Displays & Lighting

In this final article for Printed Electronics World covering S I D 2009, we give highlights from some of the technical sessions covering progress with OLEDs

IDTechEx looks at progress at E ink at S.I.D. held in San Antonio

The world's leading provider of e‐reading solutions, Netherlands‐based iRex Technologies, announced new progress on development of a next generation of color, writable, ultra‐thin digital readers expected to launch mid 2011.

CPFilms® Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Solutia Inc. (NYSE: SOA), and the world's leading manufacturer and marketer of precision coated films for industrial, commercial and solar applications, announced the launch of their new Invisible ITO and Low Color b ITO polyester films for touch screen display applications.

This week IDTechEx is at the annual S.I.D. (Society for Information Displays) event in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Over the coming days we will provide coverage in Printed Electronics World of the latest developments announced at the event.

IDTechEx visited Professor Michael Thwaites at RF sputtering company Plasma Quest in Hampshire in the UK.

IDTechEx previews Art Technology's new brand of phosphor watches which incorporate an E-paper display from E-ink.

Flextech (formerly the U.S. Display Consortium, USDC) is an organization whose members include companies involved in all aspects of printed, flexible and organic electronics.

Cathleen Macher, IDTechEx reports on the progress of conformal and flexible displays as presented at the recent Printed Electronics Europe event in Germany.

Revolutionary digital walls will provide consumers with the ability to constantly change the appearance of their personal housing environment to suit their visual tastes

Plastic Logic has announced a strategic partnership agreement with the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, Michigan's largest and award-winning metro daily newspapers, to offer an innovative digital content delivery and distribution program with its forthcoming Plastic Logic Reader.

IDTechEx looks into electronic devices that have "evolved", starting with the Television.

Susann Reuter, Director of IDTechEx, visited Citala US Inc. in the heart of California's Silicon Valley where the company develops, manufactures, supplies and supports flexible, reflective displays.

The competition is currently heating up with the development of Gen II (flexible) e-book readers.

The Flexible Display Centre (FDC) at Arizona State University has announced that Applied Materials, Inc., through its Display Business Group-AKT, has become an Associate Member, joining the ranks of other world-class providers of technology, materials and process equipment who are collaborating with the FDC to develop advanced flexible electronic displays.

NTERA, Inc., the leader in all-printed, flexible, color change display technologies, and GSI Technologies, the leading manufacturer of functional printed electronic components, has announced that they have entered into a multi-year license and material supply agreement to produce devices using NTERA's NanoChromics™ technology.

How Printed Electronics is changing consumer goods and services - highlights from the forthcoming Printed Electronics USA event

IDTechEx finalises its report on the Intellipak conference held on 5 November in Sweden

IDTechEx is famed for organising visits to local centers of excellence. On 30 September, delegates were treated to visits to the University of Tokyo and the skyscrapers of Sony and Toppan Forms in central Tokyo.

PowerFilm Inc to receive funding to develop a Self Powered Flexible Display for the U.S. Army.

Single-wall carbon nanotube (CNT) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are now possible for flexible displays and electronics.

In the last few years there has been increasing work on printed Zinc Oxide (ZnO) inorganic semiconductors. However, the materials developed have been used to demonstrated n-type transistors, but p-type transistors have not been commercially available. There are now two organizations that IDTechEx is aware of, and many more working on the topic, claiming p-type ZnO transistors are possible with reproducible results.

Dr Harry Zervos, technology analyst with IDTechEx, interviewed Jacques Angelé, co-founder and VP Technology Programs of Nemoptic SA, an electronic paper display company.

The 2.7 inch diagonal E Ink display scrolls through 96 different images in a stylish animation and is activated when a call or message is received.

Researchers have found a simple way to uniformly deposit between one and five layers of graphene to create transistors and proof-of concept electrodes for organic photovoltaics.

European researchers have taken a major step towards the goal of developing printable electronics that can be used for creating radio frequency identification tags and flexible watch displays.

Analysts see printed electronics rising exponentially to around $300 billion in twenty years' time, with demand for conductive inks alone reaching several billion dollars yearly five years from now.

IDTechEx summarise the latest on e-paper displays from Japan

The biggest challenge to roll out more digital displays is the regulatory environment, not the capital cost.

CDT and Sumitomo Chemicals, leaders in polymer organic light emitting diode (P-OLED) devices, and Novaled, the leader in high efficiency p-i-n OLED structures and dopant materials, have agreed to collaborate under a joint development agreement to investigate the feasibility and benefits of new materials and Novaled PIN OLED™ structures in P-OLED devices.

At the SID 2008 event last week, Kevin Luczkow of the Kraft Group discussed their use of large area displays in a new sports exhibit hall they are building. The Kraft Group's assets in sports and entertainment include the New England Patriots, the New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium.

A claimed breakthrough barrier technology from Singapore protects sensitive devices like organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solar cells from moisture 1000 times more effectively than any other technology available in the market.

Printed electronics is evolving so fast that the full variety of benefits arising has yet to become clear.

A common theme in the IDTechEx conference Printed Electronics in Dresden this week was the shortage of creative product design.

Chemists and physicists are hard at work developing production processes for graphene - one day it may even be printable.

IDTechEx, along with other analysts, forecast the printed electronics market. While some agree others give widely different figures. After analyzing the industry for nine years, IDTechEx has just completed a new report covering the forecasts of the industry in great detail. Here Raghu Das, CEO, summarises the findings giving that crucial detail behind our forecasts.

Scientists from Tokyo University have just revealed a reliable method to inkjet print dots of one micron on to flexible film.

South Korean engineers say that they had developed a new transparent electrode that could reduce the production costs of display screens used in computers and mobile phones.

It sounds like science fiction but smart paint may be available in the near future.

A stretchable, flexible self-cleaning device that can be used as a mobile phone or keyboard that harvests solar energy and senses the environment by using nanotechnology was launched this week.

Part 2 of the IDTechEx review of the Flexible Displays Conference in Phoenix.

IDTechEx attended the recent Flexible Displays Conference in Phoenix. Read our review here - part 1.

SnapWatch Ltd, a UK-based start-up has patented a flexible watch concept using E paper display technology.

The recent conference Printed Electronics USA in San Francisco had a presentation by two people from the secretive company Quantum Paper.

Polymer Vision's e-reader with mobile phone has finally gone into production after 10 years of research & development and more than two years after the prototype was demonstrated at a consumer electronics trade fair.

Engineers at the University of Washington, US have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

Printed batteries and printed displays will be the first products of prelonic technologies OG, a new High-Tech company recently founded in Linz, Austria.

Organic based solution processable devices may revolutionise the lighting and photovoltaic industries of the future.

Intel has withdrawn from one of the schemes to supply children in the developing world with $100 laptop computers after a dispute with its partners in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project.

NexTech FAS, have announced that a leading organic light-emitting diode (OLED) process development company has placed multiple orders for its Advantage II Extrusion Coating system to be integrated into an R&D line for development of OLED displays.