Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 31

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.

Universal Display Corporation has been awarded a $334,000 extension to a US army Small-Business-Innovation-Research (SBIR) phase III contract. UDC will continue to work on their flexible OLED display technology, and will deliver new prototype flexible displays built on metal foil (using amorphhous-silicon backplanes). The new displays will also be encased in new and thinner housing (the old ones were pretty bulky, as can be seen in the photo below).

UDC is working on this together with LG Display and L-3 display systems. They will focus on the design and performance of the OLED displays. The technology is being evaluation by the US Department of Defense for military applications such as a wrist-mounted display for soldiers.

Universal Display Corporation say they have been awarded  two new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I $100,000 programs for OLED lighting from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE):

• In the first project, UDC will demonstrate a very high-efficiency white PHOLED lighting device. Universal Display’s goal is to demonstrate further gains in power efficiency, exceeding its prior research milestone of 102 lumens per watt.
• In the second project, UDC will demonstrate a white PHOLED using the company’s novel OLED permeation barrier technology. The Company, working with Princeton University, recently demonstrated a material system that forms an ultra-hermetic, flexible and transparent environmental barrier for OLEDs. This may provide a cost-effective packaging solution for high-volume, low-cost manufacture of white OLED lighting devices.

Universal Display Corporation have been awarded a $1.65M two-year contract from the US Department of Energy to demonstrate thin, efficient white OLED lighting concept for under-cabinet applications.  

UDC will deliver several under-cabinet lighting units to the DOE. each unit will have five 6"x6" white OLED panels, with a system efficiency of over 60 lumens per watt which is comparable to existing under-cabinet systems. The OLED lamps will be much thinner than anything available today, enabling new design concepts, and will make for easier installations.

UDC are also working on ceiling lamps, together with Armstrong, and have recently showed a video with the new 24" OLED lamps.

Universal Display Corporation today announced its financial results. For 2Q 2009, the company lost 6.4M$ and had 2.9M$ in revenue.

UDC's expenses were higher, but so was the revenue - but the growth was in development contacts and not in commercial shipments and royalties (which were actually lower than 2Q 2008).

Konica Minolta is launching an online OLED lighting ad campaign (ads were spotted in CNN video, for example). Konica Minolta is working on Phosphorescent OLED lighting, together with UDC and GE. They have plans to release their first products by 2011. It seems like OLED lighting is heating up (unlike the OLED panels), especially since Philips has started shipping samples, and I guess KM also wants to make an early impact, and hopefully we'll hear more from them soon. Perhaps they also plan an "early launch" of samples, like Philips.

KM says that OLED lighting will "change our world", it's the biggest invention in lighting since Edison, and focus on the environmental bonuses and design possibilities. KM also seems to working on flexible or curved OLEDs, or at least they list these as some of OLED's advantages.

Curvlinear OLED lighting vessel concept

They also sponsor several artists, envisioning the future of OLED lighting. Currently there's just one concept from Seifert Stoeckmann, with their "curvilinear light vessel" concept, seen above (more photos and explanation available at KM's site). Their idea is to enable gently curving objects - which might be small "palm" sized objects to giant UFO-like outdoor pieces (shown above).

CDT is one of the leaders in OLED research, focusing on Polymer-based OLEDs (PLEDs, also called P-OLEDs). While these OLEDs are lagging behind small-molecule OLEDs in current products (all AMOLEDs today are based on SM-OLEDs), some companies believe that PLEDs are actually the better tech for the future.

CDT's CEO, David Fyfe has agreed to answer a few questions we had on CDT's technology. David joined CDT in 2000 as Chairman and CEO. David saw CDT go public in 2004, and then negotiated the sale of CDT to Sumitomo for $285 million (in September 2007). David is also a director of Soligie, an electronics printing company, Acal Energy, a fuel cell technology developer and the Plastic Electronics Foundation.

Q: David - thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Since the Sumitomo acquisition, CDT has been rather quiet... can you give us an update on where's the company now, and where's it is headed?
Since the merger of CDT into Sumitomo Chemical in September 2007, CDT has grown substantially and received considerable capital investment to enable it to remain a leading developer of PLED technology. It works very closely with SCC laboratories in Japan and most recently has been transferring manufacturing process knowhow to SCC's own PLED manufacturing development line, recently commissioned at Ehime on Shikoku, Japan. CDT in partnership with SCC has made large strides in materials lifetimes and efficiencies. SCC prefers to take a lower profile in announcing these advances since its business model is to work with selected display maker partners in a collaborative, confidential relationship. We have also made big strides in the development of top emitting structures and in printing PLED displays. SCC's strategy is that CDT will continue to be its leading development center for PLED technology with Ehime scaling process technology to a yielding process status. CDT is also working very closely with Semprius of North Carolina, USA to develop single crystal silicon TFT structures on which PLED devices can be deposited and driven using Semprius’ proprietary stamping technology.

Q: It seems that OLED displays are finally entering the mainstream - we hear of new devices (mainly by Samsung, but also from Sony, Microsoft, LG and others) almost daily. What are your thoughts on this? what are the challenges that still exist for OLEDs?
Sony broke the logjam of resistance to the adoption of OLED in large displays by major display makers with the introduction of its XEL-1 11 OLED TV in 2007. Samsung SDI’s investment in small screen OLED production in 2007, based on LTPS backplanes was another major impetus. Since then, Chi Mei has brought on small OLED screen capacity, TMD (now wholly owned by Toshiba) has built an OLED line to manufacture small screens, LG Display will start up their Gen 3.5 line late this year and if press reports are to be believed, Toppoly will commission their capacity with Nokia as a lead customer and Panasonic have a major OLED development program for large OLED displays.

Universal Display is working on a ceiling OLED lamp, together with Armstrong World Industries. This is partly funded by the US Department of Energy, in a 2-year 2M$ grant (started July 2008). UDC have now released this video showing the OLED panel, which is 24-inch wide:

UDC has been awarded a $750,000 contract from the US Air Force, to work on a non-glass, ejection-safe, flexible OLED display prototype for prospective use by pilots in tactical cockpit settings.

The idea is to provide pilots with a replacement for printed maps and checklists typically held on their knees. The pilots will be able to 'wrap' the OLED around a cylinder for easy storage during flight.

UDC are working on their flexible OLED together with L3 and LG Display, and have already shown some wearable (bracelet) prototypes before. The displays are energy efficient, offer full-color video rate and have wireless communications capabilities.

UDC, LG and L3 will deliver four prototypes based on a bright 6 diagonal, full-color, low power consumption PHOLED display on flexible metal foil. These displays will then be wrapped around cylinders containing power supplies and wireless communications electronics.

Universal Display and Seiko Epson have been working on their inkjet printable, phosphorescent
OLED technology and materials for quite some time... They have now announced new advances in performace:

• A red P²OLED
  with CIE (0.67, 0.33), an efficiency of 10 candela per ampere (cd/A) and
  an operating lifetime of 20,000 hours, to 50% of initial luminance of
  1,000 nits


• A green P²OLED with CIE (0.33, 0.62), an
  efficiency of 34 cd/A and an operating lifetime of 25,000 hours.