Technical / Research - Page 58

Researchers from Dresden's University of Technology (TU Dresden) developed new highly efficient white top-emitting OLED design that feature "outstanding" color quality, and is compatible with flexible OLEDs. In this new design a refractive index matched microlens film was laminated to the top-emitting OLED to form direct optical contact. This enabled the researchers to achieve a CRI of 93, CIE coordinates of (0.472, 0.430) and an emission from 410 to 750 nm that almost spans the complete visible spectrum (380 to 780 nm). The efficiency is up to 30 lm/W (on par with the latest record white OLEDs from Novaled and OSRAM).

The lamination of such an outcoupling structure should be fully roll-to-roll compatible and even allows to be used as an encapsulation film when water and oxygen barriers are added.

Atmel announced that Samsung is using their maXTouch E Series single-chip touch controller in the Focus Flash, Focus S, Galaxy Tab 7.7, the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Note. Atmel's maXTouch E touch controllers offer a single-chip solution that has an updated capacitive touch engine (CTE) that features new noise avoidance and noise suppression capabilities. According to Atmel, the new controllers has an improved performance in every aspect compared to their older generation controllers - higher fidelity touch sensing, faster responsiveness, lower power consumption and thinner form factors.

Back in April 2010 Plextronics and Cambrios started to develop a new electrode material for OLED panels. The two companies announced today that they have begun to co-market the new electrode aimed towards OLED lighting devices.

The transparent conducting hole injection (TCHI) electrode is based on Plextronics' Plexcore OC HIL material and Cambrios' ClearOhm material. This new electrode is a cheaper alternative to ITO. The development was funded in part by the DOE (which gave $1.2 million out of the total $1.8 million project cost).

Colnatec demonstrated a new "self regenerating" OLED film thickness sensor system, called the Tempe. The system includes a new heat resistant quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and a unique temperature controlled sensor housing and measurement electronics. The Tempe provides real-time, in-situ, ultra high accuracy process sensor that periodically renews itself, making it operational for hundreds of hours without fail.

The new crystal (which they call the RC cut quartz crystal) is immune to radiation and stress induced frequency shifts. When the RC is coated in the thin film process it changes its frequency - which gives the thickness measurement.

There's an interesting article discussing a team of engineers in Samsung which developed the Super AMOLED HD displays. As was suggested before, Samsung is still using a Shadow Mask (or FMM) to fabricate Super AMOLED HD displays. Using new materials and a new manufacturing process they managed to develop such a fine mask that enabled over 300ppi - a thing that was considered impossible by several companies.

So Samsung didn't move to LITI production yet, and they are still using FMM. Samsung also developed a new technique called Small Mask Scanning (or SMS) will enables them to scale up AMOLED production to 8-Gen plants.

Aneeve Nanotechnologies, a startup company at UCLA's on-campus technology incubator, managed to fabricate a new fully ink-jet printed carbon nanotube (CNT) circuit that is used to drive OLED displays. The company says that this is the first practical demonstration of carbon nanotubebased printed circuits for display backplane applications, and it shows significant performance advantages over traditional organic-based printed electronics.

Aneeve says that this shows that CNT is a viable technology to compete with a-Si and metal-oxide semiconductor for low-cost and scalable backplanes.

Kodak and Heraeus have developed a new easily-patterend transparent conductive film that can be used as a cost-effective alternative to ITO in touch displays. The two companies unveiled a 14" touch LCD prototype that was was fabricated using Kodak HCF-225 Film/ESTAR base and the Clevios PEDOT:PSS coating with a surface resistivity of 225 ohms/sq. It was fabricated using conventional printing processes, including UV-cured and heat processed inks.

According to the companies, the polymer-based touch screen system provides superior touch performance, flexibility, stability, a high level of transparency, neutral color and low haze all at an economic price

TAOS announced new digital color RGB and proximity sensors (the TCS3x71 and TCS3x72) - which are especially aimed to be used in phones with OLED displays. The company says this is the world's first color sensor with an IR blocking filter integrated directly on-chip and localized only to the color sensor photodiodes.

TAOS says that having a combined color and proximity sensor can be used to determine the color temperature of the ambient light and then provide the optimum display picture quality and to provide touchscreen control. These devices can also be used to create smarter products, such as household appliances, which sense color and user presence.

According to the Taipei Times, Merck is looking for Taiwanese partners to co-develop OLED technologies, mostly for small displays. Merck signed a letter of intent with Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs director-general. According to the report Merck may setup a joint-venture firm that will actually produce OLED panels.

It seems that Merck is accelerating their OLED plans, just last month they opened a new OLED R&D lab in Korea.

Philips released their first OLED panels (or Lumiblades, as they call them) back in April 2009, and in May they sent us a few panels for a review. Since then Philips released new panels, and last week they sent us a new "experience kit" with two OLEDs: a white dot and a white tall rectangle.