Technical / Research - Page 130

The U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) has awarded a research and development contract to Dow Corning Corp. to develop hole injection materials for producing higher efficiency OLED suited for high-definition displays.

USDC and Dow Corning will equally share the cost of the $2.39 million development project.
The USDC-funded project will be undertaken in two phases, with the second phase focused on the application of Dow Corning's hole injection materials using inkjet printing or other patterning techniques.

eMagin Corporation has received notification of allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for an anode design that features improved stability. The design effectively extends the lifetime of eMagin's OLED microdisplays.

eMagin scientists developed a single-layer, semi-transparent capable anode with efficient hole injection properties. The approach can improve the overall stability of the anode and OLED life by simplifying both the manufacturing process and the device structure.

"As more commercial and military users are attracted to the excellent performance and durability of our OLED microdisplays, we are continuing to incrementally improve upon the technology to make it more broadly useful," said Susan Jones, eMagin's chief marketing and strategy officer. "This new patent represents an important method to make high efficiency, long life OLEDs that should be compatible with a wide range of OLED materials. Aspects of this invention are already proving its worth in our products."

Colorado-based start-up Coled has given further details of its electrode modification which increases the efficiency of OLED displays.

We have a self-assembly system which acts as an energy-adjusting barrier layer between organic and inorganic at the hole-injection electrode, Coled chief scientist and CEO Dr Neil Gough told Electronics Weekly.

This means it is deposited on an ITO electrode before the light-emitting polymer or small-molecule emitter is laid down. Compared to a display without the barrier layer, at the same current you get the same brightness at a lower voltage drop, claimed Gough.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Inc. today announced it has reached the first milestone in its three-year, 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.

The advanced white-light prototype is based on multiple, discrete 2-inch x 3-inch white-light devices fabricated on glass substrates. OSRAM's first-year deliverable is an advanced prototype light source where each tile in the module has a luminous efficacy of 7 lumens-per-watt (lm/W) and a color-rendering index (CRI) of about 80. The prototype operates at an average luminance of 250 nits. At program end, OSRAM will produce a color-balanced OLED white-light source with a luminous efficacy of 40 lumens per watt at 800 nits and an operating half-life of 3,000 hours.

COLED Receives Series-A Financing to Bring New Organic Display Materials to Market.
The company's innovations are in "electrode modification," which dramatically improve the charge injection characteristics of the electrodes used in the construction of OLED devices. This new approach will increase the efficiency of small molecule fluorescent (SMF) OLED and light emitting polymer (LEP) based technologies.

UniMCO is the first-ever commercial design CAD tool for LED, OLED, RCLED, VCSEL, and optical coatings. This powerful design tool offers the wide range of capabilities available in designing your optical devices, ensuring your products get to market faster, with improved performance, at a lower cost.

Anders Electronics is offering a reference design kit that will significantly reduce the time to market of applications based on Osram Opto Semiconductors' Pictiva OLED flat panel display products. The Osram Pictiva Evaluation Kit combines a Pictiva display with all of the hardware, software and support tools needed to rapidly prototype, test and implement OLED-based designs.

Designed for use with a standard Windows desktop or laptop PC, the Pictiva Evaluation Kit comprises an evaluation board with a 128 x 64 format Pictiva display, the Pictiva software, a USB cable, the control keyboard, a power supply and full support documentation.

MicroContinuum Inc. and Next Sierra have both been awarded contracts each totaling nearly $1 million by the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) for advanced display process and component development.
MicroContinuum Inc. was awarded a contact to develop a process to pattern conductors on flexible substrates utilizing its roll-to-roll processing technology. MicroContinuum will use the process to form patterns in indium tin oxide (ITO), an optically transparent, conductive material used in display manufacturing.

Next Sierra will use the USDC contract to design and develop two versions of an integrated circuit for AM-OLEDs.

Samsung's 260K color display driver IC (DDI) for AM OLEDs utilizes 0.25um process technology to reduce the size of the device to approximately 40 percent of leading competitive models. The DDI for AMOLED features a quarter common interchange format (qCIF, 176xRGBx240 pixel) along with a 1.8 volt power level.

With its new AMOLED application, Samsung now has developed the widest range of DDI technology including STN, TFT-LCD and AMOLED.

Luxell announced today the signing of a joint development agreement with Organic Lighting Technologies (OLT), LLC of Austin Texas to develop an OLED white backlight device for enhancement of full colour LCD flat panel displays.

OLT's innovative proprietary organic thin film processes and packaging techniques provide innovative backlighting solutions targeting the high volume manufacture of flat panel displays for mobile phones and other hand held and mobile devices.