Kodak

OLED technology has transformed the display industry, enabling thinner, lighter, efficient and flexible displays, with superb image quality than ever before. The journey from laboratory discovery to mass-market dominance is marked by a series of pivotal moments. Here, we explore five of the most significant milestones that shaped the OLED landscape, followed by a look at other critical achievements and what the future may hold for the OLED industry and market.

1. The original Kodak OLED moment (1987)

The story of OLED began in 1987 at Eastman Kodak, where Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke built the first operational OLED device. Their breakthrough combined modern thin-film deposition techniques with suitable organic materials to create a double-layer OLED that could emit light efficiently at low voltages. This foundational work proved that organic materials could be used to make practical light-emitting devices and laid the groundwork for decades of innovation. Kodak continued to develop OLED technologies, until it sold its entire OLED IP to LG for $100 million in 2009.

2. The invention of PHOLEDs and the founding of Universal Display Corporation (UDC, 1994-1998)

While early OLEDs used fluorescent emitters, the next major leap was the development of phosphorescent OLEDs (PHOLEDs). PHOLEDs, pioneered by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Southern California (and commercialized by Universal Display Corporation, founded in 1994), dramatically improved efficiency by allowing nearly 100% internal quantum efficiency, compared to about 25% for fluorescent OLEDs. This efficiency gain was crucial for battery-powered devices and large-area displays.

Dr. Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke are two OLED pioneers - in fact you can say that they invented OLEDs back in the late seventies when they worked for Eastman Kodak. The two wrote a seminal paper on OLEDs in 1976 that has been cited in more than 5,000 publications, and have been inducted to the CE hall of fame.

The two scientists have been named for this year's citation laureates by Thomson Reuters - which quite accurately forecast Nobel Prize winners (since they started listing scientists in 2002, they accurately forecast 35 Nobel Prize winners). It will be great to see those two esteemed inventors receive the Nobel Prize! The winners will be announced on October 8th.

In January 2014, Global OLED Technology (GOT) filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against eMagin for breach of license agreement.

Today eMagin announced that it entered into a settlement agreement with Global OLED Technology. The two companies terminated the original patent license agreement in exchange for mutual releases and the payment by eMagin of a one-time, undisclosed settlement amount. GOT will dismiss its lawsuit and eMagin will not pay any royalties to GOT (their current product offering does not incorporate any GOT IP.

Global OLED Technology (GOT) filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against eMagin for breach of license agreement. eMagin has been a licensee of GOT's patent portfolio (which originated at Kodak) since 1999.

GOT says that eMagin breached its patent license agreement by failing to pay annual minimum royalty payments, neglecting to report or pay royalties for the sales of licensed products, and breaching certain confidentiality obligations.

Dr. Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke are two OLED pioneers - in fact you can say that they invented OLEDs back in 1987 in Eastman Kodak. The two wrote a seminal paper on OLEDs that has been cited in more than 5000 publications. Now the two pioneers were inducted into the 2013 Consumer Electronics hall of fame.

Dr. Ching Tang is currently a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Rochester. Steven Van Slyke is the CTO of Kateeva - developing an inventive inkjet printing manufacturing equipment solution for mass production of flexible and large-size OLEDs. We interviewed Steven back in 2008 when he was still at Kodak.

Global OLED Technology (GOT) has filed a lawsuit against Eastman Kodak, claiming that 18 of Kodak's patent actually belong to GOT. Kodak says that these 18 patents are not related to OLED technologies and so were not part of the 2009 deal (when GOT bought about 2,200 OLED patents and patent applications from Kodak). We do not what are the actual patents involved.

GOT is also seeking to recover royalty payments from Pioneer that were paid to Kodak and not GOT. The Pioneer license was supposed to have been transferred to GOT but apparently Kodak wasn't able to obtain consent for the transfer.

Kodak and Heraeus have developed a new easily-patterend transparent conductive film that can be used as a cost-effective alternative to ITO in touch displays. The two companies unveiled a 14" touch LCD prototype that was was fabricated using Kodak HCF-225 Film/ESTAR base and the Clevios PEDOT:PSS coating with a surface resistivity of 225 ohms/sq. It was fabricated using conventional printing processes, including UV-cured and heat processed inks.

According to the companies, the polymer-based touch screen system provides superior touch performance, flexibility, stability, a high level of transparency, neutral color and low haze all at an economic price

Last week we reported that Chimei Innolux are showing AMOLED panels at FPD China 2011 (which is good news as we're still not sure whether Chimei Innolux (CMI) is producing AMOLED panels or not). We now have more information on those panels. There are two panels on show: a 3.2" (320x480) and a 3.5" (360x64).

CMI are calling those displays TrueOLED, but apparantly they use a white-OLED with color filters design. This is the same method that was developed by Kodak (and now LG owns that technology). This includes a white subpixel (with no filter) to enhance brightness. Other features of those panels: 300cd/m²brightness, 30,000:1 contrast ratio, 160° viewing angles and 100% color gamut for the 3.2" panel (87% for the 3.5" one).

Idemitsu Kosan said they have signed an agreement to acquire a 32.73% stake in Global OLED Technology. Global OLED Technology is owned by LG, and this company has over 2,000 OLED patents (LG created this company when it bought Kodak's OLED business back in December 2009).

Update: Nikkei.com reports that the deal is estimated at "several billion yen" (a billion yen is about $11 million). This makes sense, as LG originally bought the whole patent portfolio for $100 million.