OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 24

Dupont has unveiled two new OLED display prototypes made by a coating process (using solution processable materials). The first (shown below) is a 4.3" 480x272 (128 ppi) and the second is a 5.8" display offering 294x196 (83 ppi).

Dupont says that the solution-processable displays offer better uniformity than commercial LCD displays. The cost advantage for solution-processable OLEDs grow as as the panel size increases.

Universal Display has quietly released a new PHOLED material performance chart. Their Green-Yellow material now has 1.4 million lifetime hours (LT50), and their Red color offers 900,000 hours. Blue is still very challenging, and their light blue offers only 20,000 hours (LT50). Here's the complete chart:

The company also released some PHOLED material efficiency. Using only red PHOLED (with green and blue fluorescent materials) will result in a display that is about 15% more efficient compared to an LCD (this is the combination Samsung used in their 4.5-Gen AMOLED fab). Adding green color will result in a a display that is 30% more efficient compared to an LCD (this is the combination Samsung is using in their new 5.5-Gen fab). Adding blue will give a 50% more efficient display. UDC says that further enhancements (not specified) can result in a display that is 67% more efficient than an LCD. All these results are based on a 4" display operating at 300 cd/m² showing a video that has 40% pixels on.

Update: We've got a video of this cool prototype... see below

Universal Display shows new flexible OLED lighting panels at SID 2011. The new panels use the company's solution-processable P2OLED materials and the new single-layer encapsulation technology. UDC says they are showing this prototype to demonstrate how flexible OLED lighting and display technologies are accelerating towards commercialization.

The new prototype is pretty small - but UDC applied a motion sensor so this serpentine like lamp can recoil and uncoil... see more in this video:

Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer announced that they managed to fabricate a white OLED in which the emissive layer was formed in a coating process (not sure if they mean spin-coating or printing). The OLED is efficient (52 lm/W) and the lifetime (LT50) is 20,000 hours (at 1,000cd/m² luminance). The upper layers in this OLED are made using vapor-deposition method. The companies plan to commercialize printed OLEDs at around 2014.

Mitsubishi's Velve panels (which will start shipping soon) use a coating process only for the foundation layer and not the emissive layer. In September 2009 we interviewed Verbatim's OLED team (which will market Mitsubishi's OLED panels).

Universal Display reports advances in its UniversalP2OLED solution-processable material's performance: lifetime, efficiency and operation voltage. Solution-processable OLEDs can be used in ink-jet printing and other manufacturing techniques that can result in cost-effective production of large-size OLED panels. UDC says that commercial viability is now "in sight".

• The green P2OLED system, which offers a luminous efficiency of 68 candelas per Ampere (cd/A), has now achieved 175,000 hours of operating lifetime. This is a 34% increase over the last reported value (130,000 hours).
• The red P2OLED system, with a luminous efficiency of 18 cd/A, now offers an operating lifetime of 125,000 hours (a 100% increase over the last reported value of 62,000)
• The light blue P2OLED system now offers a luminous efficiency of 29 cd/A and 8,000 hours of operating lifetime (a 60% increase in efficiency and lifetime).

Back in 2006, we published an interview with Andy Hannah, Plextronics' president, CEO and co-founder. Andy agreed to do a follow-up interview to update us on Plextronics' business and technology.

Plextronics is a US-based company (established in 2002, as a spin-out from Carnegie Mellon University) that is developing technology that enables broad market commercialization of organic electronic devices - including OLEDs, plastic chips, polymer solar cells and organic sensors.

Q: Andy, can you give us a short introduction to your OLED technology?

Q: The benefits of OLEDs include, of course, being printable, low cost and demonstrating enhanced device performance. Plextronics’ technology plays a key part in achieving these benefits by reducing operating voltage in devices and thereby increasing lifetime and power efficiency.

Kaneka announced that it will start accepting orders for OLED lighting panels on March 22nd, 2011 in Japan (and later in April in Europe). Kaneka will offer OLED square panels in five colors (warm white, red, orange, blue and green). The panels will be dimmable (in the range from 1,000cd/m² to 5,000cd/m²).

Kaneka's OLED panels will cost around ¥2 million (approx $24,000) per square meter - and the company believes that the price will drop to ¥200,000 ($2,400) next year and to ¥50,000 ($600) or less by 2020. Production capacity in 2011 will be 10,000m² - and this will grow to 100,000m² in 2015. Kaneka panels will not be very efficient - around 20lm/W and will offer around 10,000 hours lifetime. But the company plans to improve this to about 60lm/W and 25,000 by 2014.

Back in May 2010 Dupont announced that they can print a a 50" OLED TV in under two minutes, using their new printable OLED materials and a custom-made printer from Dai Nippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Today we learned that Dupont estimates that their new OLEDs will be cheaper than LCDs - by about 40%! Regular OLEDs cost about twice as much  as LCDs to manufacture.

Dupont's new manufacturing process uses a continuous stream of ink (rather than droplets used in 'classic' inkjet design), and moves over a surface at rates of four to five meters per second while patterning a display. The spray-printer developed with Dai Nippon Screen works on Gen-4 substrates (730x920). Dupont is using a common structure for each pixel (red, green and blue) and isn't optimizing each pixel. This is less efficient, but results in faster throughput. 

Israel's Yissum Research Development Company (the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Korea's Vaxan Steel announced a new agreement to co-develop silver nanoparticles and silver-coated copper nanoparticles for conductive inks. These inks can be utilized in a variety of printing technologies, including inkjet printing, and can be used in applications such as OLEDs and RFID tags.

The new inks were invented by Professor Shlomo Magdassi, Dr. Alexander Kamyshny and Michael Grouchko from the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. Yissum granted Vaxan a license to commercialize the technology exclusively in Asia, excluding Israel and former Soviet Union countries, and will receive in return research fees and royalties from future sales. This is the first time a Korean company collaborates with an Israeli university.

Sony published an interesting interview with their display unit team about rollable OLED displays. Back in May (during SID 2010) Sony unveiled a new 4.1" rollable OLED display (with 423x240 resolution at 121ppi, 16.8 million colors - and the whole thing is just 80um thick). In the interview, Dr. Kazumasa Nomoto reveals that Sony's end target is a rollable large-screen OLED TV: "The time will come when the very idea that an enormous black box (TV) was ever placed in rooms will seem strange."

In the interview, the team discusses the new technologies that Sony created for this new display. First was a new Organic TFT based on a new material: a peri-
Xanthenoxanthene (PXX) derivative (this took Sony 5 years to develop!). Sony also developed a flexible gate driver circuit. Finally, an insulating layer for the O-TFT and OLED materials using flexible organic materials. Those three technologies enabled sony to create a rollable video display.