OLED

Mitsubishi aim to begin full-scale mass production with a launch of illumination appliances in 2011.

The European Commission's ICT for Energy Efficiency (ICT4EE) has granted its Best ICT4EE Award to the OLED100.eu project. OLED100.eu has received the First Place Award for its ICT contribution by showing that adoption of OLED lighting can lead to substantial improvements in energy efficiency and for its efforts to educate the public and disseminate the OLED (organic LED) lighting vision.

SmartKem Ltd, the developer of novel materials and processes that create high resolution microelectronic components directly onto thin flexible materials, today announces the launch of its new website - www.smartkem.com. The easy-to-navigate website offers quick access to information about the innovative SmartKem technique, which is set to revolutionise the rapidly growing printed electronics industry and overcome challenges associated with other printed electronics techniques.

One of the biggest obstacles for large OLED panels is the rapid improvement in the performance of competing LCD panels. So what now for OLED displays?

Chris Giacoponello introduced NTERA's concept of "printegration", the possibility to integrate a display, a sensor and a battery by using successive printing steps. NTERA's technology is based on viologen inks that change colour upon accepting electrical charge. Without a need for a transparent conductor, they can be directly deposited on any opaque substrate (e.g. paper, PCB) with better reflectivity and lower cost (avoiding costly ITO).Company demonstrators include RF-powered displays (co-operation with poly-IC), solar powered ones (co-operation with Plextronics) and a device comprising a printed display & battery stack, demonstrated in June 2009.

PureDepth™, Inc. (OTC:PDEP), the creator of Multi-Layer Display™ (MLD) technology and a leader in new visualization experiences, today announced that it has acquired a patent covering methods of assembling, displaying and controlling images on a layered Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display. U.S. Patent 6,720,961, which holds a priority date of November 6, 2000, further strengthens PureDepth's leadership position in MLD technology by incorporating OLEDs, which are fast becoming standard in mobile devices and are expected to dominate the display market in the near future.

An organic light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEC) could be a cheaper alternative to OLED technology.

A new generation of flat panel displays is being developed which may ultimately supersede Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs).

A new lighting technology that provides lighting very similar to the sun could drastically change how our offices and homes are lit in the future.

Revolutionary light emitting wallpaper could replace lightbulbs in two years whilst significantly reducing carbon emissions suggest recent claims.

Power Paper and GE Global Research, the technology development arm for the General Electric Company have signed an agreement to jointly develop self-powered OLED lighting devices. Using low-cost, high volume manufacturing processes, these devices could be deployed in a wide variety of environments from military ships to night-time jogging vests.

As we enter the New Year IDTechEx look back and summarises some of the main global trends in 2009 and gives some predictions, and indeed areas of opportunity, for the New Year.

So-Light project for OLED displays and special lighting released

On December 10, the UK Knowledge Transfer Network had a meeting in Grove Oxfordshire on Emerging Display Technologies and Innovations. About 35 people attended. Professor Ian Underwood of Edinburgh University in Scotland described work on microemissive OLED displays under the title "Hypoled - Next Generation Display Platform ."

Infinity Group Portfolio Company Power Paper and GE collaborate to develop self-powered OLED lighting

Eastman Kodak Company is to sell their OLED business to a group of LG companies in a move to tighten Kodak's business portfolio.

Light, thin, non-glare and warm white - Orbeos is an OLED light source from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors for premium quality functional lighting. The new energy-efficient surface-emitting panel is especially suited to applications in the premium segment such as architecture, hotels and catering, offices, private homes and shops.

Universal Display and the Flexible Display Center at ASU enhance strategic relationship to supply flexible active-matrix pholed display prototypes to U.S. Army. Universal Display also awarded $650,000 U.S. Army SBIR Phase II Enhancement Program to support demonstration of enhanced-performance AMOLEDs on plastic substrates.

Applied Materials, Inc., Merck KGaA and the Braunschweig University of Technology (TU-BS) have announced that they have been awarded a grant by Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to develop processes to lower the cost of manufacturing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting for general illumination applications. Applied will spearhead the three-year project, named Light InLine (LILi), joining forces with Merck, a leading manufacturer of high performance OLED materials and TU-BS, an internationally recognized center for OLED research. Work on the LILi project will be centered at Applied Materials' advanced development facility in Alzenau, Germany.

Konica Minolta to construct a new roll-to-roll pilot coating line to manufacture OLED lighting within its Hino facility in Tokyo.

DuPont has received a $2.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a two-year project to develop a solid-state lighting source using low-cost organic light-emitting diode (OLED) solution-processing manufacturing techniques.

Whilst OLED displays are steadily being found in mobile phones and other small electronic devices, the high costs of mass-producing them has kept the technology from being a serious contender for TVs and PCs in a market dominated by cheaper LCD panels.

H.C.Starck Clevios GmbH announced that it has launched a project called "New materials for OLEDs from solutions" (NEMO) together with Merck KGaA and other renowned partners from industry and science

Last week IDTechEx presented at two events in the US on printed electronics. Here we bring you the highlights of some of the discussions and presentations that took place.

IDTechEx recently visited Taiwan. In 2007, Taiwan's IC industry was $47 billion and its flat panel display industry was $34.36 billion. Leveraging this, it will be a formidable player in printed electronics.

Super low-profile OLED developed in research project

Mitsubishi created a flurry of interest at Japan's consumer electronics exhibition, CEATEC earlier this month with their 155 inch OLED Screen.

The consortium for the HYPOLED project, co-ordinated by Fraunhofer IPMS, has announced collaboration with MicroOLED following the bankruptcy of MicroEmissive Displays late last year.

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and several employees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) plan to combine forces with the Zumtobel Group of Austria to form a joint venture company Ledon OLED Lighting.

Microdisplays based on OLEDs for multimedia applications like video and data display could be available within a couple of years according to Fraunhofer IPMS.

Plextronics and Novaled to collaborate on development of organic lighting technology

CEA-LETI has developed an efficient white OLED with overall transparency, equivalent to 65 to 70% over the whole visible spectrum.

While materials for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are getting better and better, and encouraging news about record-breaking parameters in efficacy and luminance were published quite recently, one of the major problems in flexible lighting and display devices is still unsolved: the lifetime of such devices is too short, and hence, customers are not ready to pay, no matter how impressive and elegant the systems may look.

Universal Display awarded U.S. Department of Energy contract to demonstrate thin, highly efficient OLED lighting. White phosphorescent OLED lighting technology to be integrated into "under cabinet" illumination system as part of the DOE's Solid State Lighting Program.

Novaled announces a large area OLED device fulfilling international lighting specifications.

$14 million funding will enable Plextronics to continue to advance their OLED lighting and OPV products.

An investment of £20m to the Printable Electronics Technology Centre (PETEC) in the North East of England could create up to 1500 jobs across the UK over the next four years in the printed electronics industry.

The closure of several printed electronics operations has now resulted in phoenix operations rising from the ashes.

The University of Texas at Austin and Research and Development company Verstilis has developed a time-saving technology for electronics manufacturing.

At LOPE-C Botest Systems GmbH for the first time presented its new IV Functionality Test System for OLEDs, OPVs and other applications of organic semiconductors.

There are huge opportunities for companies providing inorganic chemicals to printed and potentially printed electronics. Here, Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx, summarises some of the findings from the new IDTechEx report "Inorganic and Composite Printed Electronics 2009-2019."

Andy Hannah CEO of Plextronics, a global leader in OLED materials, gave a powerful message on OLEDs as a breakthrough technology at the LOPE-C conference last week.

The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University and Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ: PANL), has introduced the first a-Si:H active matrix flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display to be manufactured directly on DuPont Teijin's polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate.

In the last year, the burgeoning printed and thin film electronics industry has greatly enhanced its repertoire and changed its priorities, encompassing such things as rapid commercialisation of disposable and invisible electronics.

Following on from the shakeout in OLED developers, IDTechEx sees the same thing happening now in Organic FETs.

Eastman Kodak has been awarded a $1.7 million two-year contract by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), to develop key technologies and processes for OLED lighting panels.

Seiko Epson Corporation has developed inkjet technology that represents a major breakthrough in realising 37-inch and larger full-HD OLED TVs by resolving the uneven layering that had previously been an issue with the inkjet method.

White organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have the potential of much higher efficiencies than classical lighting sources.

Using the same rubbery CNT-based conductor they developed a few months ago, researchers at the University of Tokyo made a stretchable display.