Technical / Research - Page 75

Nanomarkets have released a new report called "transparent conductor markets in the OLED Industry - 2011 and beyond". This report analyzes and quantifies the opportunities that the rise of the OLED industry will create for suppliers of transparent conductive materials. According to the new report, the market for transparent conductors in 2016 will be almost $500 million - for both OLED lighting and displays.

Tokyo Electron (TEL) and Seiko Epson will jointly-develop OLED display manufacturing technology. This project will integrate Epson's inkjet printing method and TEL's production equipment. The aim is to create next-generation OLED manufacturing technologies as a total-solution-package.

Espon 14-inch Inkjet processed OLED

Back in 2009, we posted an interview with Satoru Miyashita, General Manager of Seiko Epson's Core Technology Development. Back then, Satoru estimated that by 2012 we'll see inkjet-printed OLED TVs.

We sure have a lot of news in the past few days from Samsung. It turns out that they are showing new 19" transparent AMOLED "windows". These display are bottom-emissive and have 30% transmittance.

The idea is that you could use this in point-of-sales to 'augment' the reality behind the window. Here's a video showing the new displays:

Samsung is showing a new 4.5" WVGA (800x480) flexible AMOLED display, and we just found this stunning video from SMD showing the display and how it continues to work while bended. You can also see how thin and light this display is:

Interestingly, the display seems to have a sort of white grid - two horizontal and three vertical lines. Perhaps this is actually several small displays stitched together?

Samsung is showing several new AMOLED displays at the FPD 2010 exhibition, and we now got a nice video showing them all:

The video is showing the new 7" super-AMOLED panel (in a galaxy-tab prototype) and the new flexible AMOLEDs. You can also see a new bendable 5" AMOLED, a concept MID with two 4.5" AMOLED displays. Samsung is also showing the 14" transparent AMOLED laptop which has been unveiled almost a year ago.

We had the good chance to talk with Gerd Guenther, Novaled's Chief Marketing Officer. He was kind enough to answer a few of our questions, and give us some information and updates from Novaled.

Gerd, thanks for your time. Can you explain Novaled's business model to us?

When Novaled started as a spin-off from Fraunhofer and Technical University of Dresden in 2001 with just 3 people, the idea was to market its doping technology Novaled PIN OLED^®) along with its proprietary materials. Today, quite an impressive number of well known display and lighting makers are customers of Novaled. That means we offer IP, licensing and technology transfer packages but also R&D contracting as well as trainings.

Novaled 15x15 cm white OLED

Plextronics and Cambrios announced that they will co-develop cost-effective high performance material that could improve OLED lighting's production process and quality. This is partly funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE). The project has actually started in April 16th, and will last for two years. We reported about the $1.2 DOE grant to Cambrios back in January 2010. The whole project will cost $1.8 according to the earlier report.

The idea is to apply Plextronic's PlexCore OC hole injection layer (HIL) material on top of Cambrios' ClearOhm material which creates a transparent electrode to form a transparent conducting hole injection (TCHI) electrode.

There are reports that Wintek will transfer its 3-Gen production lines for AMOLED and LTPS production and will start mass production towards the end of 2011. Wintek will invest around $100 million in the AMOLED program.

A few weeks ago we reported the Wintek will use the old production line of Windell in the Taichung Industrial Park, Taiwan. According to the new reports, Wintek will not use Windell's production lines, but will indeed use their R&D team to develop the AMOLED products. It was also said that Wintek will collaborate with TPK on AMOLED development.

A few days ago we reported about Samsung's new 4.5" WVGA (800x480) flexible AMOLED prototype, and today we have a couple of new photos and some more information.

The panel is made from LTPS TFTs, on a polyimide substrate. The OLED is top-emission, and is made by vapor deposition. The brightness is 250cd/m², and the contrast ratio is 100,000:1.

AU Optronics is showing a 14" 3D (active-shutter) AMOLED TV with a full-HD (1920x1080) resolution in 3D or 2D mode. Back in October 2009, AUO showed 14" AMOLED prototypes, it's not clear whether the same display with 3D support, or is that an altogether new panel.

AUO is also showing OLED lighting panels. AUO's panel offer 50 lumens/watt efficiency and comes with an embedded high-efficiency green power drive. Last month we reported that AUO might be developing OLED Lighting panels, so it's good to see that this is true. Back in 2006, AUO was using Universal Display's PHOLED materials for AMOLED displays, but we do not know whether they are using them now for the lighting panels.