glass and air to suppress light confinement in the OLED. This enable them to achieve about 2.5 times improvement in the light extraction efficiency, which is about 50% in the new panels. Panasonic says that in older technology the light extraction efficiency stayed below 40%. Panasonic says they hold 30 patents in Japan and 17 overseas - all related for this new development.