Technical / Research - Page 94

LG Chem is the latest company to start working on OLED Lighting. LG Chem is showing 4 sizes of OLED Lighting panels, in the form of a Mondrian photo:

• 50x70 mm
• 150x20 mm
• 150x30 mm
• 150x150 mm

LG Chem's panels use green and red PHOLED materials made by Universal Display, and SFC's deep-blue fluorescent OLED (UDC and SFC are working together since 2008). The basic structure is Anode-Blue-Intermediate Layer (using LG 101 materials) Green&Red Cathode, and the panels provide various color temperature (this was achieved by changing the thickness of materials and the laminar structure).

 

The OLEDs on display were cold, full white OLEDs, with 20-25lm/W efficiency and a color temperature of 5000-6800K.

LG Chem's plan is to mass produce OLED Lighting products in 2H 2010 and is developing equipment together with Sunic System. LG Chem currently uses 200x200 deposition equipment and pre-process equipment.

Polar OLED is a new company, spun off from the University of Hull in the UK. Polar is working on "liquid crystal based polymer OLED materials", and are currently shipping sample materials for research. Polar say that their materials will be far more cost effective to manufacture than what's available today. These materials are neither Small-Molecule nor Polymer based.

Polar were kind enough to answer a few of our questions:

Q: Are your materials fluorescent or phosphorescent?

The Polar OLED materials can be described as fluorescent.

NEMO (NEw Materials for OLEDs) is a new EU project focusing on new emitting systems based on soluble small molecules with long lifetime and efficiency. NEMO is led be four companies (coordinated by Merck) and seven research and academic institutions (including the Fraunhofer institute). The project is scheduled to last for 2.5 years, and is funded by the German government with 32 million euros.

Idemitsu Kosan is showing some new OLED lighting prototypes using their own fluorescent and phosphorescent OLED materials. Phosphorescent OLEDs are more efficient than fluorescent ones. In the following photo, the panel on the left has a high-color temperature, and uses both fluorescent and phosphorescent materials (it is targeted mainly for the EU market). The other 3 panels use just fluorescent materials, and have a low color temperature.

Idemitsu has already commercialized their red phosphorescent, and almost commercialized the green one. They still do not know when they'll be able to release a blue color material, currently the lifetime is about 10% of what the clients need.

Here's the data sheet for the OLED materials, where you can see the lifetime and efficiency of each color:

Samsung is showing a new 30" 3D AMOLED panel. It's got Full-HD resolution, and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The width is 2.5 mm. It uses Samsung's SEAV (Simultaneous Emission with Active Voltage) 3D technology. To view the 3D image, one must use special glasses.

UPDATE: DisplaySearch says that the display is not stable, and SMD only showed it for a few hours and then moved it to another location.

IGNIS Innovation, in partnership with Kodak and Prime View International (PVI), has developed a 5" segment of a 32" OLED HDTV AMOLED display, using industry standard amorphous silicon thin film transistors (TFT). The prototype uses IGNIS' MaxLIfe solution, which compensates separately for both the TFT and LED degradation using only an electrical feedback - an industry first. This technology does not use any optical sensors which are unreliable.

IGNIS reports 20 years lifetime (when watching 12 hours a day), there is no burn-in images (the MaxLife technology keeps differential aging to 3% or less). The prototype was built using an amorphous silicon backplane from PVI using their standard a-Si LCD mass production process while the frontplane uses Kodak's long life and low power RGBW technology that delivers a vivid and outstanding viewing experience. They say that this combination provides the first reliable, low ost and scalable architecture.

IGNIS has also shown a 2.2" QVGA (181ppi) display module, using their AdMo (Advanced Mobile) compensation platform. They report over 50,000hrs lifetime (in house testing), large temperature range (-30c to 80c), suitable for automotive applications. The sophisticated compensation technology is built entirely in-pixel, meaning low-cost driver ICs are used, lending itself to a simple ‘drop-in’ display that is easily swappable into devices using legacy LCDs. The AdMo prototype use an amorphous silicon backplane, the standard TFT of the LCD industry that has traditionally been regarded as unusable for AMOLED displays. However, through its patented technology IGNIS is able compensate for the low mobility and in-stabilities of amorphous silicon, and as a result, for no additional capital investment costs, enables the manufacture of AMOLED backplanes at existing TFT plants.

AU Optronics are showing a new 14" OLED panel, with full HD resolution at 157 ppi. The brightness on an all-white image is 200cd/m2, the contrast is 100,000:1, the frequency is 120Hz and they say it's shows 72% NTSC color gamut. 

AUO claims that this panel are ready for mass production. They are using an evaporation method with a metal stencil mask.

Visionox (a Chinese company) is showing new 'decorative'  OLED lighting and display prototypes. There's an OLED lamp, and an OLED digital photo frame.

Visionox say they have achieved the following technology breakthroughs:

• Long lifetime (over 100,000 hours halftime at brightness of 1000 cd/m2) fluorescent white OLEDs with a composite blue emitting structure.
• Highly efficient hybrid OLEDs with an efficiency of over 40 lm/W at the brightness of 1000 cd/m2 without any light out-coupling technology.
• Flexible OLED lighting and transparent OLED lighting samples.

Visionox say that their decorative OLED-Lighting products are actually available in small volumes. They hope to enter the general lighting markets in a few years.

The lamps look very much like the TOPLESS project lamp prototypes (shown back in August).

Both Samsung and LG are showing new transparent OLED prototypes. The LG one is a 15" panel, aimed for "public places". LG does not have any plans to commercialize it yet.

LG 15-inch transparent OLED prototype

Samsung showed a smaller (2") transparent OLED, with a 176x220 resolution at 141ppi. The luminance is 300 cd/m²for the top emission and 100cd/m² for the bottom emission.

Samsung 2-inch transparent OLED prototype

ST Microelectronics announced a "key design win" for its power management ICs for AMOLED displays from a leading manufacturer in Korea (which is probably Samsung or LG).