Technical / Research - Page 66

Dupont has unveiled two new OLED display prototypes made by a coating process (using solution processable materials). The first (shown below) is a 4.3" 480x272 (128 ppi) and the second is a 5.8" display offering 294x196 (83 ppi).

Dupont says that the solution-processable displays offer better uniformity than commercial LCD displays. The cost advantage for solution-processable OLEDs grow as as the panel size increases.

A few weeks ago we reported that Samsung's Cheil Industries will invest 100 billion won (about $92 million) and build an OLED material facility in Kumi, Korea. Now we hear reports that the company indeed announced plans for an OLED material production line, but total investment will be 19.9 billion won (about $18 USD million).

Cheil Industries plans to produce Electron Transport Layer (ETL), Hole Transport Layer (HTL) and Organic Insulator (PDL) materials for AMOLED displays. About $9.7 million will go into the ETL and HTL facilities, and the rest ($8.3 million) will be used to build the PDL production line. Cheil plans to supply materials for Samsung Mobile Display in the second half of 2011.

Universal Display has quietly released a new PHOLED material performance chart. Their Green-Yellow material now has 1.4 million lifetime hours (LT50), and their Red color offers 900,000 hours. Blue is still very challenging, and their light blue offers only 20,000 hours (LT50). Here's the complete chart:

The company also released some PHOLED material efficiency. Using only red PHOLED (with green and blue fluorescent materials) will result in a display that is about 15% more efficient compared to an LCD (this is the combination Samsung used in their 4.5-Gen AMOLED fab). Adding green color will result in a a display that is 30% more efficient compared to an LCD (this is the combination Samsung is using in their new 5.5-Gen fab). Adding blue will give a 50% more efficient display. UDC says that further enhancements (not specified) can result in a display that is 67% more efficient than an LCD. All these results are based on a 4" display operating at 300 cd/m² showing a video that has 40% pixels on.

Corning developed a new ultra-slim flexible glass that can be used as a barrier film for flexible OLED displays. Corning claims that this new glass has the same barrier performance (for oxygen and moisture) as normal rigid glass. The whole thing is just 100 microns thick (0.1mm) and can withstand heat up to 400 degrees.

Corning is still developing the manufacturing process of this material, we do not know when it will be commercialized. A while back Corning published a nice video (a day made of glass) showing what's possible with flexible glass.

Japan's NHK is progressing towards flexible OLEDs, and is showing a new prototype. The display on show is 5" in size and offers 320x240 resolution. This is a color OLED, although the green pixels are stronger than other colors and so everything looks green.

NHK has been showing flexible OLEDs since 2008. Here's their 2009 prototype, and here's a 2010 model (which improved the resolution over the 2009 one). NHK says they've been able to improve the manufacturing process, and so the new display has less defects (dead pixels).

Sony developed a new OLED panel that uses a self-aligned top-gate Oxide-TFT (IGZO). According to Sony, the image is improved over normal OLEDs as it reduces the unevenness in brightness (that is caused by parasitic capacitance between gate electrode and source/drain electrodes in the TFT). The new panel is 9.9" in size (960x540) and features 200cd/m² brightness, 1M:1 contrast ratio and 96% NTSC color gamut.

Sony's new TFT uses a self-aligned top-gate structure (Sony's older TFT used a bottom-gate structure). This makes it possible to keep a long enough distance between the gate electrode and the source/drain electrode - which reduces parasitic capacitance.

Hanvon unveiled new touch technology called ERT (Electromagnetic Resonance Touch). ERT can sense both pen input and finger touch - and is placed beneath the display panel and not above it like normal touch layers. It works by adding several capacitors to a normal digitizer touch sensor.

Hanvon plans to commercialize this technology in its E Ink e-readers (for the Chinese market) by 2H 2011, but it says it is also applicable to OLEDs and LCD display.

Universal Display announced new warm-white OLED lighting panels that uses all-phosphorescent materials to achieve 58 lm/W and 30,000 lifetime (D70). This new panel is based on UDC's new light blue material system. This new panels offers a three times improvement in lifetime compared to just one year ago.

The company is actually showing two new panels, both 15x15cm in size. The first has a color temperature of 2,580K, 58 lm/W, 30,000 hours of lifetime (D70) at 1,000cd/m² and a CRI of 83. The second panel offers a color temperature of 2,950K and CRI of 82 - to achieve 62 lm/W. The second panel has 18,000 hours of lifetime (D70) at 1,000cd/m². Shown above is UDC's new OLED lighting design (called the Earthouse) which highlights the ability for energy-efficient white OLEDs to emit different white colors. It uses an energy-efficient 3,000K white OLED on the left and a 5,000K white OLED on the right.

Update: We have some info and a new photo of Toshiba's flexible OLED prototype. See below.

Toshiba is showing an ultra thin (0.1mm) 3" flexible OLED panel prototype (160x120) that weights just one gram. The OLED is built using an oxide semiconductor TFT (IGZO) unto a plastic substrate. Toshiba says that they will be able to start producing displays based on this production method by 2014 or 2015.

Toshiba's OLED uses white OLED material with color filters. The architecture is bottom-emission. Toshiba says that the managed to lower the process temperature to 200°C, and so were able to use the plastic substrate.

Update: We've got a video of this cool prototype... see below

Universal Display shows new flexible OLED lighting panels at SID 2011. The new panels use the company's solution-processable P2OLED materials and the new single-layer encapsulation technology. UDC says they are showing this prototype to demonstrate how flexible OLED lighting and display technologies are accelerating towards commercialization.

The new prototype is pretty small - but UDC applied a motion sensor so this serpentine like lamp can recoil and uncoil... see more in this video: