Technical / Research - Page 126

Plextronics has won a contract potentially worth $1.8 million to develop technology that could help commercialize devices used for high-definition TVs and computer monitors.

The contract was awarded by the U.S. Display Consortium, a San Jose-based public/private group established by the federal government to help strengthen the country's standing in the display manufacturing segment.

Plextronics, based outside of Pittsburgh in Harmarville, Pa., said it will use the funding to continue to develop its Plexcore product, a polymer ink that helps improve the efficiency of OLED displays, which could be used in such things as high-definition TVs.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors today announced the latest achievements in its white OLED project, funded by a $4.65 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The 2004 DOE grant was issued to research the potential of white OLEDs to save energy in commercial and residential lighting applications. OSRAM's most recent milestone provides a breakthrough in polymer-OLED technology by achieving a record 25 lumens-per-watt (lm/W) of device efficiency.

The company also announced it has developed the first polymer-OLED, "tunable" light source, enabling color tuning and true illumination-design freedom.
"We are very excited to announce our latest DOE achievements. These milestones directly support the DOE's objectives by demonstrating polymer-OLED potential in lighting applications," said Dr. Alfred Felder, OLED Business Unit Head, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. "By exploring polymer-OLED technology for solid-state lighting applications, we have created a powerful, innovative and desirable solution with confirmed compatibility and scalability over large areas."

eMagin Corp. has teamed with the Univ. of Michigan's Solid-State Electronics Laboratory (SSEL) to win a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract from The Office of Naval Research to study novel approaches for thin-film encapsulation. This research will enable small, lightweight displays and, potentially, flexible displays. For this project, eMagin and the Univ. of Michigan team will demonstrate a rugged and reliable thin-film encapsulation method for OLED displays.

"This award will advance technology to foster new generations of displays," said Susan Jones, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, eMagin Corp., in a statement. "The promise of this research is a rugged, low-cost encapsulation technique and process that can be applied to microdisplays as well as larger format OLED devices." According to professor Jerzy Kanicki, head of the Organic & Molecular Electronics research group at the University of Michigan, "This project should enable us to move key technology from the lab to the customer and enable a whole new generation of display products."

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has announced another important step in the development of polymer light emitting diode (P-OLED) display technology with the production of a number of 14 inch full color displays using ink jet printing.

The displays were produced at CDT's Technology Development Centre in the UK, and feature a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels x RGB, equivalent to almost three million sub-pixels, or over 30 million ink jet drops.The active matrix panels use an amorphous silicon backplane, and were made using a multi-nozzle approach - up to 128 nozzles - with no interlacing, and are believed to be the first of their kind ever produced.

Novaled Achieved a New Record for a Top-Emitting OLED. A Saturated Green Was Emitted with an Unsurpassed Current Efficiency of 95 cd/A.

The record for green light emission with a colour coordinate of 0.31 / 0.66 was measured at a brightness of 1,000 cd/m² and a very low operating voltage of only 2.55 V. "With this groundbreaking result Novaled increased its latest values of more than 20 percent" states Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth, CTO. "The foundation for the success is clearly Novaled's PIN technology (using doped transport layers) and our proprietary molecular dopant in a full-organic OLED structure".

CDT announced a red dendrimer OLED device with a 250,000-hour lifetime from an initial luminance of 100cd/m2, compared to the 150,000 hour-lifetime device announced this May and 15,000 hour lifetime in 2004. The company also said it will ally with Sumitomo Chemical for PLED material supply.

Lifetimes for devices using dendrimer technology using the new red materials at 400cd/m², 800cd/m² and 1000cd/m² are estimated at 15,600 hours, 3,900 hours and 2,500 hours respectively.

Its no secret that the Shadow Masking Process, widely used today, for OLED production has its resolution limitations. The highest resolution achieved by the process is around 170ppi. AUO has overcome this industry hurdle and revolutionized a pixel design that progresses the resolution of OLED to reach VGA grade standards (640 RGB x 480). AUO will debut this latest technology in its 3" VGA AMOLED prototype with resolution as high as 270 ppi (pixel per inch), bringing OLED resolutions to new level highs. With the added ultra high resolution, the panels are ideal for portable multimedia player (PMP), mobile phones, DSC, and DVC alike. Dr. JJ Lih, Director of OLED Division at AUO noted, " Our revolutionary design has been a breakthrough in dramatically improving resolution levels, without having to increase costs. Not only were we able to successfully improve our 3" AMOLED panel to VGA grade but we've also managed at the same time to maintain contrast ratio to >10,000:1 and fast response time

Canon has demonstrated a prototype digital SLR camera using an OLED display, which will help extend battery life and be easier for photographers to view. Unlike traditional LCD screens, which use coloured filters and a backlight, an OLED generates its own light. This improves the screen's viewing angles and lowers power consumption, both of which are very useful for digital cameras.

Canon’s OLED demonstration used a 2.4" screen with QVGA (320 x 240) resolution, which delivered a bright and detailed image with 167 pixels per inch (ppi).

Canon, the world's largest maker of cameras and copiers, is to enter the TV panel market next year and expand its overall business to generate more than €40 billion ($A63.4 billion) in annual sales by 2010.

Canon would be working on developing three types of display technologies: SED panels, organic light-emitting diode displays (OLED) and projection displays.

Canon is aiming to use OLED panels in its digital cameras, printers and camcorders from 2007 as replacement for liquid crystal displays (LCDs).

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