Category Archives: OLEDs

Universal Display Corporation (Nasdaq:OLED) today announced the signing of long-term OLED material supply and license agreements with Samsung Display Co., Ltd. (SDC), a global display manufacturer. These agreements affirm that Universal Display will continue to supply its proprietary UniversalPHOLED phosphorescent OLED materials and technology to Samsung Display for use in its OLED displays. The agreements are scheduled to run through December 31, 2022, and may be extended for an additional two-year period. Financial terms of the agreements have not been disclosed.

“We are pleased to announce the signing of these long-term agreements with our partner Samsung Display,” said Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Display Corporation. “Collaborating for over eighteen years, Samsung Display has been at the forefront of the OLED revolution with its vibrant, colorful, and brilliant displays. SDC’s ground-breaking innovation and manufacturing leadership are paving new pathways of growth in the display industry, including the advent of new form factors. As Samsung continues expanding its OLED product roadmap and investments, we look forward to supporting its advancements with our highly-efficient, high-performing proprietary OLED technologies and UniversalPHOLED materials.”

This year again, the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, 2018 edition allowed us to discover the latest innovations in numerous fields including the microLED displays sector. “The Wall”, a 146” microLED TV powered by Samsung, has been probably the most impressive announcement. The Korea-based LED maker Lumens also proposed a 139” display, with smaller 0.8 mm pitch. In both cases, technology developed by these leaders is not strictly microLED related but confirms the attractiveness of microLEDs solutions. Yole Développement’s (Yole) analyst, Dr. Eric Virey attended the show and proposed a snapshot on i-micronews.com.

“Initial success in smartwatches could accelerate technology and supply chain maturation, making microLED competitive against OLED in high end TVs, tablets and laptops”, explains Dr. Eric Virey from Yole. “In Yole’s most optimistic scenario, the market for microLED displays could reach up to 330 million units by 2025 (1) .”

The microLED display sector has been deeply analyzed by Yole and KnowMade, both parts of Yole Group of Companies. The partners propose today a detailed patent analysis titled: Microled Displays: Intellectual Property Landscape. Under this new report, they identified key patents, technology nodes and players related to microLED technologies for display applications. This latest analysis confirms the growing interest around the microLED technologies.
Which companies own the patents? What are their major thrust areas and portfolio strength? Yole Group of Companies invites you to discover the latest insights of this dynamic industry.

Yole Group of Companies confirms the buzz: as of today close to 1,500 patents relevant to the microLED display field have been filed by 125 companies and organizations. Among these are multiple startups, display makers, OEMs , semiconductor companies, LED makers, and research institutions.

“The overall corpus is relatively young, with an average age of 3.2 years across all families”, asserts Dr. Nicolas Baron, CEO & Founder, KnowMade. The first patents were filed in 2000 – 2001, but the bulk of the activity started after 2012. Thus, only a minority of patents have been granted so far.

Pioneers include Sony, Sharp, MIT, and others, although the bulk of the initial developments were conducted by a variety of research institutions including Kansas State University, University of Hong Kong, Strathclyde University & Tyndall Institute (which spun-off mLED, InfiniLED, and X-Celeprint), University of Illinois, and startup companies like Luxvue and, later on, Playnitride and Mikro Mesa.

Yole Group of Companies’ study also reveals a number of companies that have not yet been identified as players in the microLED display field. Moreover, this study confirms the commitment of many more companies, which are not typically associated with display technology. Intel and Goertek are part of them. On the flip side, various companies known to be active in the field (i.e. Huawei) have yet to see any of their patent in the field published.

Overall, the activity is still led mostly by startups (including those such as Luxvue or eLux) acquired by larger organization) and research institutions. With the exception of Sharp and Sony, display makers and LED makers are relative latecomers. Many companies started ramping up their microLED research and development activities after Apple showed faith in microLED with its acquisition of Luxvue. As of December 2017, Apple appears to have the most complete IP portfolio, covering almost all key technology nodes. However, many of its patents pertain to the technological ecosystem developed around the company’s MEMS transfer technology. Other companies like Sony, with a smaller portfolio but which had a head start, might own more fundamental design patents with strong blocking power.

What is the status of the microLED display supply chain? Enabling large-scale microLED display manufacturing requires bringing together three major disparate technologies and supply chain bricks: LED manufacturing, backplane manufacturing, and microchip mass transfer & assembly.

“The supply chain is complex and lengthy compared to typical displays,” comments Dr. Eric Virey from Yole. “Every process is critical and it’s a challenge to effectively manage every aspect. No one company appears positioned to master and execute across a supply chain that will likely be more horizontal, compared to other established display technologies.”

The IP landscape reflects these challenges through the variety of players involved, but requirements differ from one application to another. For low-volume, high added-value applications like microdisplays for augmented/mixed reality for the enterprise, military, and medical markets, one can envision a well-funded startup with good technology efficiently managing the supply chain. However, consumer applications such as TVs and smartphones will require significant investments to unlock large scale manufacturing.

Though only a few companies have a broad IP portfolio covering all major technology nodes (transfer chip structure, display architecture, etc.), enough players have patents across many technology bricks to guarantee that complex licensing and legal battles will arise once microLED displays enter volume manufacturing and reach the market. Small companies with strong positions in various technology bricks will attempt to obtain licensing fees from larger players involved in manufacturing. Large corporations will try to block each other and prevent their competitors from entering the market. To prepare for such events, some latecomers appear to be filing large quantities of patents, sometimes with little substance.

Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890), a developer of LED (light emitting diode) design and manufacturing, today announced 2017 fiscal year consolidated revenues of US$ 1.04 billion. The 16% rise in consolidated revenues far exceeds the industry average, which grew 2% during the same period. The growth of revenue is contributed to improvements in both general lighting sales and IT product related sales growing in the mid-teens as well as the automotive lighting business which grew more than 20%.

The rise in revenue for the general lighting segment was largely due to an increase in sales of 220V and 370V Acrich MJT products for household and industrial applications. Other notable revenue increases were reported for WICOP, an innovative product line of package-less LEDs, as well as for the Acrich NanoDriver, which incorporates step drive methods that achieve results greater than those of conventional SMPS technology. In addition to offering these differentiated technologies, Seoul expects its SunLike natural spectrum LED technology, which may offer health benefits for human eyes, to lead the future of LED lighting and become a large contributor to the future sales and profit for the company.

Researchers who won the Nobel Prize in 2017 were recognized for their new findings of the impact of light on circadian rhythm in humans. This has proven to be an important topic in our society and generated great attention for Dr. Charles Czeisler, the Harvard professor that has dedicated his research to this particular area. He is now conducting research study with NASA on how light affects the circadian rhythms of astronauts.

According to new research, myopia (near-sightedness) increased from 20% in the 1950s to 80% in 2010 among populations in Asia. Fluorescent lights and conventional LED light sources emit a strong blue light that is known to cause eye fatigue, which may later result in retinal damage. Seoul Semiconductor, together with Toshiba Materials of Japan, has jointly developed SunLike natural spectrum LED technology, which provides lighting conditions most similar to actual sun light and can be seen as a solution that helps to protect human eyes from this potential damage.

The company provided a revenue guidance of KrW 270 to 290 billion for the first quarter of 2018. This figure is in range of 5% to 13% on a year-over-year basis. Although first quarter is normally considered to be an off-season, the company is showing a positive outlook for growth from last year for this 2018 fiscal year.

Sangbum Kim, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, has stated that fiscal year 2017 sales were a result of the company’s relentless efforts to stay ahead of competition by continuously investing in R&D and strengthening global sales organizations. In order to further accelerate revenue growth into the double digit range for 2018, the company plans to further drive sales of differentiated products such as SunLike while also shifting more focus to its rapidly growing automotive lighting business.

Kateeva, a developer of inkjet deposition equipment solutions for OLED display manufacturing, today announced that the company has expanded its executive team by appointing Marc Haugen as chief operating officer (COO).

Mr. Haugen brings extensive semiconductor equipment industry experience to Kateeva. As a former executive at Applied Materials and Lam Research, he implemented operational disciplines designed to maximize supply-chain and manufacturing efficiencies. As COO, his role will be to help drive Kateeva’s operational performance as a technology leader and key enabler of the global display industry. He reports to chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Dr. Alain Harrus.

Mr. Haugen assumes the COO title from Kateeva co-founder, Dr. Conor Madigan, who remains president, and who will now focus on leading the company’s technology and new product development.

“We believe that Marc’s operational roles for global capital equipment companies make him particularly well-qualified to help Kateeva extend its market leadership by applying operational disciplines that will allow us to scale our operations effectively,” said Dr. Harrus.  “We also expect his expertise will enrich our capability to deliver the technology solutions our customers need to win in their marketplace.”

“We’re very pleased to welcome Marc to Kateeva,” noted Dr. Madigan. “As COO, we expect he will further tighten interaction between the field, manufacturing, engineering, finance, and other key functions to support our product development, sales, and operations performance. In addition, he will be responsible for implementing processes to improve efficiency, predictability and reliability, with the goal of reducing overall operating costs.”

“I believe that Kateeva enjoys a strong foundation to build momentum for growth,” said Mr. Haugen. “The technology is industry-leading, the team is outstanding, and the customer base includes leading display companies. This is a terrific opportunity to support Kateeva’s innovation roadmap by driving operational excellence across the company.”

Mr. Haugen has spent three decades working in the semiconductor industry. As group vice president of worldwide operations and supply chain for Applied Materials from 2013-2016, he led a team of thousands of people in factories across the globe, with an annual multi-billion-dollar spend. From his base in Singapore, he directed supply chain operations, volume manufacturing, new product manufacturing, quality and logistics to support the company’s semiconductor systems, display and energy business segments.

Before that, he was corporate vice president of global product operations at Lam Research. While there, he directed the integration of products, product operations, and product development processes, including Lam’s acquisition of Novellus Systems, as well as its acquisition of Austria-based SEZ. During this time, he also served as vice president/managing director of SEZ.

Immediately prior to Kateeva, Mr. Haugen was EVP of global operations and engineering at Cepheid, a molecular diagnostics company. He began his career in 1987 as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. After that, he held operations roles with increasing responsibility at Applied Materials and Lam Research.

Mr. Haugen holds a BS degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California. He earned his MBA with a special focus on international/Asia business strategy from the University of California Los Angeles and the National University of Singapore (UCLA/NUS Executive MBA Program).

As the demand for super-large TV displays grow, the need for higher resolution is set to increase, seeing the first uses of 8K display in 2018, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

While ultra-high definition (UHD) panels are estimated to account for more than 98 percent of the 60-inch and larger display market in 2017, most TV panel suppliers are planning to mass produce 8K displays in 2018. The 7680 x 4320 pixel resolution display is expected to make up about 1 percent of the 60-inch and larger display market this year and 9 percent in 2020, according to the Display Long-term Demand Forecast Tracker report by IHS Markit.

60-inch_and_larger_TV_panel_shipment_forecast_by_resolution

“As UHD has rapidly replaced full HD in the super large-sized TV display market, panel makers are willing to supply differentiated products with higher resolution and improve profit margin with premium products,” said Ricky Park, director at IHS Markit. “Year 2018 will become the first year of the 8K resolution TV display.”

Innolux started developing 8K panels in 2017 and produced its first ever 8K LCD TV display (60Hz, 65-inch) in the fourth quarter of 2017. The display will be supplied to Sharp TV and Chinese brands in the beginning. Meanwhile, Sharp has also mass produced its first 8K LCD TV display at 70-inch in the last quarter of 2017 to support the Sharp TV brand in China.

Looking at the 8K display roadmap in 2018, it appears that Samsung Electronics and Sony are driving the market at this time. They plan to release their flagship 8K TV models in 2018. Samsung and Sony will consume almost all 120Hz 8K panels from Innolux, AUO and Samsung Display, with sizes varying from 65 to 75 and 85 inches.

BOE and CEC-Panda are now planning to develop 8K LCD TV panels in the second half of 2018 and taking on a differentiation strategy, LG Display will likely focus on developing OLED 8K panel in the future. LG Display unveiled the world’s first 88-inch 8K OLED TV display at CES 2018.

Based on current plans, panel makers in the early stages of development will mostly develop 60Hz 8K displays based on a-Si technology, and those in the next stages are also likely to develop 120Hz 8K displays based on oxide technology. The latter has advantages, such as better aperture ratio and lower power consumption.

With consumer television prices falling, global shipments of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs grew 133 percent year over year, reaching a new monthly record of 270,000 units in November 2017, during the lead-up to the holiday shopping season. This growth comes as falling prices placed 55-inch 4K OLED into the budget range of a greater number of high-end holiday shoppers, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

Overall global liquid crystal display (LCD) TV shipments in November slightly declined by 1.6 percent month over month, falling to 24.4 million units, as Black Friday demand in the United States declined in 2017 compared to the prior year. Total OLED TV shipments from January through November 2017 surpassed 1.3 million units. Together with December estimates, overall OLED TV shipments are likely to exceed 1.4 million units shipped in 2017.

“In 2017, the landscape for OLED TV brands changed as Sony, Toshiba and other major brands began selling OLED TVs,” said Ken Park, associate director, IHS Markit. “The growing number of available OLED TV choices, especially high-profile Japanese and European brands, has resulted in more competition and pricing promotion activity in the OLED TV market.”

LGE dominated the OLED TV market in 2016, accounting for around 92 percent of all units shipped, while several Chinese brands accounted for most of the remaining shipments. During the weeks surrounding Black Friday 2017, LGE dropped the price of its entry-level B7 series 55-inch and 65-inch 4K OLED TVs by $200, pricing its lowest tier 55B7 model at $1,499.

LGE led overall OLED TV shipment volume in November, with a 31 percent month-over-month increase in shipments. Total year-over-year 55-inch OLED TV shipments rose 123 percent in November, while 65-inch shipments grew 157 percent.

IHSM_Monthly_OLED_TV_Shipments_2017_R

Kateeva, a developer of inkjet deposition equipment solutions for OLED display manufacturing, today formally introduced a suite of YIELDjet inkjet equipment for red, green and blue (RGB) pixel deposition to enable the development and pilot production of large-size OLED displays, including televisions (TVs). The new YIELDjet family, which consists of the EXPLORE and EXPLORE PRO systems, provides display manufacturers with an industry-proven inkjet deposition platform to help bring the next generation of OLED TVs and other large-size displays to market. This year so far, Kateeva has shipped four systems from the EXPLORE family. The company expects to ship three additional systems by the second quarter of 2018.

The EXPLORE family broadens Kateeva’s product line and deepens the company’s penetration of the OLED display sector. The YIELDjet FLEX system already leads the inkjet deposition market for OLED mobile displays, with multiple systems deployed in mass production for OLED thin film encapsulation (TFE). The YIELDjet EXPLORE and EXPLORE PRO tools contain the same demonstrated core technologies found in the YIELDjet platform, with system designs that are optimized for rapid development of RGB pixel printing. Both tools, for instance, feature Kateeva’s unique nitrogen printing capability, which provides an oxygen- and- moisture-free enclosure for inkjet deposition. This capability is known to greatly increase OLED device lifetime.

The new products aim to help customers compress their in-house development- to- pilot-production cycle for printed RGB OLED displays, including TVs. To achieve this, the systems are designed for flexibility and scalability. The EXPLORE processes small panels (up to 200 mm square) for initial development, while the EXPLORE PRO targets mid-size panels (up to 55-in. display) for development through pilot production. As many as nine inks can be loaded into each tool at the same time. This enables accelerated evaluation of multiple materials during critical phases of process development.

The products offer an alternative to the traditional RGB pixel deposition approach of vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) with a fine metal mask (FMM). Instead, printing is used to form the active layers within the pixels that generate the red, green and blue light emitted from the OLED device. Manufacturers are interested in using inkjet printing to overcome the scalability limitations of VTE with FMM.

VTE with FMM is currently used for small displays to fabricate patterned RGB active layers. However, the approach has not been successfully scaled to enable production of large displays such as those required for premium TVs. White OLED (WOLED) TV works around the issue by using VTE to form an un-patterned white OLED layer. This eliminates the need for FMM and creates the red, green, and blue light using three separate color filters (similar to the structure of a liquid crystal display). Although WOLED TVs are considered the best on the market, RGB OLED TVs fabricated using inkjet deposition can potentially offer superior performance. Moreover, manufacturing costs could be 20 percent lower, according to a recent analysis.

The potential of inkjet-fabricated RGB OLED TVs, coupled with the enabling capabilities of the YIELDjet EXPLORE products, have generated excitement among OLED display manufacturers, according to Kateeva’s President and COO, Dr. Conor Madigan. “There is increasing enthusiasm among our customers to develop RGB OLED TVs and we believe our new systems will help them accelerate their initiatives,” he said. “These companies are innovating rapidly and pioneering novel processes to mass-produce differentiated displays. Our products let them utilize Kateeva’s unique technologies as part of their inkjet RGB pixel printing programs. We are excited to work with them to move this approach closer to mass production.”

The YIELDjet Inkjet Advantage

Kateeva’s inkjet solution for RGB pixel deposition R&D utilizes core disruptive features found in the company’s YIELDjet platform. This OLED production equipment solution has already helped display manufacturers transition to flexible OLED mass production with high yields and low costs. Now, the same features, coupled with additional innovations for RGB pixel printing, promise to enable a similar transition to RGB OLED TV mass production by addressing customers’ yield and productivity priorities. Key YIELDjet technical features and advantages include:

  • Pure process environment: Trace amounts of oxygen and moisture, as well as large particles, can degrade OLED device performance and reduce yield. The same impurities are known to degrade OLED device lifetime. Processing in a clean, high-purity environment, therefore, is a central requirement for OLED front-plane manufacturing equipment. The YIELDjet solution features a specially designed nitrogen-purged enclosure that delivers an ultra-pure printing environment and enables fast recovery after maintenance. The result is longer OLED lifetime, higher yields, and higher uptime.
  • Superior uniformity: Non-uniform deposition of the printed layer can create “mura”. Mura, which refers to visibly noticeable non-uniformities in the finished display, will reduce yield. Print non-uniformity can be caused by inherent variations in the nozzles contained in the print array. The YIELDjet platform addresses the issue by combining two proprietary technologies—ultra-fast print head monitoring and Smart Mixing™ software. A remote drop inspection (RDI) system measures the drop characteristics for every nozzle in the print array on a continuous basis so that the state of the print array is known at all times. The nozzle data is used to calibrate the proprietary Smart Mixing software, which determines the optimized nozzle mixing for each sub-pixel during the print. The result is a system that delivers displays that are free of print mura in mass production.
  • High resolution: To achieve the resolution required for a product like an 8K TV, a key printing imperative is ink drop placement accuracy. This requires high stage accuracy. To enable high stage accuracy for all glass sizes, Kateeva pioneered the use of a “floating stage” for inkjet printers. With this capability, the glass floats on a thin cushion of nitrogen, which flows from a specially designed stationary stage. As the glass is scanned at high speed over the nitrogen cushion, proprietary stage-error correction technology is deployed to ensure the high accuracies needed for RGB pixel printing.

In addition to RGB pixel printing, the EXPLORE tools can be configured to process OLED TFE. This allows customers who are interested in both applications to conduct R&D or pilot production with the same EXPLORE or EXPLORE PRO tool.

Kateeva, a developer of OLED production equipment solutions, today appointed Dr. Homer Antoniadis to the newly created role of Executive Vice President of Technology. With decades of technical and executive leadership in OLED displays and printed electronics, Dr. Antoniadis will drive the company’s technology development programs, and help customers optimize Kateeva’s YIELDjet systems for their OLED mass-production lines.

“Homer is among the early pioneers that brought OLED-enabled products into the mainstream,” said Kateeva’s President and COO, Dr. Conor Madigan. “A skilled technologist, he is particularly knowledgeable in OLED and printed electronics, with a talent for developing and productizing breakthrough technologies. His technical expertise will help us continue driving forward our applications programs in thin film encapsulation and RGB pixel deposition, and his broad technology vision will help ensure that Kateeva’s existing and new applications pipeline remains robust and focused on meeting our customers’ current and future needs. We’re thrilled to welcome Homer on board.”

“At Kateeva, I can fulfill my ambition to proliferate OLED technology while working with extraordinarily talented technologists,” said Dr. Antoniadis. “I’m excited to take a leadership role at the company.”

Dr. Antoniadis joins Kateeva from DuPont Silicon Valley Technology Center, where he served as CTO of the DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions Group following the company’s acquisition of Innovalight in 2011. Previously, he was CTO and VP of Engineering at Innovalight, a developer of silicon inks for the photovoltaic industry.

Before Innovalight, he held positions with Osram Opto Semiconductors, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Xerox. At Osram, he led the worldwide OLED product development efforts, bringing a variety of display products from  R&D through engineering and into production. In addition, he raised funds and directed the company’s Department of Energy (DOE) Lighting Award program. Prior to Osram, he steered HP Labs’ OLED program to accomplishments that earned international recognition.

Widely recognized as an authority in the OLED and photovoltaics fields, Dr. Antoniadis is a frequent lecturer and conference chair at leading industry events. He served on the board of the International Photovoltaic Quality Assurance Task Force, as well as the PV Cell Tech Conference. In 2016, he was appointed to the National Research Energy Laboratory (NREL) External Advisory Council, and in March 2017, he was awarded the title of NextFlex Fellow.

Dr. Antoniadis has more than 70 publications in OLED displays, polymer materials, crystalline and amorphous silicon photovoltaics, and is a named inventor on more than 30 issued U.S. patents.

A native of Greece, he received his B.S. in physics from Ioannina University in Greece, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Syracuse University.

YIELDjet is a trademark of Kateeva, Inc.

With flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panel fabs building at a quicker pace than global demand, supply capacity of flexible AMOLED panels is forecast to be 44 percent higher than global demand in 2018, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

The net area capacity of flexible AMOLED panels is expected to reach 4.4 million square meters in 2018, up 100 percent from 2017. However, demand for flexible AMOLED panels is increasing slower than suppliers’ expectation, at 69.9 percent to 2.4 million square meters in 2018, according to the AMOLED & Flexible Display Intelligence Service by IHS Markit.

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“Panel makers had expected that flexible AMOLED panels would penetrate into the smartphone market fast,” said Jerry Kang, principal analyst of display research at IHS Markit. “But, this year, most smartphone brands have focused on LCD or rigid AMOLED wide-screens with an 18:9 or higher aspect ratio rather than curved screens using flexible AMOLED panels because the price of flexible AMOLED module is still much higher.”

According to the OLED Display Cost Model by IHS Markit, it costs 1.5 times more to produce flexible OLED panels in the Gen 6 production line than to make rigid OLED panels in the same Gen 6 line.

“The wide-screen smartphone is expected to maintain its competiveness against one with curved edge screen for a while,” Kang said.

Due to the high cost, smartphone brands use the flexible AMOLED panels for their highest-end product segment, making it more difficult for the second-tier flexible AMOLED panel suppliers to meet the product qualification. “This may result in seriously low fab utilization at the second-tier panel suppliers,” Kang said.

The AMOLED & Flexible Display Intelligence Service covers the latest trend and forecast of the AMOLED display industries (including shadow mask and PI substrates), technology and capacity analysis, and panel suppliers’ business strategies by region.

The OLED Display Cost Model provides more detailed cost analysis of OLED panels, including details of boards, arrays, luminescent materials, encapsulants, direct materials such as driver ICs. The report also covers overheads such as occupancy rate, selling, general and depreciation costs. In addition, this report analyzes OLED panels in a wide range of sizes and applications.

Pixelligent Technologies, the inventor of PixClear high-index nanocomposites for the OLED display, HD display, and solid state lighting markets, announced today it has named Alain Harrus, Ph.D. and Gene Banucci, Ph.D. to the Pixelligent Board of Directors.

“Alain and Gene are joining the Pixelligent team at a critical time in our development as we are emerging from years of product development and application engineering, to widespread adoption of our nanocomposites across all of our target markets. The combined vast experience which Alain Harrus brings on the OLED and semiconductor equipment front, and that Gene Banucci brings from having built one of the most successful advanced materials companies, is an incredibly valuable addition to the Pixelligent team and we are honored to have them,” commented Craig Bandes, CEO of Pixelligent Technologies.

Alain Harrus is currently the CEO of Kateeva, a manufacturer of a deposition equipment platform utilizing ink jet printing, with its initial focus on mass production of OLED displays. Kateeva’s innovations are helping to accelerate the adoption of OLED and other advanced display technologies. Prior to Kateeva, Alain was a Partner at Crosslink Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital company where he led the firm’s semiconductor and energy technology investment activities. Before Crosslink he was the CTO at Novellus Systems—now part of Lam Research. “I’m excited to be joining the Pixelligent Board as the Company is entering its inflection point and emerging as a leading provider of high-efficiency materials to the OLED and HD display markets,” said Alain Harrus. Pixelligent and Kateeva have been partnering to optimize advanced display process solutions for the OLED for the past 12 months.

Gene Banucci is the former founding CEO of ATMI.  Gene served as CEO of ATMI from 1986-2004 and remained on the Board until the company was sold for $1.1B in 2014. Under his leadership the company completed an IPO and he grew the company to $245 million in revenues when he retired.  Since retiring as CEO, he has served on over 10 Boards across numerous industries.  “I have known and worked with executives at Pixelligent and have been following the Company’s progress for the last few years.  I am impressed with the balanced approach that Pixelligent has executed on both the market-leading materials they have developed as well as their proprietary mass production manufacturing platform.  I look forward to working with the team to help firmly establish Pixelligent as a leading advanced materials supplier to the OLED and Solid State Lighting markets,” said Gene Banucci.

“These are exciting times for Pixelligent and we expect 2018 to be a record year in terms of revenues and commercial wins across all of our core OLED display, OLED lighting, HD Display, and LED lighting markets,” said Bandes.