CDT

UDC says that the European Patent Office has rejected an opposition to one of their core flexible OLED patents in Europe. The opposition was filed by Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) back in 2006.

Source: UDC's conference call (via Seeking-Alpha)

CDT is one of the leaders in OLED research, focusing on Polymer-based OLEDs. While these OLEDs are lagging behind small-molecule OLEDs in current products (all AMOLEDs today are based on SM-OLEDs), some companies believe that P-OLEDs are actually the better tech for the future.

CDT's CEO, David Fyfe has agreed to answer a few questions we had on CDT's technology. David joined CDT in 2000 as Chairman and CEO. David saw CDT go public in 2004, and then negotiated the sale of CDT to Sumitomo for $285 million (in September 2007). David is also a director of Soligie, an electronics printing company, Acal Energy, a fuel cell technology developer and the Plastic Electronics Foundation.

Q: David - thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Since the Sumitomo acquisition, CDT has been rather quiet... can you give us an update on where's the company now, and where's it is headed?
Since the merger of CDT into Sumitomo Chemical in September 2007, CDT has grown substantially and received considerable capital investment to enable it to remain a leading developer of P-OLED technology. It works very closely with SCC laboratories in Japan and most recently has been transferring manufacturing process knowhow to SCC's own P-OLED manufacturing development line, recently commissioned at Ehime on Shikoku, Japan. CDT in partnership with SCC has made large strides in materials lifetimes and efficiencies. SCC prefers to take a lower profile in announcing these advances since its business model is to work with selected display maker partners in a collaborative, confidential relationship. We have also made big strides in the development of top emitting structures and in printing P-OLED displays. SCC's strategy is that CDT will continue to be its leading development center for P-OLED technology with Ehime scaling process technology to a yielding process status. CDT is also working very closely with Semprius of North Carolina, USA to develop single crystal silicon TFT structures on which P-OLED devices can be deposited and driven – using Semprius’ proprietary stamping technology.

CDT 14-inch OLED prototype from 2005

Q: It seems that OLED displays are finally entering the mainstream - we hear of new devices (mainly by Samsung, but also from Sony, Microsoft, LG and others) almost daily. What are your thoughts on this? what are the challenges that still exist for OLEDs?
Sony broke the logjam of resistance to the adoption of OLED in large displays by major display makers with the introduction of its XEL-1 11” OLED TV in 2007. Samsung SDI’s investment in small screen OLED production in 2007, based on LTPS backplanes was another major impetus. Since then, Chi Mei has brought on small OLED screen capacity, TMD (now wholly owned by Toshiba) has built an OLED line to manufacture small screens, LG Display will start up their Gen 3.5 line late this year and if press reports are to be believed, Toppoly will commission their capacity with Nokia as a lead customer and Panasonic have a major OLED development program for large OLED displays.

Panasonic has announced that they are developing OLEDs together with Sumitomo. They aim to make 40" (or bigger) TVs by 2010. Back in 2008, Sumitomo announced plans for OLED TVs by 2009, and were seeking partners for doing it.

Sumitomo's technology is based on CDT's P-OLED (CDT were acquired by Sumitomo back in 2007).

Panasonic also said they are partnering with other companies, but they didn't name any of them. There are rumors that one of these companies is Toshiba.

Several companies are giving updates on OLEDs in CES.

• CDT are demonstrating near-eye viewer with P-OLEDs. CDT also shows screen-printed flexible OLEDs together with Add-Vision.
• Idemitsu Kosan shows both fluorescent and phosphoscent based OLEDs, with long lifetime. They are also showing white OLEDs for lighting.
• Ignis Innovations areshowing a prototype 2.2" QVGA OLED with their backplane and driver tech, amied at reducing cost and improving manufacturability. 
• Novaled shows a defect-tolerant OLED light source. Novaled's demonstration delivers more than three times the efficiency of standard incandescent light bulbs and lasts ten times longer and has no Mercury.

Plextronics announced today that its conductive ink has been shown to improve the performance of certain P-OLED devices.

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) will develop a new technology to make OLED backplanes, together with Semprius. The new tech will be integrated into CDT's 14-inch development line at Godmanchester campus, near Cambridge, UK.

Semprius has a technology for semiconductor printing, and the two companies will use the technology in the manufacturing of OLED backplanes. 

Semprius' micro-transfer printing process allows transfer printing of high-performance semiconductors onto virtually any surface, including glass, flexible and rigid plastic, metal and other semiconductor materials. Semprius will focus on using its patented process to transfer single crystal silicon semiconductors onto the backplane, thereby increasing overall display performance.

Read the original press release here

PolPhotonix, a UK based OLED-lighting startup is building its first production line. They want to make 3M efficient OLED panels with high yields. They say their main markets are automotive and architectual lighting. In fact they got their first funding through a project called MENDIP, in which Sanko Gosei (a Japanese car interior maker) is another partner.

The production line will make the OLEDs on 200x200m glass substrates, at least initially. Later perhaps they will use flexible plastic substrates. 

PolPhotonix is using CDT's P-OLED IP, and are seeking 4.5M$ in investment.

Via ElectronicWeekly