Category Archives: OLEDs

June 29, 2012 — OLED thin film encapsulation technology is the one of technologies emerging as the core technology of flexible OLED, and technology development and patent securing competition between world’s leading OLED companies such as VITEX, 3M, GE, UDC, Samsung, LG, Philips, and DuPont will increase accordingly, shows Displaybank’s report, “OLED Thin Film Encapsulation Technology Key Patent Analysis.”

Figure. OLED Thin Film Encapsulation Patent Application Trends. SOURCE: Displaybank.

Encapsulation protects organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) from the external environment. Methods include CAN, glass, thin film, and hybrid encapsulation technology. Of these, thin film encapsulation is expected to be the enabling factor for lightweight and thin large-area OLED as well as flexible OLED. These architectures will support next-generation displays and OLED lighting.

OLED thin-film encapsulation patents are growing in line with increasing interest in flexible OLED and OLED lighting technology and the acceleration of technology development competition.

The report examines worldwide patent application trends, particularly from Korea, Japan, the US, and Europe. In addition, in-depth analysis such as key patent status of major companies, technology development, citation relation analysis, key patent point analysis, and key patent example analysis were performed by extracting 135 key patents around U.S. patents. Access the report at http://www.displaybank.com/_eng/research/report_view.html?id=875&cate=1

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June 28, 2012 — SEMICON West 2012 will take place July 10-12 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. Following is a preview of the light-emitting diode (LED) and organic LED (OLED) events taking place during SEMICON West.

Wednesday, July 11

10:30am-3:30pm

Enabling the Next Generation of HB LEDs

We’ve invited industry experts from across the globe to talk about practical solutions for enabling the economics for the solid state lighting market to take off, focusing particularly on significant new developments in manufacturing technology. The morning addresses some big-picture topics, with Cree’s Mike Watson discussing business model issues, and Canaccord Genuity’s Jed Dorscheimer examining the impact of improving yields on his projections for wide market adoption. Everlight Electronics’ Ilkan Cokgor focuses on potential solutions for reducing the high cost of packaging. Lunera’s Steve Paolini looks at options beyond blue LED emitters. LayTec’s Kolja Haberland discusses the potential impact of in-situ metrology on yield, while EVG’s Thomas Uhrmann talks about better light extraction with efficient alternatives for nano-patterning sapphire.

The afternoon program looks at the status of some potentially disruptive technologies.

Soraa’s Mike Krames updates on GaN-on-GaN technology, while Lattice Power’s Hanmin Zhao presents results of their GaN-on-Si production, and Yole Développement’s Eric Virey gives an overview the state of GaN-on-Si technology across the industry. Seoul Semiconductor’s Brian Wilcox looks at the potential for AC and UV technologies. James Zahler of GT Advanced Technologies shares results of research on which substrate defects turn out to really matter most. And Dan Morrow of Op-Test shows data on using radiometric color measurements to predict final device performance. http://www.semiconwest.org/node/8501 

Location: Extreme Electronics TechXPOT

Back right-hand corner of Moscone South Hall

 

10:00am-6:00pm

Metal Oxide TFT Devices and Technology Workshop

FlexTech Alliance presents a workshop on the state of low temperature, low cost metal oxide TFTs for OLED and LCDs, with speakers from Sharp, CBRITE, PARC, BizWitz, Cambridge NanoTech, Oregon State, Penn State, Eastman Kodak, and Arizona State. Separate registration required. http://www.semiconwest.org/node/9156

Location: San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel, 55 Fourth Street (Fourth & Mission), near Moscone Center

3:30-5:00pm

SEMICON West Happy Hour

Location: South and North Halls

 

Thursday, July 12

10:30-11:45

Plastic/Flexible Electronics program looks at the state of OLED lighting technology

The program on printed/flexible electronics also covers OLED technology this year.

Panasonic’s Takuya Komoda will report on the lower- cost production technology enabling the company’s joint venture commercial OLED lighting products. Display Search’s Jennifer Colegrove gives an update on the state of the OLED market and technology for lighting and displays. IMEC’s Serge Biesemans discusses that research institute’s OLED flexible electronics work. http://www.semiconwest.org/node/8536

Location: Extreme Electronics TechXPOT

3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

 

HB-LED Standards Committee Meeting

The HB-LED Standards Committee will review progress towards 150mm sapphire wafer specifications, automation specifications, and evaluation of wafer defects. The wafer task force will report on progress on its sapphire wafer specifications, and on the available results from its cooperative research effort on the survivability of various wafer marks. The automation task force will update on its progress on specifications for open cassettes, load ports, and software communications interfaces. The new task force on wafer impurities and defects will discuss results from its survey on which sapphire defects matter most and how best to inspect for them. See Standards SEMICON West 2012  for more information and to register.

Location: San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel, 55 Fourth Street (Fourth & Mission), near Moscone Center

For more information on SEMICON West 2012, please visit www.semiconwest.org. Register now.

June 25, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Panasonic Corporation (NYSE:PC, TOKYO:6752) and Sony Corporation will combine their core and printing technology to jointly develop next-generation organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel and module manufacturing technology.

Sony and Panasonic will develop printing-method-manufacturable next-generation OLED technology, targeting low-cost mass production of large, high-resolution OLED panels and modules for TVs and large-sized displays.

Sony and Panasonic plan to establish a mass-production methodology in 2013.

Sony makes 11” and 25” OLED displays, using deposition technologies for manufacturing. Sony has actively promoted the research and development of next-generation OLED technologies such as hybrid OLED element devices and processing technologies that combine deposition and printing methods, thin film transistor (TFT) drivers such as oxide TFTs, and flexible organic TFTs.

Panasonic uses an all-printing method, as well as other printing techniques, to make its large-sized screen, high-resolution OLED panels. Panasonic owns the unique production and equipment technologies to produce OLED panels via this method. Panasonic is also pursuing the future possibility of OLED panels, and is carrying out research and development of advancements in flexible OLED panels and aiming to develop large-sized, high-quality sheet-type displays.

In parallel with the joint development of the next-generation technologies of the OLED panels and modules, Sony and Panasonic plan to continue to study collaboration in the mass production of OLED panels and modules. Also, each company plans to utilize its own strengths to develop and commercialize its own competitive, high-performance, next-generation OLED televisions and large-sized displays.

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June 22, 2012 — A multidisciplinary research team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain developed a new mathematical approach to simulating the electronic behavior of noncrystalline materials, with applications in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), flexible printable organic (FPO) electronic circuits, and solar cells.

This mathematical technique, free convolution (a form of free probability applied to random matrices), has not previously been applied in physics or chemistry. It uses approximations rather than exact solutions, yet the resulting predictions match the actual electronic properties of noncrystalline materials with great precision.

The method takes a matrix problem that is too complex to solve easily by traditional mathematical methods and “approximates it with a combination of two matrices whose properties can be calculated easily,” without the complex calculations that would be required to solve the original problem, explained Jiahao Chen, a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Chemistry.

Simulating materials that lack an orderly crystal structure with random-matrix theory allows researchers to couple disorder in a material with its effect on electrical properties, Chen said. Typically, figuring out the electronic properties of materials from first principles requires calculating certain properties of matrices. The numbers in the matrix represent the energies of electrons and the interactions between electrons, which arise from the way molecules are arranged in the material.
To determine how physical changes, such as shifting temperatures or adding impurities, will affect such materials would normally require varying each number in the matrix, and then calculating how this changes the properties of the matrix. With disordered materials, where the values of the numbers in the matrix are not precisely known, this is a very difficult mathematical problem to solve.

Random-matrix theory’s probability distribution makes it possible to translate basic information about the amount of disorder in the molecular structure of a material into a prediction of its electrical properties.

While mathematicians have used such methods in the abstract, “to our knowledge, this is the first application of this theory to chemistry,” Chen says. The team also investigated why free convolution was so accurate, which led to new mathematical discoveries in free probability theory. The method derived for estimating the amount of deviation between the precise calculation and the approximation is new, Chen says, “driven by our questions” for the mathematicians on the team.

“Our results are a promising first step toward highly accurate solutions of much more sophisticated models,” Chen says. Ultimately, an extension of such methods could lead to “reducing the overall cost of computational modeling of next-generation solar materials and devices. There is a lot of interest in how organic semiconductors can be used to make solar cells” as a possible lower-cost alternative to silicon solar cells, Chen says. In some types of these devices, “all the molecules, instead of being perfectly ordered, are all jumbled up.”

The research is reported in the journal Physical Review Letters, to be published June 29.

The team included Chen, MIT associate professor of chemistry Troy Van Voorhis, chemistry graduate students Eric Hontz and Matthew Welborn and postdoc Jeremy Moix, MIT mathematics professor Alan Edelman and graduate student Ramis Movassagh, and computer scientist Alberto Suárez of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

The work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation aimed specifically at fostering interdisciplinary research.

Courtesy of David Chandler, MIT News Office. Learn more at www.mit.edu.

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June 18, 2012 — Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are breaking through in displays and lighting applications in the past 18 months, after a long run as a potential technology, reports NanoMarkets. OLED materials must meet growing requirements as OLEDs hit the market, allowing OLED materials suppliers to break out of their niche, specialty status in the next few years.

Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone products with OLED displays outshipped Apple’s iPhones in Q1 2012, notes NanoMarkets. LG and Samsung have launched OLED TVs, hitting stores in 2012, with more to follow.

OLED-based lighting is also already on the market, although almost entirely in the form of low-volume, luxury lighting. The industry is working toward larger panels for general and architectural illumination — higher-volume, price-sensitive applications.

As the addressable market for OLEDs grows, so it does for OLED materials. The number of modules is increasing, and OLED module average sizes are getting steadily larger. Add to this trend a shift in the relative importance of different applications as OLED is adopted, and substrates, transparent conductors, organic semiconductors, emissive materials, and encapsulation technologies will need to be rapidly tailored for different needs.

For example, OLED materials suppliers are developing longer-lifetime blue emitters that will strongly benefit the display sector, while quality white emission schemes are needed for OLED lighting applications.

Also read:

Novaled’s new OLED materials set could double OLED lifetimes

OLED manufacturers develop new color patterning technologies

Universal Display intros novel emission layer systems for OLEDs

“OLED MATERIALS OPPORTUNITIES 2012” is the latest update from NanoMarkets on the OLED materials markets. Analysts quantify the opportunities that are emerging from the booming OLED display industry and in the nascent OLED lighting market, where the key determinants of success will be device efficiency, lifetime, and reduction in total cost of ownership. The report also analyzes the strategies of some of the major players in this space, ranging from giant chemical firms such as BASF, DuPont and Sumitomo to important specialty firms such as UDC, Novaled, and Plextronics. It considers commercial implications of technology developments and predicts what they will mean to the industry overall. The report contains detailed volume and revenue forecasts for materials used for OLEDs broken out by material type and functionality, as well as by application and by deposition method wherever possible. NanoMarkets tracks and analyzes emerging market opportunities in energy, electronics and other markets created by developments in advanced materials. Visit http://www.nanomarkets.net for a full listing of NanoMarkets’ reports and other services.  

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June 11, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:PANL), enabling energy-efficient displays and lighting with its UniversalPHOLED technology and materials, announced record-breaking performance of its white organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting technology at the 2012 Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition.

Also read: Universal Display intros novel emission layer systems for OLEDs

Advances in white OLED device performance, reported for both flexible OLED and rigid glass formats, using Universal Display’s all-phosphorescent OLED architecture, may accelerate the commercialization of a variety of novel white OLED products for specialty and general lighting application.

“White OLED lighting has great potential to transform the way we use and experience lighting. With our power-efficient UniversalPHOLED technology and materials, OLEDs can play a meaningful role in reducing the energy impact of lighting, and, with advances in our flexible OLED technologies, OLEDs have the potential to enable innovative design concepts with novel form factors,” said Steven V. Abramson, president and CEO.

Believed to be a record for a flexible lighting panel, the 15cm2 white OLED lighting panel demonstrates a power efficacy of 47 lumens per Watt (lm/W) at 1,000 candelas per square meter (cd/m2) with an outcoupling enhancement of 1.4X. The white OLED panel, built on plastic substrate using the company’s novel single-layer barrier technology and highly-efficient UniversalPHOLED technology and materials, operates at a color rendering index (CRI) of 83 and a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 3470K. This advance is a significant milestone toward the commercialization of thin, lightweight, rugged and flexible white OLED lighting.

Based on enhancements in materials and panel design, the 15cm2 all-phosphorescent white OLED panel, with a CRI of 85 and CCT of 3030K, demonstrates 70 lm/W and an operating lifetime of 30,000 hours (to 70% of an initial luminance of 1,000 cd/m2) with an outcoupling enhancement of 1.75X.

Universal Display’s phosphorescent OLED technology and materials offer up to a four-to-one power advantage over other OLED technologies, resulting in record energy-efficient OLEDs, the company reports.

Universal Display Corporation (Nasdaq: PANL) is a leader in developing and delivering state-of the-art, organic light emitting diode (OLED) technologies, materials and services to the display and lighting industries. To learn more about Universal Display, please visit www.universaldisplay.com.

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June 5, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ: PANL), maker of UniversalPHOLED technology and materials, introduced new red, green, and yellow UniversalPHOLED products during the 2012 Society for Information Display (SID) Display Week in Boston. The new offerings include novel emission layer material systems with enhanced performance to provide OLEDs with additional advantages for smartphones, TVs, and solid-state lighting.

“Our ongoing innovations in new materials and technology have allowed us to expand our product line-up that include new high-performance emissive layer systems for red, green, and yellow,” said Steven V. Abramson, president and CEO, Universal Display. “These next-generation systems contain our proprietary, highly efficient UniversalPHOLED emitter materials as well as novel host systems. These host systems combine our proprietary, cost-effective host materials with host materials from partner companies.”

Universal Display’s phosphorescent OLED technology and materials have demonstrated a four-to-one power advantage over other OLED technologies, resulting in record energy-efficient OLEDs. The new red UniversalPHOLED system, with CIE color coordinates of (0.66, 0.34), offers a luminous efficiency of 29 candelas per ampere (cd/A) with an operating lifetime of 600,000 hours (to 50% of initial luminance). The new green UniversalPHOLED system with CIE coordinates of (0.31, 0.63) offers 85 cd/A and an operating lifetime of 400,000 hours. The yellow system with CIE coordinates of (0.44, 0.54) offers 81 cd/A and 1,450,000 hours of operating lifetime.

Since 2003, the company has offered UniversalPHOLED emitters for commercial applications, and today offers a line of red, green, yellow, and light blue emitters for use in OLED display and lighting products. Recently, the company introduced high-performance host materials to its product line. The company’s proprietary hosts can be used alone or, as recently developed, in combination with complementary hosts from its material company partners. Designed to optimize the performance of the company’s UniversalPHOLED emitter products, these host systems have also been developed to provide cost-effectiveness in display and lighting applications.

Universal Display is the recognized leader in high-performance, energy-efficient phosphorescent OLED technology and materials, as well as related OLED technologies that deliver manufacturing and device performance advantages. With a comprehensive patent portfolio and technical expertise that cover these and other OLED technologies worldwide, Universal Display licenses its state-of-the-art OLED technologies, sells its proprietary UniversalPHOLED materials, and provides customized technology development and transfer services for its OLED display and lighting customers.

Universal Display Corporation (Nasdaq: PANL) makes organic light emitting diode (OLED) technologies, materials and services for the display and lighting industries. To learn more about Universal Display, please visit www.universaldisplay.com.

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May 31, 2012 — Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) company Novaled debuted a class of n-doped electron transport layer (ETL) materials for OLED TV and mobile displays.

Novaled’s new generation of materials includes NET-164 and NET-142 hosts, and NDN-77 and NDN-87 ETL dopants. The air-stable dopants can be paired with either of the host molecules to tailor the OLEDs’ efficiency, voltage and lifetime for a specific display application.

Combinations can address short product lifetimes induced by low driving voltage and higher charge carrier density in the emission zone. Novaled claims that the materials system can double expected lifetime over the previous OLED stack, with air-stable production. The system eliminates complications from air-sensitive N-side dopant materials in mass production and handling.

Novaled uses evaporation processable outcoupling layers — thin NET-61 layers in n-doped ETLs — for maximum efficiency in white PIN OLEDs. Crystallizing outcoupling enhancement layers leads to corrugation of the reflective cathode, reducing plasmon absorption losses.

Novaled will highlight recent advances in OLED display and lighting at the Society for Information Display’s (SID) 49th International Symposium & Exhibition, Booth #3313, June 3-8 in Boston. Dr. Jan Birnstock, VP Technology & Products at Novaled, will present a paper on June 6 about Novaled’s new class of OLED materials for OLED TV and OLED mobile display applications.  Dr. Sven Murano, Product Senior Manager at Novaled, will present a paper on June 7 about Novaled’s outcoupling materials for high-efficiency white OLEDs.

Novaled AG researches, develops, and commercializes technologies and materials that enhance the performance of OLEDs and other organic electronics. Commercially active since 2003, Novaled was founded in 2001 as a spin-off of the Technical University and the Fraunhofer Institute of Dresden. For more information, please visit www.novaled.com.

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May 31, 2012 — SouthWest NanoTechnologies (SWeNT) released SG65i, a single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) product with >95% semiconducting concentration, before secondary processing to remove metallic SWCNT content.

SG65i, building on SWeNT’s grade SG65, was developed for use in printed semiconductor devices, such as thin-film transistors (TFT) in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, next-generation non-silicon semiconductor computing devices, and more.

SG65i is produced via the proprietary CoMoCAT process, which controls SWCNT structure, or chirality. Single-wall carbon nanotubes can be metallic or semiconducting, depending on diameter and chirality.

The >95% semiconducting content is approximately 28% more than most other SWCNTs, SWeNT reports. This high concentration avoids much slow, expensive, low-yielding secondary processing for semiconductor applications. Secondary processing to remove metallic SWCNTs can damage the remaining SWCNTs, SWeNT notes.

SG65i is available either as dry powder, aqueous or solvent based dispersions, or as printable ink.

SWeNT will continue improving processes to synthesize even more semiconductor-enriched products, with the goal of eliminating secondary processes altogether.

SouthWest NanoTechnologies (SWeNT) is an advanced materials company that manufactures high-quality single-wall and specialty multi-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT, MWCNT) products in various forms, including powders, pastes, dispersions and inks. For more information, please visit www.swentnano.com.

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May 30, 2012 – Marketwire — The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU), in conjunction with Army Research Labs scientists, manufactured what it is reporting as the world’s largest flexible, full-color organic light emitting display (OLED) display prototype. FDC used advanced mixed-oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) to build the 7.4” device.

The U.S. Department of Defense needs thin, lightweight, bendable, and highly rugged display devices for video and other uses. This prototype represents “a realistic path forward for the production of high-performance, flexible, full-color OLED displays,” said Nick Colaneri, director of the FDC.

Mixed-oxide TFTs are lower-cost than low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) and high performance, with vibrant colors, high switching speeds for video, and reduced power consumption from conventional displays. Mixed oxide TFTs offer a better ability to drive currents and improve the lifetime and stability of transistors used for OLED displays, ASU says. Mixed-oxide TFTs can be manufactured on existing amorphous silicon (a-Si) production lines, which was a major consideration for the FDC. The display production makes use of FDC’s proprietary bond/de-bond technology.

The prototype OLED display will be on the FDC booth #643 at SID Display Week, June 5-7, 2012 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, MA.

The FDC is a government/industry/academia partnership for advancing full-color flexible display technology and fostering development of a manufacturing ecosystem to support flexible electronic devices. More information on the FDC can be found at flexdisplay.asu.edu.

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