Dupont has filed a suit (and fired) against a Chinese-born employee called Hong Meng who was allegedly about to leave to China with DuPont's OLED technology trade secrets. They say he was planning to take the information to Peking University in Beijing, who's already involved in OLED technology.

This is not the first time this happens to DuPont - two years ago another employee was charged with trade secret theft, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Universal Display and the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University has announced a significant milestone towards a manufacturable flexible OLEDs. The new display is the first a-Si:H AMOLED display to be manufactured directly on DuPont Teijin’s polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate.

The companies will be showing a 4.1" monochrome QVGA flexible OLED at SID. This display has the same brightness as normal displays with extremely low power consumption. The flexible backplane display was manufactured at the Flexible Display Center utilizing a 180°C thin film transistor process. The FDC’s facility implements traditional flat panel and semiconductor tools and processes to achieve flexible displays, enabled by its proprietary bond-debond technology to secure the plastic substrate to a rigid carrier during manufacture.

A few years ago, lifetime was the biggest issue with OLEDs, but it seems companies are showing very rapid advances. Dupont announced today that they developed new (third Generation) printable, solution process OLED materials.

The Green Gen3 material has over one million hours lifetime (that's over 100 years of constant use!) with 25 cd/A efficiency. The color coordinates are 0.26, 0.65. 

The light-blue Gen 3 (color coordinates 0.14, 0.12) has 38,000 hours from 1000 cd/m2, efficiency of 6.0 cd/A, and a lifetime of 38,000 hours. A deeper blue (color coordinates 0.14, 0.08) was developed with 7,000 hours. Due to its deep blue color, the lifetime of this material at the luminance required for a 200 cd/m2 display is calculated to be approximately 41,000 hours. 

The Gen-3 red has a lifetime of 62,000 hours, current efficiency of 13 cd/A, and color coordinates (0.68, 0.32). 

The National Energy Technology Laboratory, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced its selection for solid-state lighting funding opportunities. A total of fourteen projects were chosen, six of which are OLED related.

QD Vision: Quantum Dot Light Enhancement Substrate for OLED Solid-State Lighting
Summary: This project seeks to develop and demonstrate a cost-competitive solution for realizing increased extraction efficiency organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) with efficient and stable color rendering index (CRI) for SSL. Solution processible quantum dot (QD) films will be utilized to generate tunable white emission from blue emitting phosphorescent OLED (Ph-OLED) devices.

HP and the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU) today announced the first prototype of affordable, flexible electronic displays.

The unbreakable displays were created by the FDC and HP using self-aligned imprint lithography (SAIL) technology invented in HP Labs, HP’s central research arm. SAIL is considered self aligned because the patterning information is imprinted on the substrate in such a way that perfect alignment is maintained regardless of process-induced distortion.

SAIL technology enables the fabrication of thin film transistor arrays on a flexible plastic material in a low-cost, roll-to-roll manufacturing process. This allows for more cost-effective continuous production, rather than batch sheet-to-sheet production.

The first practical demonstration of the flexible displays was achieved through collaborative efforts between the FDC and HP as well as other FDC partners including DuPont Teijin Films and E Ink. To create this display, the FDC produces stacks of semiconductor materials and metals on flexible Teonex® Polyethylene Naphthalate (PEN) substrates from DuPont Teijin Films.

HP then patterns the substrates using the SAIL process and subsequently integrates E Ink’s Vizplex™ imaging film to produce an actively addressed flexible display on plastic. E Ink’s Vizplex bi-stable electrophoretic imaging film enables images to persist without applied voltage, thereby greatly reducing power consumption for viewing text.

Dainippon Screen DuPont jointly
established a new OLED manufacturing process based on the "multi-nozzle
printing method," which uses DuPont's soluble low-molecular-weight
organic EL material. And the companies employed this process for the
new manufacturing system.

The system has a monthly throughput of 10,000 panels per line (fourth generation).
Dainippon Screen plans to put the system on the market by the end of
fiscal 2009.  They are now showing a 4.3" (480x272) AMOLED manufactured by the new process and machines.

Read more here (TechOn)

Digitimes reports that Chi Mei EL (CMEL) expects that its AMOLED TV panel technologies, which are being developed with help from Kodak and DuPont, will see a breakthrough next year, and volume production may start in 2010 or 2011, according to company vice chairman Peter Chen.

CMEL's yield for AMOLED panels has reached 70%, and is expected go up to 85% by the end of 2008, Chen said.

The company's second production line, which is under construction, will come online in October this year, and by then the company's monthly capacity will reach 800,000 units (2.8-inch equivalent), he added.

Read more here (Digitimes) 

DuPont and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. today announced their intention to form a strategic alliance to develop integrated manufacturing equipment for printed organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. The companies have also signed an agreement relating to their intention to bring together the elements needed--materials, technology and equipment--to mass produce OLED displays, delivering higher performance at a lower cost.

"The flat panel display market is about $100 billion annually and growing. DuPont is applying its science to make possible more vivid displays that are lower cost than current LCD displays," said David B. Miller, group vice president, DuPont Electronic & Communication Technologies. "We are excited to combine our strengths with Dainippon Screen's unique printing technology to bring to market the core technology that will enable improved high definition televisions and other flat panel displays."

CMEL showcased a 4.3" AMOLED display. Sample shipments are slated for September 2007, and volume production and shipments are expected to start around December 2007. A life extends to "20,000 hours when lit at 50% luminance and 10,000 hours at 100%," a booth attendant said.

The materials and glass cover are made by DuPont.

Read more here (TechOn Asia)

The new set of materials rely on DuPont hole-injection layer (HIL) material and include those essential in the construction of an OLED display, such as light-emitting and charge-transport materials.

DuPont Displays said it has also exceeded the reported performance of other solution-based OLED materials and has measured accelerated lifetimes of the three primary colors that could translate in a display to 20,000 hours of white lifetime (which is extended by as much as five times when showing video) at a normal viewing brightness (200 cd/m2). At 1000 cd/m2 -- the standard test luminance used in the industry -- the DuPont materials have lifetimes (T50) of 14,000 hours for blue with CIE 1931 color coordinates of (0.14, 0.16), 230,000 hours for green with color coordinates of (0.29, 0.65), and 46,000 hours for red with color coordinates of (0.66, 0.34).