Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 41

Nippon Steel Chemical and Universal Display (UDC) today announced a collaboration to develop new markets for red phosphorescent OLED materials. As the background of this collaboration, there is the fact that a commercially-available red host material from NSCC is compatible with commercially-available red phosphorescent OLED emitters from Universal Display.
By using red phosphorescence, overall power consumption of the display can be reduced by more than 40% as compared to using fluorescent red OLEDs. The combination of Universal Display's red PHOLED materials and NSCC's host material, called NS11, offers very efficient, highly desirable red colors with long operational lifetime. These products are currently available for evaluation and commercial use from the two companies.

Universal Display Corporation will announce today it has been awarded a $1.275 million contract extension from the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC). The extension will leverage the Company's achievements under its prior Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III contract.

Under the extended program, Universal Display, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and L-3 Communications - Display Systems, will continue developing a flexible, active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display for a wrist-based communications device. The combined team plans to incorporate enhancements in performance and functionality into the next generation of display prototypes to be delivered to the U.S. Departments of the Army and the Air Force.

The full-color AMOLED display device is enabled by Universal Display's proprietary PHOLED, TOLED® top-emitting OLED and FOLED® flexible OLED technologies, as well as by PARC's LTPS TFT technology. The electronics and packaging for the wrist-based device are from L-3 Communications Display Systems.

Universal Display Corporation today announced its results of operations for the quarter ended March 31, 2006. Revenues in the first quarter of 2006 totaled $3,271,406, compared to $1,467,068 for the comparable quarter in 2005. Revenues consisted of $536,061 in government contract research revenue, $675,906 from development chemical revenue, $398,479 from commercial chemical revenue, $930,846 royalty and license fees, and $730,114 in technology development revenue.

The year-over-year increase in revenues is attributable to the recent signing of a material supply agreement with a major display manufacturer. This primarily affected royalty and license fee revenue and commercial chemical revenue during the quarter.

Universal Display Corp. has signed agreements with the University of Michigan, Princeton University and the University of Southern California to continue sponsoring research in organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology. Universal Display (Ewing, N.J.) will provide up to $4.6 million in funding to sponsoring organic electronics under the direction of Professors Stephen R. Forrest and Mark E. Thompson at their respective institutions over the next three years.

The company has already funded over $7.5 million in sponsored research at Princeton University and the University of Southern California since 1994.

Ron Mertens from OLED-Info.com recently had the opportunity to interview Janice Mahon, Universal Display's VP of technology commercialization.

Janice, could you give a small introduction about UDC, and about your PHOLED products?

Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ: PANL) is a world leader in the development of innovative OLED technology for use in flat panel displays, lighting and other opto-electronics applications. Founded in 1994, Universal Display provides state-of-the-art OLED technology and services to OLED manufacturers to enhance their products' features and competitive advantage. We have developed proprietary OLED technologies and materials that should provide dramatically enhanced display performance at lower costs than today's liquid crystal displays.

DisplaySearch celebrated its 10th anniversary by holding its 8th Annual US FPD Conference at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego, California.

• Kodak discussed new solutions to improving a number of the manufacturing problems that have limited the progress of OLEDs. Kodak claimed to have improved AMOLED yields by a factor of ten over two years and expects AMOLEDs to be cost competitive at up to 4" vs. TFT LCDs by 2007.
• UDC is making real progress with blue phosphorescent solutions and a commercial solution is expected soon.
• CDT indicated it expects the first full color ink-jet printed polymer OLEDs to become available in 2006.
• Samsung SDI revealed their cost reduction strategy to make AMOLEDs competitive with TFT LCDs.

With 13 of the 70 technical sessions at the Symposium, OLEDs represent the largest single technology concentration at SID 2006. Sessions will focus on OLED device structures, active-matrix (AM) OLEDs, OLED manufacturing, materials, and blue-emitting OLEDs. Notable OLED papers will cover flexible AMOLEDs on stainless-steel substrates (one paper each by Samsung SDI and Universal Display Corp.), and white OLEDs (Novaled GmbH).

Universal Display has been awarded a $500,000 extension to a successfully completed Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC).

This extension builds on previous advances Universal Display (Ewing, N.J.) made in developing full-color, active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays fabricated on a flexible metal foil substrate, based on the company's proprietary technologies and materials. The focus of the contract extension is to incorporate a laminated protective layer to the flexible AMOLED display, as well as to develop additional communications functionality and to integrate the display into a wrist-mountable housing.

Universal Display Corporation today announced results for the fourth quarter and year end 2005. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2005, Universal Display had revenues of $10,147,995, compared to $7,006,913 in 2004. Revenues continued to grow year-over-year, driven by contract research revenue and development chemicals sales revenue, both of which indicate increased pre-commercial activity in the development and commercialization of Universal Display’s proprietary phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED™) technology. For the year, the Company reported a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $15,801,612 or $(0.56) per diluted share, versus a net loss of $15,906,198, or $(0.59) per diluted share in 2004.

In 2005, Universal Display continued to build a solid foundation for future growth in the display industry, said Sidney D. Rosenblatt, Chief Financial Officer of Universal Display. We generated consistent improvement in our financial fundamentals, with revenues and operating cash flow exhibiting continued traction, and we end the year with a solid balance sheet. At the same time, we established a robust platform for OLED research and commercialization with the expansion of our headquarters facility. We believe that 2006 will show a number of financial and technological advances for Universal Display.

Universal Display says there is no row between it and UK organic LED company Cambridge Display Technology following a patent UDC revealed recently. The patent is primarily about the ability to ink-jet print OLEDs using small molecular materials, instead of polymeric materials, for light emission, Janice Mahon, v-p of technology commercialisation at US-based UDC told Electronics Weekly. CDT’s patents largely cover polymeric emissive materials and it is unlikely the patent will cause a conflict.

However, while UDC’s technology in this new patent is fundamentally small-molecule and not polymer, UDC’s patent portfolio broadly covers phosphorescent OLED technology, said UDC’s Mahon. It is too early to tell what structures will be commercialised. We have a very important phosphorescent portfolio just as CDT has a very important polymer portfolio, said Mahon. Mahon added: The competition is LCD, it is not polymer versus small molecule.