Luxell announced today the signing of a joint development agreement with Organic Lighting Technologies (OLT), LLC of Austin Texas to develop an OLED white backlight device for enhancement of full colour LCD flat panel displays.

OLT's innovative proprietary organic thin film processes and packaging techniques provide innovative backlighting solutions targeting the high volume manufacture of flat panel displays for mobile phones and other hand held and mobile devices.

Samsung's 260K color display driver IC (DDI) for AM OLEDs utilizes 0.25um process technology to reduce the size of the device to approximately 40 percent of leading competitive models. The DDI for AMOLED features a quarter common interchange format (qCIF, 176xRGBx240 pixel) along with a 1.8 volt power level.

With its new AMOLED application, Samsung now has developed the widest range of DDI technology including STN, TFT-LCD and AMOLED.

This silicon production effort follows UMC's successful fabrication of a CMOS process customised for use in MED's polymer OLED microdisplays. MED's microdisplays are aimed at a variety of consumer devices such as viewfinders for digital cameras, night viewers and mobile phones.

RiTdisplay is expected to overtake Samsung Electronics to become the top OLED supplier worldwide this quarter, while another Taiwan-based company, Univision Technology, will also edge up to take the third position, according to DisplaySearch.

In January, surging demand for MP3 players helped RiTdisplay record revenues of NT$161 million, up 16% sequentially. However, despite the company seeing its revenues fall 29% to NT$114 million in February, DisplaySearch still expects RiTdisplay to top all vendors in OLED shipments this quarter.

Univision has also benefited from strong demand in the MP3 player segment. The company had record revenues of NT$74 million in January and posted even better results in February.

With the industry seeing falling shipments on increased revenues, Taiwan OLED makers are looking to work their way up to the higher end of the market by producing larger, higher-end OLED panels, such as the active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) panels produced by their Korean and Japanese rivals.

Read more here

Japan's Matsushita has introduced an iTunes-compatible digital music player with an expandable storage capacity provided by SD cards to its D-Snap line of devices.

Matsushita's SV-SD100V (right, top) and SV-SD90 both support AAC, the iTunes jukebox software's preferred format, so the players will be of interest to folk who've ripped CDs to AAC using iTunes but are seeking an alternative player to Apple's iPod. The players also support MP3 and DRM-less Windows Media files.

The players are compact 4.3 x 4.3 x 1.7cm units with integrated OLED displays. There's a built-in Nickel Hydrogen power source capable of providing up to 14.5 hours' playback time, Matsushita claimed. The battery can be recharged using the bundled mains adaptor or through the player's USB 2.0 connection.

Read more here

An interesting discussion with one of Taiwan's OLED manufactures.
"Our most advanced product is full-color RGB OLED, capable of 65,000 colors, in what we called one-inch size, although actually it’s 0.9-inch something. From 2004 onwards, we have only offered that one size."
"What I can tell you is that in the second half of 2004 we managed to double our shipments in the first half of the year. And we should be able to double our shipments again in the first half of 2005. We are doubling our shipments every six months, and that growth is primarily driven by demand for MP3 demand for display panels for MP3 players."

Read more here

Luxell Technologies and Advanced Neotech Systems (ANS) of Korea have signed a Memorandum Of Agreement (MOA) to explore and develop commercial and industrial opportunities in the field of OLED technology using Luxell's Black Layer(TM).

The intent of this agreement is to leverage Luxell's strong Intellectual Property (IP)/patent portfolio based on the development of new OLED-based technologies featuring Black Layer(TM), with ANS Inc.'s strength in the area of design and manufacture of advanced processing equipment required for OLED and other similar Flat Panel (FP) display manufacturing. The MOA will allow ANS Inc. and Luxell to develop new manufacturing techniques and related equipment possesses, share valuable skills and capabilities, and assist each other in various projects and ventures.

Universal Display's revenues were $7,006,913 for 2004, compared to $6,593,193 for the prior year. Revenues consisted of $2,621,636 in government contract research revenue, $2,484,070 from sales of OLED materials for evaluation purposes, and $1,350,537 in technology development revenue from business partners. The Company also received $147,600 from sales of OLED material for commercial purposes and $403,070 in license fees and royalties.

"We are working with approximately 20 OLED manufacturers to evaluate, develop and qualify our phosphorescent technology and materials for commercial products. We entered into eight new evaluation and technology development agreements in 2004. We also significantly strengthened our balance sheet, ending the year with working capital in excess of $40 million. We believe that our business assets, together with our award winning technology, position us well to capitalize on the emerging OLED market," said Sidney D. Rosenblatt, Chief Financial Officer of Universal Display Corporation.

Among the patents now allowed in the US is a patent relating to OLEDs which comprise hole transport, electron transport and emissive components, using type II interfaces, contained in the same molecule. This is believed to be of considerable importance in the context of the printing of OLED devices. Molecules containing 'type II' interfaces are believed to be important in achieving high efficiency display devices.

Other new US patents allowed include a patent relating to the use of a dielectric barrier layer over the key emissive layer to protect it from damage due to sputtering of a conductive layer. This is expected to have important application in top emitting devices in which the light does not have to pass between the transistors but, more efficiently, through a transparent cathode structure.

Osram Opto Semiconductors said it expects to roll out 12 new PMOLED displays by the end of this quarter.

The displays will come in three sizes (0.9" 80x48, 1.5" 96x64 and 1.6" 128x64) and a choice of four colors (lime green, jungle green, tiger orange and scarlet red). The new displays will address the industrial, medical and white-good industries