Technical / Research

Choosing color sets can reduce OLED power consumption by up to 40%

oled — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:33:41 -0400

Researchers (led by Johnson Chuang from the Simon Fraser University in Canada) have shown that if you choose the color set on an OLED display, you can save up to 40% of the power required.

Different colors in OLED require different power - for example yellow is more efficient than Magenta, at the same brightness.

This can be useful, if you want to get better battery life over display quality. Here's an example of a tooth image:

The left image (tooth) is using standard colors, and the right image is using colors that require 40% less energy on an OLED. The quality is obviously better with standard colors, but almost all the details are preserved. This can be used for applications such as medical or military I guess, where power saving is key.

Via NewScientist

Interview with OLED100.eu's project manager

oled — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:31:03 -0400

The OLED100.eu project is a European 3-year OLED lighting project. The 30M$ project is a followup to the OLLA project, ended in June 2008, and it is lead by Philips, OSRAM, Siemens, Novaled and the Franhofer IPMS.

Dr. Stefan Grabowsky, the project's manager has been kind enough to talk to us, answer a few questions and give us more info on the project. Dr. Stefan has a Ph.D in Physics, from the University of Duisburg. In 2000 he joined Philips Research labs. He's working on OLEDs for several years now, with a focus on device physics and OLED stack development. Since September 2008 he is the project manager for OLED100.eu.

Q: Stefan, thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Can you tell us a bit about OLED100.eu?
OLED100.eu is an European integrated research project that has brought together a consortium of experts from leading industry and academic organizations to accelerate the development of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies. It has received €12.5 million funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme to form the technological basis for efficient OLED applications for the general lighting industry in Europe.

Large-area OLED from Philips

GE to start printing OLED light panels next year

oled — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:29:14 -0400

EEtimes says that GE will start volume production of flexible OLED light panels in 2010. GE will print the OLEDs on polymer substrate, and use their ultra-high barrier coating. GE says that they managed to lower production cost by using roll-to-roll printing, and inexpensive substrates (the polymer ones).

GE are also thinking about possible new designs, and have released this video a month ago, which includes several flexible OLED light designs by art students, including wearable OLEDs for emergency safety gear, illuminated stairs, walls and signs in stores and a nice "wall peel" OLED lamp:

A new Japanese company formed to work on white OLED technology

oled — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:58:09 -0400

Junji Kido, a professor from the Yamagata University in Japan has formed a new company, called Organic Lighting, to work on white OLEDs. The company's capital is only about 130,000$ currently, and it was setup in the Yamagata Universit'yes Venture Business Laboratory.

Organic Lighting plans to have equipment on the market by the beginning of 2010. It will not have its own factory. They also have plans for OLED emergency lights for public places. They hope to reach several tens of millions of US$ in revenue by 2014.

Professor Junji Kido is the inventor of the first white OLED.

Via iStockAnalyst

Seiko Epson sees 37" (and larger) inkjet-printed OLED TVs in 2012

oled — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:20:54 -0400

Last month Seiko Epson has unveiled a new inkjet-printing technology for OLEDs, suitable for large sized panels. We have talked to Satoru Miyashita, General Manager of Seiko Epson's Core Technology Development Center about this new technology and their plans for OLED production.

Q: You have shown a new ink-jet based OLED technology. You say it will enable 37" or larger HD-OLED TVs. Do you have any plans to actually make such TVs? When do you think products can be made with this new tech?
Epson is currently considering a variety of options regarding the commercialization of this technology, but at this point no specific announcements have been made about plans. We see 2012 as being the year that 37"+ OLED TVs will be launched by various makers, and 2015 as the year that sales will really take off for this market.

Espon 14-inch Inkjet processed OLED

IGNIS shows new AMOLED prototype using its MaxLife backlane tech

oled — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:58:44 -0400

IGNIS Innovation unveiled a prototype display using its backplane technology called MaxLife. The MaxLife solution compensates not only for the thin film transistor (TFT) degradation, but also for OLED as well.

IGNIS showed its prototype of a cutout of a 32” 1080p HDTV, with an operating device lifetime of 75,000 hrs and no image burn-in over that period, which is equivalent to 20 years when watching for 10hrs/day.

“The growth of the AMOLED industry has been constrained due to the technological hurdles associated with achieving a truly reliable, uniform and scalable TFT backplane. Our MaxLife platform now enables our customers, the display manufacturers, to accelerate their market introduction of large, visually stunning and affordable AMOLED HDTVs and other large area applications in the very near future”, said Paul Arsenault, President and CEO of IGNIS.

Bayer AG license Add-Vision's Flexible Polymer OLEDs

oled — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:33:27 -0400

Bayer MaterialScience AG, a unit of Bayer AG, signed a technology and patent license agreement with Add-Vision. Bayer will be able to manufacture and sell flexible Polymer based printable OLEDs.

Bayer says that the technology is an important component for many applications in the coming years - such as active packaging and labels, gift cards, electronic toys and games, promotional products or point-of-sale signage.

Financial details have not been disclosed.

Scientists eliminate precise doping limits from the OLED manufacturing process

oled — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:55:51 -0400

Scientists from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako have developed a way to eliminate precise doping limits from the OLED manufacturing process. By using a metal dopant containing molecular groups that block the self-quenching interactions, the scientists have, for the first time, fabricated high-efficiency OLEDs with a wide range of doping concentrations.

Hou and colleagues modified a phosphorescent iridium metal complex with a class of molecules known as amidinates. These molecules bind to iridium through a nitrogen atom that localizes electrons near the center of the metal complex. Bulky carbon groups on the edges of the complex are inert and prevent the materials from attaching and self-quenching their phosphorescence.

Via RikenResearch

Corning shows Siliocon-On-Glass (SiOG) tech to enable cheaper, larger OLEDs

oled — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:03:15 -0400

Corning is showing their latest Silicon-On-Glass (SiOG) technology. SiOG is used to transfer a thin-film of silicon into a display substrate. SiOG is scalable, and currently Corning can make it on a Gen2 substrate, Gen4 by the end of the year.

Corning SiOG prototype

The SiOG process would permit the fabrication of stable OLED pixel switches with higher yield and much greater performance than LTPS, and on larger substrates. Corning claims that costs will be lower, because this enables manufacturers to integrate the circuitry on the display substrate easily.

Some panel makers are already trying this out, and hopefully we'll see prototype OLED displays based on SiOG by the end of 2009.

Via DisplayDaily

Universal Display and Samsung Present Advances in Highly Efficient, Long Lifetime Green PH-OLEDs

oled — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:47:10 -0400

Universal Display and Samsung Mobile Displays present advances in green Phosphorescent OLEDs at SID. This new material will be used in both hand-held devices and OLED TVs, extending lifetime and efficiency. UDC's red materials are already used in Samsung's AMOLED displays, and it's likely that we'll see Samsung use their green materials as well.

The companies showed a highly-efficient, green UniversalPHOLED material that has been used in a top-emission PHOLED device architecture. Using this approach, they achieved two milestones. A green PHOLED with NTSC color at CIE(0.20, 0.73), high luminous efficiency of 110 candelas per Ampere (cd/A), and a low voltage of 3.6 V at 3,000 candelas per square meter (cd/m2) was achieved.

A second device structure using this green PHOLED material system also achieved an ultra-high luminous efficiency of 160 cd/A along with CIE(0.28, 0.69) and low voltage of 3.8 V at 3,000 cd/m2. These compare to a standard bottom-emission device with CIE(0.33, 0.62) and 52 cd/A using this same green PHOLED material system. Replacing the green fluorescent OLED material typically used today in an AMOLED with this new green PHOLED can result in a significant 37% power savings.