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IGNIS Innovation unveiled a prototype display using its Driver IC  MaxLife. The MaxLife solution compensates not only for the thin film transistor (TFT) degradation, but also for OLED as well.

IGNIS showed its prototype of a cutout of a 32 1080p HDTV, with an operating device lifetime of 75,000 hrs and no image burn-in over that period, which is equivalent to 20 years when watching for 10hrs/day.

The growth of the AMOLED industry has been constrained due to the technological hurdles associated with achieving a truly reliable, uniform and scalable TFT backplane. Our MaxLife platform now enables our customers, the display manufacturers, to accelerate their market introduction of large, visually stunning and affordable AMOLED HDTVs and other large area applications in the very near future, said Paul Arsenault, President and CEO of IGNIS.

Universal Display Corporation today announced that it has been awarded a $935,000 contract extension by the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC). The extension builds on an existing Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase III grant with CERDEC for the development of flexible, active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display technology for demonstration in a prototype wrist-based communications device.

Development efforts under the contract extension will focus on combining Universal Display's PHOLED(TM) phosphorescent OLED technology with LG.Philips LCD (LPL) amorphous-Silicon (a-Si) TFT technology. Bringing LPL, a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCDs), to the program as a development partner marks an important step toward the commercialization of flexible OLED display products. In May, the two companies showcased the world's first high-resolution AMOLED display built on flexible metal foil at the 2007 Society for Information Display Conference and Symposium. Building on this initial demonstration, Universal Display and LPL plan to work on a prototype with key design and performance enhancements under this program.

L-3 Communications Display Systems (L-3 Display Systems), a leading supplier of ruggedized display systems for military uses and a long-standing partner under this program, is responsible for designing and integrating its advanced communications components with the QVGA, full-color, flexible AMOLED display into the prototype wrist-mounted communications device for delivery to CERDEC.

Universal Display was awarded Phase III of the SBIR grant by CERDEC in January 2006. The Company's work with the U.S. Department of Defense also includes flexible AMOLED display development for the U.S. Army Research Laboratories (ARL), the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories.

Vitex Systems today announced its proprietary moisture and oxygen barrier solution demonstrated impressive reliability results when used for high-temperature applications. The company's revolutionary Barix(TM) thin-film barrier was continuously tested at 100 degrees C, 120 degrees C and as high as 140 degrees C for more than 500 hours without losing its barrier integrity. Moreover, results indicated that the barrier can maintain its integrity for more than 1,000 hours in this severe environment.

Vitex's Barix thin-film barrier uses an organic and inorganic multi-layer structure. To demonstrate product compatibility, it was used to create the world's first high-resolution AMOLED, which leverages an amorphous silicon backplane on a flexible metal foil. This flexible display -- jointly developed by Universal Display Corp. and LG. Philips LCD -- was showcased at last month's Society for Information Display (SID) conference in Long Beach, Calif. Similar encapsulation was shown by Samsung SDI on the world's first, and thinnest, full-color top emission AMOLED on a metal foil during last year's show.

LG.Philips LCD has announced that it has developed (in cooperation with UDC.) the first full-color flexible AMOLED display that uses amorphous silicon (a-Si) technology.

The 4-inch full-color flexible AM OLED display features 320×240 QVGA resolution and can reproduce 16.77 million colors. It uses a stainless metal foil substrate to ensure durability and protection against heat, which improves the manufacturing process and enhances product stability, noted LG.Philips LCD.

Using a-Si backplane technology allows LG.Philips LCD to use its existing TFT LCD production line for these AM OLEDs, a major step toward demonstrating the commercial viability of such products. LG.Philips LCD will unveil the full-color flexible AM OLED display at SID 2007 in the US on May 20.

Read more here (Digitimes)

Universal Display Corporation today announced the development of the world's first high-resolution, active-matrix, transparent OLED (AM-TOLED) display using the Company's PHOLED phosphorescent OLED and TOLED® transparent oled technologies along with amorphous silicon (a-Si) backplane technology developed by Professor Jin Jang at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea.

The development of this high-resolution transparent OLED display is a step toward putting thin, low power, full-motion video displays that provide transparency when turned off into a variety of applications where preserving partial visibility or bi-directionality is important. These include architectural vision glass, entertainment, medical and industrial products, helmet shields for military, Homeland Security, fire and rescue applications, and other applications as yet unimagined.

Samsung Electronics, the leader in TFT-LCD technology, today announced that it has successfully developed the world's first single-sheet, 40-inch active matrix (AM) OLED for emissive flat panel TV applications. The high-definition-compatible OLED prototype has a wide screen pixel format of 1280x800 (WXGA) driven by an amorphous silicon (a-Si) AM backplane to permit faster video response times with low power consumption.

Samsung's 40-inch OLED panel will be demonstrated for the first time at the world's largest display industry event, Society for Information Display (SID) 2005 International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition in Boston, May 24- 27.

Both area color and full color OLED products from RiTdisplay use passive-matrix (PM) driving technology at present. However, Wang indicated that the company will start to deliver its active-matrix (AM) OLED product in small volume within this year, and will focus on a 2.2-inch full color product.

As did Samsung, RiTdisplay adopted a-Si TFT technology to develop its AMOLED product. The company believes a-Si technology offers better performance than LTPS; the size of the substrate is another consideration. "When FPD TV happens to be one of the applications of AMOLED, the size of LTPS substrate will become a great limitation in product development. Since the largest LTPS panel available nowadays is only around 20-inch," said Yih Chang, general manager of RiTdisplay.

Digitimes says that Japanese OLED makers (such as SK Displays, TM Display and Hitachi) have already begain mass production of AMOLED displays, while Taiwanese companies are postponing their schedules and will not start volume production until 2005.

There are 15 AMOLED production line planned in Taiwan, Japan and Korea for 2005 according to Digitimes. Nine of these lines belong to Japanese makers. In Taiwan, the leading player seems to be RiTDisplay. The company have been showing AMOLED samples in June 2004 but they will not start mass production in 2004 as originally planned - they postponed it to 1Q 2005 due to low yields.