Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 42

Universal Display Corporation announced today that the Company has entered into an agreement with AU Optronics, to supply the Company's proprietary PHOLED(TM) phosphorescent OLED material for use in an active matrix OLED product.

Universal Display's proprietary PHOLED technology offers up to four times higher efficiency than conventional OLED technology - a feature that is very important for today's battery-operated cell phones and other portable devices, as well as for tomorrow's large-area TVs and solid-state lighting products. Over the past few years, the Company has announced a series of record-breaking performance milestones for its red, green and blue PHOLED systems. The Company's PHOLED materials, manufactured by PPG Industries exclusively for Universal Display, are currently being evaluated and used in commercial production by a number of electronics manufacturers.

CDT announced today that it has acquired an important portfolio of patent rights from Maxdem Inc. The portfolio includes five US patent applications and their foreign equivalents relating to new light emitting polymer compositions and applications. The deal also includes a license to a large number of patents / applications relating to polyphenylene polymers and other polymer compositions and purification methods. These are expected to be useful in future materials improvements.

Included in the acquisition from Maxdem is a patent application for the invention of phosphorescent compositions containing a critical class of polymer materials in combination with metals / metal ions. CDT believes this provides a fundamental position in the use of conjugated polymers to achieve high efficiency phosphorescent emission in solution processable devices, whether for ink jet printing or any other means of solution processing.

In the paper titled Full Color 100 dpi AMOLED Displays on Flexible Stainless Steel Substrates, Dr. Anna Chwang will highlight the performance characteristics of a novel flexible, full-color AMOLED display prototype that is based on the Company’s proprietary phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED™), top-emitting OLED (TOLED®) and flexible OLED (FOLED®) technologies. The full-color AMOLED prototype also uses LTPS TFT backplanes designed and fabricated by PARC, a subsidiary of Xerox Corporation, and was encapsulated by Vitex Systems.

The four-inch diagonal display can portray a variety of images, including full-motion video. This advance is significant in proving the fundamental feasibility of the Company’s approach and also clearly demonstrates several key performance advantages. The display (without external drive electronics and package) is approximately 0.1 mm thick and weighs a mere 6 grams. The comparable glass-based LCD would be approximately 1.0-1.5 mm thick and weigh 20-30 grams. Research and development activities are continuing in a number of areas including enhanced display flexibility, defect elimination and enhanced electronics capabilities

UDC announced today that it has been awarded a significant patent covering ink-jet printing of phosphorescent OLED displays, US Patent No. 6,982,179, titled "Structure and Method of Fabricating Organic Devices".

"This PHOLED ink-jet printing patent provides another option for OLED manufacturers in choosing how to produce displays using our proprietary phosphorescent OLED technology," said Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Operating Officer of Universal Display Corporation. "The patent is a further demonstration of the breadth and depth of Universal Display's PHOLED technology, which is widely recognized as critical for OLED displays - from small, where power efficiency is critical, to large, where power efficiency equates to less heat generation."

Universal Display Corporation announced it has been awarded a $69,999 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the U.S. Army Research Laboratories (ARL), for a program entitled Flexible and Conformal Environmental Barrier Technology for Displays.

During this Phase I program, Universal Display will integrate a novel low-temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process coating technology with its proprietary FOLED®, TOLED® and PHOLED™ technologies. The PECVD process is based on pioneering research at Princeton University, which is believed to enable the deposition of flexible and protective films onto the top surface in an OLED without causing damage to the OLED. The end result will be the demonstration of a flexible OLED display prototype built on a stainless steel substrate. This research is an important element toward the Company’s goal of developing a rugged, long-lived, thin and lightweight flexible OLED display technology for both military and commercial applications.

Sidney Rosenblatt, Chief Financial Officer of Universal Display Corporation, in a presentation titled "Changing the Display Landscape through Phosphorescent OLEDs," will announce the achievement of key technological milestones in the Company's development of blue PHOLED materials and technology. Universal Display's new blue PHOLED system with sky blue color of CIE (0.16, 0.37) now offers luminous efficiency of 20 candelas per ampere (cd/A) and 100,000 hours of operating lifetime at 200 candelas per square meter (cd/m2). This follows the Company's breakthrough announcement in June, 2005 of a sky blue PHOLED with over 15,000 hours at 200 cd/m2. That was the first significant blue PHOLED to break through the 1,000 hour lifetime barrier.

The Company has also made significant progress in the demonstration of deeper blue performance. Mr. Rosenblatt will present a proprietary new blue PHOLED with CIE (0.16, 0.29), excellent luminous efficiency of 21 cd/A and over 17,500 hours of operating lifetime at 200 cd/m2. This corresponds to over 3,000 hours at 500 cd/m2, a target luminance for commercial applications.

UDC today announced it has been awarded a two-year, $730,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract by the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC).

Under the terms of the contract, Universal Display will develop and demonstrate an active-matrix, flexible PHOLED display containing infrared (IR)-emitting PHOLED pixels in addition to visible spectrum PHOLED pixels. The Company's infrared (IR)-emission OLED technology is being designed to be seen only through night vision goggles so to avoid visual detection in darkness. By combining IR-emitting and visible PHOLED pixels into one display, the Company is creating a novel display architecture to meet the Army's requirement for a single, high-information-content display that works in high, low and no light conditions.

The active-matrix PHOLED display, also enabled by Universal Display's proprietary flexible OLED and top-emission OLED technologies, will be built on flexible metal foil using poly-silicon backplane technology from Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to provide flexibility, light weight and ruggedness. As a continuation from the Phase I program, University of Southern California will develop novel PHOLED materials for evaluation in the prototype.

Revenues for the three months ended September 30, 2005 were $3,372,870, compared to $1,711,629 in the third quarter of 2004. Revenues increased as the Company saw gains in contract research revenue and development chemical revenue during the quarter. Continued revenue growth in development chemicals sales demonstrates increased ongoing pre-commercial activity in the development and commercialization of the Company’s OLED technologies.

The Company reported a net loss of $2,979,140 (or $0.10 per share) for the quarter ended September 30, 2005, compared to a net loss of $3,752,662 (or $0.14 per share) for the same quarter in 2004. The decreased loss was due primarily to increased revenues, offset to some extent by increased total operating expenses.

Revenues for the nine month period ended September 30, 2005 were $7,851,932, compared to $5,313,642 for the same period in 2004. The Company’s net loss for the nine-month period was $11,160,021 (or $0.39 per share), compared to a loss of $12,380,535 (or $0.47 per share) for the same nine months in 2004. Again, the decreased loss was due primarily to increased revenues, offset to some extent by increased total operating expenses.

The Company was cash flow positive from operations for the third quarter of 2005. Net cash provided from operating activities was $1,087,311 for the three months ended September 30, 2005, compared to cash used in operating activities of $1,653,539 for the same period in 2004. The positive cash flow position was a result of increased revenues, decreased operating losses, and the receipt of over $2.1 million of technology development fees during the quarter.

RiTdisplay has signed off the system acceptance of the first Gen2 OVPD(R) system for mass production of OLEDs. The engineering teams of RiTdisplay and AIXTRON could jointly qualify OVPD(R) technology for manufacture of OLED devices for full color display applications. The B-testing co-operation yielded OLED devices with better performance as compared to devices manufactured with conventional technology (VTE).

Dr. Yih Chang, General Manager of RiTdisplay, states: "The impressive performance of our OLEDs made by OVPD(R) has proven our investment into this new technology to be right. Use of this new leading edge technology will foster and strengthen our positioning in the OLED display market."
The qualification of the Gen2 manufacturing tool is the breakthrough for OVPD(R) technology. Based on gas phase transport and AIXTRON's proprietary Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) technology OVPD(R) has significant advantages over conventional deposition equipment (VTE), such as precise control of deposition rates, long term process stability and reproducibility, high throughput due to high deposition rates, high yield due to excellent uniformity, low maintenance and running cost due to highly efficient material utilization etc. The gas phase process further enables realization of advanced device structures including for example graded layers. Organic Vapor Phase Deposition OVPD.

OVPD technology has been exclusively licensed to AIXTRON from Universal Display Corporation (UDC) for equipment manufacture. AIXTRON and UDC have jointly developed and qualified OVPD pre-production equipment.

UDC announced today that it has been awarded a two-year, $750,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a novel white OLED light source featuring the Company’s proprietary TOLED® transparent OLED technology.

In this program entitled, High Efficiency White TOLED Devices for Lighting Applications, the Company is employing its proprietary TOLED technology to demonstrate a novel lighting concept with improved light extraction. In a conventional OLED, only approximately 25 30% of the light generated in the device is emitted to the viewer. Technologies to extract more of the light generated as useable light emission are important for achieving the performance required for OLEDs in lighting applications. During the Phase I program, Universal Display demonstrated a 20% enhancement in the amount of light extracted from an OLED by using the Company’s TOLED structure integrated with an external reflector. During this follow-on Phase II, the Company intends to optimize the performance of this novel design for white lighting applications.