Phosphorescent - Page 13

Researchers from the University of Michigan developed metal-free phosphorescent OLED emitters. The idea is that if the emitter molecules cannot vibrate, they cannot release energy and light and so more energy is converted into light. At first they tried creating a stiff lattice (crystalize the emitters) - this achieved 55% light conversion (better than the 25% of regular fluorescent OLEDs, but not as good as the 100% achieved by heavy metal doping).

But this method cannot be adopted for commercial OLEDs easily, and so the second method they tried is to tweaking the organic molecules so that they form structural bonds with a transparent polymer (they attach "like magnets"). This is an easier process, but it achieved only 24% efficiency - similar to a regular fluorescent OLEDs. But they are working on ways to improve this. The important point is that they demonstrated that increasing the intermolecular bonding strength could efficiently suppress the vibrational loss of the phosphorescent light.

Today Seeking Alpha published my article on Universal Display, titled "Universal Display: 20X Jackpot In 2018?". In this article I present the best-case scenario for UDC (and the OLED market) in 2018. I'm trying to estimate what will happen if small/medium capacity continue expanding fast, if OLED TVs become mainstream and if OLED lighting mass production begins.

As I said in the article's introduction - this is mostly aimed for fun, but I think it's not an impossible market forecast for 2018. I even tried to be conservative in some areas (for example I do not take a stable blue PHOLED emitter into account). So if you're a UDC long (or short, or just thinking about an investment, really) - this could be an interesting read.

On March 2014, Konica Minolta announced it developed the world's most efficient OLED lighting panel - at 131 lm/W. Only two months later, the Japanese company announced it developed an even more efficient panel at 139 lm/W.

Konica's new panel has an emitting area of 15 square centimeters, a lifetime of 55,000 hours (LT50) at a brightness of 1,000 cd/m² and a CRI of 81. The color temperature is 2857K.

Universal Display participated in Cowen and Company's 42nd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. This was a very interested talk - and I recommend listening to it if you're an investor (or interested in investing) in UDC. Here I give some of the updates and highlights from that talk.

In Q1 2014, UDC Introduced a new high performing red emitters for mobile applications. That red emitter is longer lasting, provide a better gamut and is also more efficient. UDC more or less confirmed that the GS5 uses these new materials and that's how Samsung managed to improve the efficiency by 25% compared to the GS4 display. Because these are new materials, SDC go back to the original prices (before accumulative volume discounts).

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q1 2014 - and the company had another great quarter. Revenues were $37.8 million (compared to $15 million in Q1 2013) and net income was $4.0 million. This does not include Samsung's license fees which will be $50 million in 2014, and will be paid in Q2 and Q4.

Green emitter sales were $17.2 million (up from $11.6 in Q4 2013, and 4.6 a year ago). Green host sales were $12.4 million (up from $9.3 million in Q4 2013 and 3.1 a year ago). Red emitter sales were $3.9 million (up from $2.8 million in Q4 2013 and Q1 2013). UDC now expects 2014 revenues to reach the high end of its $190 million to $205 million guidance range.

Samsung's Cheil Industries says that they will start supplying Samsung Display with phosphorescent green host for their OLED displays. Cheil developed the new material for the past two years and says that it will improve the OLED panel brightness and power consumption compared to the current material Samsung uses (made by UDC). It is also reportedly cheaper.

According to the report, some industry source say that this new material may have been used in Samsung Electronics' GS5 phone - as indeed we know the new display is brighter and more efficient than Samsung's previous display. On the other hand if this is true, than Cheil should have started ramping up production months ago. Cheil will produce 5 tons of this new material in a year.

DisplaySearch says that the OLED industry's material growth is going to be lower than expected due to high manufacturing cost, delays in OLED TV and "very few breakthroughs in AMOLED displays". DisplaySearch now estimates the total material market in 2014 to reach $795 million (previously they estimated it to reach over $1 billion).

According to DisplaySearch, in 2014 the material market will grow 77% and in 2015 it will again grow by 70%. Growth will be much slower in 2016 and 2017. Interestingly, in 2014 the green emitter and host materials (EML) will grow by 228%. I think the reasoning is that Samsung will convert more lines to PHOLED greens (which cost more than fluorescent green). This is good news for Universal Display. In addition, it seems that blue EML costs will not grow much which probably means DisplaySearch is not seeing blue PHOLED adoption at all.

Universal Display Corporation (UDC) is one of the most known OLED company, involved with OLED IP, OLED phopshorescent materials, innovations on flexible OLEDs, production processes and more. As the most prominent public OLED company, the company is interesting to many investors and analysts.

Last year UDC hired Darice Liu to handle communications and investor relations. Darice was kind enough to answer a few questions I had regarding UDC's technology and business. These are interesting times for UDC as the OLED market is growing quickly, OLED TVs and flexible OLEDs are finally appearing on the market, but on the other hand the company is being faced with patent litigation and criticism from some investors (whom I shall not name).

A couple of days ago we reported that according to tests by DisplayMate, SDC's new 5.1" FHD Super AMOLED panel (used in the GS5) is a lot more efficient than Samsung's previous generation panels (a 27% compared to the GS4 which is actually a little smaller). DisplayMate's Raymond Soneira told us that Samsung said that the improvement mostly came from more efficient OLED materials.

This is quite interesting, and according to my own checks, it seems that indeed Samsung is using new materials. In fact, my sources say that Samsung adoped new and improved phosphorescent materials.

Researchers from Kyushu University (led by Chihaya Adachi) developed a highly efficient blue OLED TADF (Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence) emitter that achieves almost 20% external quantum efficiency - similar to the best blue phosphorescent emitters.

TADF OLEDs are free from the heavy metals used in phosphorescent emitters and so they could be cheaper and better for the environment. The main problem with blue phosphorescent OLEDs is the short lifetime which still makes it impossible to use them in commercial applications. The new TADF blue OLEDs has about the same lifetime as the blue PHOLEDs, but researchers are hopeful that it will be easier to improve the lifetime of the TADF emitters.