Merck - Page 7

According to the Taipei Times, Merck is looking for Taiwanese partners to co-develop OLED technologies, mostly for small displays. Merck signed a letter of intent with Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs director-general. According to the report Merck may setup a joint-venture firm that will actually produce OLED panels.

It seems that Merck is accelerating their OLED plans, just last month they opened a new OLED R&D lab in Korea.

There are reports that Universal Display's key PHOLED patent's key claims has been invalidated and revoked in an Oral Proceeding of the European patent office. According to the report UDC will have to submit a much narrower patent - deleting any references to any phosphorescent materials other than iridium. The opposition to the patent was filed by Merck, BASF, and Sumation.

UDC responded to this story: "The European Patent Office conducted an oral hearing on November 3rd. The EPO panel announced its decision to maintain the patent with claims directed to OLEDs containing phosphorescent organo-metalic iridium compounds. A transcript of this hearing will be available in two weeks. UDC's earning reports will be released tomorrow and hopefully we'll learn more about this issue.

Merck announced it has opened a new Application Development Laboratory in Korea. This lab will focus on OLED R&D and its design is based on the OLED labs in Merck's Materials Research Center in Darmstadt.

The lab will develop OLED materials in collaboration with Merck's Korean customers, and will offer chemical synthesis, refinement and analysis.

Mitsubishi installed the first Diamond Vision OLED screen at Merck's new Material Research Center ( Darmstadt, Germany) back in September. And we finally have an official photo:

The display measures 3.84m by 2.3m with a 1280x768 resolution, built from 60 PMOLED modules (each is 128x128), and weights a total of 480Kg.

Mitsubishi has installed the first Diamond Vision OLED screen, over at Merck's new Material Research Center in Darmstadt, Germany. The display measures 3.84m by 2.3m with a 1280x768 resolution. It has 60 modules (each is 128x128), and weights a total of 480Kg(!). Merck will use the display as an information system for presentations and events.

155-inch Diamond-Vision prototype

The Diamond Vision OLED display has started selling in September 21st, and uses PMOLED Modules - each is 128x128 pixels (384mm by 384mm in size). Each pixel is about 3mm in size. We're not sure, but this probably means that Mitsubishi is using Merck's OLED materials (or at least some OLED technology from Merck).

Merck has opened their new material research center in Dramstadt, Germany. One of the activities performed in the MRC will be OLED material research and development. In fact, during the inauguration ceremony, Angela Merkel (the German Federal Chancellor) was informed about Merck's research areas, especially in the area of OLED Lighting.

Merck's OLED material development started in 2005 when they bought Covion. We know that Merck is focusing today on solution processable OLED materials, and hopes to have a solution-processable Green OLED ready soon.

In February 2009, we interviewed Dr. Udo Heider, Merck's OLED Unit VP. Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company based in Germany, working on high performance OLED materials. Dr. Heider was kind enough to do a follow-up interview with us...

Q: Dr. Heider, thanks for taking the time to do this second interview... Back in February you said that within nine months you'll have a solution-processable Green OLED ready. Any updates on that? What about Blue and Red?

Indeed it is with great pleasure for me to report that our development team has really done an excellent job in making progress and delivering results in the area of solution-processed OLED materials. Merck can now report that in a spin coating process, the gap between solution and evaporation processed phosphorescent green materials has been almost completely bridged. Merck is now shifting its focus to the implementation phase: this means working together with world renowned process and display manufacturers to make sure that these materials can now be printed in line with performance and yield requirements. We hope to report on results in this area in the near future. The extensive know-how that has been accumulated during the last couple of months in the areas of Green can now be transferred with confidence to the other primary colors Red and Blue. The key to success is based on combining the learnings and strengths of the Small molecule and Polymer OLED worlds.

Merck are working toward solution-processable OLED materials, and are now saying that they expect to have a green material that is comparable to vacuum processable green within 9 months. Merck's materials will be suited for large-area panels such as OLED TV panels.  

Merck's OLED material development started in 2005 when they bought Covion. They say that the NEMO project (started in 2009) was a real boost to the performance of their materials.

Merck, Applied Materials and the Braunschweig University of Technology has been awarded a grant by the German government to develop processes to lower the cost of manufacturing large-area and efficient OLED Lighting for general illumination applications. The 3-year project is called Light InLine (or LILi).

The total cost of the project is about 7.5 million euros (just over $11 million). Almost half is provided by the German government, and the rest by the companies themselves.

NEMO (NEw Materials for OLEDs) is a new EU project focusing on new emitting systems based on soluble small molecules with long lifetime and efficiency. NEMO is led be four companies (coordinated by Merck) and seven research and academic institutions (including the Fraunhofer institute). The project is scheduled to last for 2.5 years, and is funded by the German government with 32 million euros.