Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 23

Universal Display announced that they have been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project to demonstrate further gains the performance of large-area phosphorescent based OLED lighting panels through enhanced thermal management techniques. The DOE awarded $1 million (or $999,963, to be exact) to UDC. This is a follow up to the SBIR Phase I project awarded in June 2010.

While OLEDs generate low heat, and UDC's PHOLED technology and materials generate even less heat, using thermal management techniques can still lower operating temperature and extend the OLED's lifetime.

Konica Minolta announced a new next-generation lighting brand called Symfos. The first Symfos product is the OLED-010K OLED lighting panel sample kit - which is now shipping. The kit includes four OLED panels, and external driver box and an AC adapter.

The OLED itself uses all phosphorescent emitters (KM is using Universal Display's PHOLED technology) and offers 45 lm/W. This is the same panel that Philips is offering (as the Lumiblade Plus). In fact Philips is producing this panel for Konica Minolta, as was announced in July 2011. We do not know the price of the OLED-010K kit, but Philips is selling each Lumiblade Plus panel for €120.

Universal Display entered into an OLED technology license agreement with Pioneer Corporation. Pioneer will use company's UniversalPHOLED and other OLED technologies and will also purchase PHOLED materials - to be used for OLED lighting products. Pioneer will pay running royalties. The term of the agreement continues until Pioneer sells a specified amount of licensed products.

Pioneer has been using UDC's PHOLED materials in their PMOLED displays since 2003. The company has an OLED lighting joint-venture with Mitsubishi Chemicals - which will market Pioneer's panels under the Verbatim brand. Verbatim announced the color-tunable VELVE OLED lighting panels in February 2011, we're not sure if these are actually shipping yet as promised back in April.

Universal Display and PPG Industries announced that the two companies renewed their OLED supply and service agreement (originally signed in 2000). The current agreement runs through December 31, 2014 - and is "substantially" similar to the current agreement.

PPG Industries are exclusively producing UDC's PHOLED materials, which are then sold by UDC to their customers.

Panasonic Electric Works announced that they developed a new highly efficient OLED device - featuring 128 lm/W efficiency. This was achieved using a semi-spherical highly-refractive lens to enhance light extraction. The OLED panel is small - only 2x2 mm, and according to Panasonic this is the world's most efficient white OLED.

PEW says that in order to achieve this high efficiency, they inserted a light extraction layer composed of a highly-refractive material between the emissive layer (EML) and the glass substrate. The back side uses a high-reflectivity metal material. Detailed calculations were performed to minimize the internal reflection - this doubled the light extraction efficiency to 40%. This panel uses all-phosphorescent materials, and PEW says that this technique is actually similar to the technique used by Universal Display when they developed the 102 lm/W device back in 2008.

Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) released some very interesting news today regarding their OLED Lighting project. First of all, they announced that Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL), their joint-venture with Idemitsu Kosan will start shipping OLED lighting panels tomorrow (September 1st) - to local and international markets. Those rather small (80x80mm), thin (2mm) and light (38g) OLED panels will feature no less than Ra90 color rendering (they say it's the world's highest) and 3,000 cd/m² - the world's brightest panels. The efficiency is 30 lm/W and lifetime (D70) is 10,000. The temperature is 3,000K (like a regular light bulb).

PEW itself will start offering OLED lighting modules in December 2011 - which will include the OLED panel, a frame and a built-in control circuit. PEW says that these modules will be "easy-to-embed" and will have a narrow frame design (11mm maximum width). You will also be able to replace the OLED panel in the modules in a simple way.

Update: Panasonic announced that they will start shipping OLED panels on September 1st, 2011.

Universal Display signed a technology license agreement with Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL). PIOL will use UDC's OLED materials and technologies in its lighting products, and will pay running royalties on its sales (some of it prepaid) and may also purchase OLED materials. The agreement runs through July 2014.

PEW OLED Lighting panels

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting was established by Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) and Idemitsu Kosan in March 2011, with the aim of developing, manufacturing and marketing OLED lighting panels. The company combines PEW's design and manufacturing technologies with Idemitsu OLED materials. PEW was already using UDC's materials, and it's interesting to hear that the joint-venture will now use UDC materials as well and not just Idemitsu' materials. This validates the claim that efficient OLED lighting (above 40 lm/W or so) requires phosphorescent materials.

Universal Display announced advances in their white OLED lighting panels. The new panels use a Stacked-OLED (SOLED) architecture and exceed the DOE's commercial panel target of 10,000 hours (at an initial luminance of 3,000 cd/m²) by more than 20%. The panels are 15x15cm² in size and feature 90,000 liftimre (D70), 55 lm/W efficiency and a CRI of 86. A stacked-OLED provides better lifetime, but has more layers and is more difficult to manufacture.

The company also showcased an all-phosphorescent, white OLED luminaire designed into an under-cabinet lighting system. This development was funded in part under a DOE Solid State Lighting program back in 2009. The warm-white OLED offer a power efficacy of 70 lm/W when operated at 190 lumens (~1000 cd/m²), and 61 lm/W when at 420 lumens (~2200 cd/m²). The panels operate at a low voltage of ~4 V.

Universal Display and Samsung finally signed a long-term license agreement. Samsung will pay a fixed license fee (the amount was not disclosed, but we'll probably learn more soon) and will also purchase PHOLED materials from UDC - and this includes Green PHOLED as well (as we reported a while back Samsung will start using Green in their new 5.5-Gen fab). The current agreement will last till December 2017.

This is very good news for Universal Display (providing the financial agreement is sound of course) - as it validates the company's patents, which are facing challenges in several countries currently, including Korea.

Moser Baer broke ground today on their new OLED Lighting plant in Canandaigua, NY. They say that construction (for the first pilot line) is currently scheduled to be complete in January 2012 - which is actually a delay (originally they planned to complete the first line in 2011).

Prototype OLED lamps by UDC

Moser Baer's plant will have two pilot production lines and will produce OLED panels based around Universal Display's PH-OLED technology. This is a $20 million project - partly funded by the DOE.