Patents

Samsung Display has developed a new technology that enables multiple refresh rates in AMOLED displays. The idea is that one can create several zones in the display, each with its own refresh rate.

Driving at low refresh rates helps reduce the power consumption of the display and the new technology will be useful in scenarios in which a part of the screen needs high refresh rates (like video content embedded inside a web page).

In 2020 Kateeva lost Samsung's QD-OLED inkjet printing inkjet printing contact to Korea's Semes, which resulted in massive layoffs including some of Kateeva's executives.

In January 2022 it was reported that Samsung has decided to change course, and rely on Kateeva's inkjet printers in its 2nd QD-OLED production line, as the Semes printers do not perform as well as Samsung hoped.

The Korean Supreme court put an end to a years-long legal battle between LG Display and Samsung Display, saying that SDC's employees and a chief executive of one of LG's suppliers are not guilty in IP theft.

The supreme court upheld the original ruling and dismissed the appeal. The case revolved around LGD's face seal encapsulation technology for OLED displays. The main issue in the legal case was whether leaked LGD documents were trade secrets. The employees and executives were first found guilty, but at a higher court they were found innocent as it was decided that the information was already widely known in the industry.

An interesting report from Korea suggests that Apple's CEO met with Samsung Display's CEO recently, as Apple is looking to reduce its OLED iPhone orders from Samsung by around 15% in 2022.

Apple, like the rest of the technology industry, is facing supply constraints and has already said that it won't be able to meet the demand for its products in 2022. Apple's original plan was to produce 220 million iPhones in 2022, and it expected to order 160 million iPhone AMOLED panels from SDC. Apple's now expects to ship only 185 million iPhones.

The Elec reports that Korea-based LORDIN is progressing with its blue OLED emitter technology. The company recently filed for a high-efficiency blue OLED emission patent, and according to the company's plans it aims to have a commercial blue OLED emitter out in 2024.

Not much is known about LORDIN's technology, beyond a statement by LORDIN that says it aims to achieve over 90% IQE, and that it is based on the control of energy transfer speed between emitter molecules. the energy transfer speed between molecules inside the material to increase efficiency.

In 2016, Researchers from Japan's Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) announced a new OLED device architecture, called ExTET ('exciplextriplet energy transfer'), that can increase the performance of OLED devices. The technology was applied for a patent in 2011.

The ExTET technology, which is a modification of the host material and the EML layer in phosphorescent OLED devices, have since been introduced to commercial AMOLED panels, increasing the efficiency and lifetime of the materials, while also lowering the drive voltage.

Ireland-based OLED IP company Solas OLED announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Nintendo and Samsung Display in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Solas says that the Nintendo Switch OLED infringes four of Solas’ U.S. patents: 7,499,042; 7,573,068; 7,868,880; and 7,663,615 that relate to the 7-inch OLED display, produced by SDC.

LG Display announced that it renewed its patent license agreement with Japan's Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL). It is not clear from the release, but it seems as if LGD has access to SEL's entire display patent portfolio.

SEL, established in 1980, engages with research and development across many fields, and is very active with OLED technology research. In recent years, SEL developed flexible and foldable OLED technologies, OLED device structures, novel OLED materials, OLED CAAC-IGZO backplanes, and more.

IP Portfolio holder IPValue Management acquired over 1,200 patents and applications from Mitsubishi Electric's display business unit. The IP, a result of over two decades of R&D, encompasses a wide range of LCD, OLED and other technologies.

The patents will now be owned by IPValue's subsidiary, Trivale Technologies. The financial terms of this agreement were not disclosed.

Researchers from the University of Michigan developed a new electrode design for OLED devices, that can increase light output by up to 20% compared to current electrodes. The new electrode is compatible with current production processes.

The new design helps to minimize the waveguiding effect, which traps around 80% of the light produced by the OLED emitters. The researchers used a modal elimination approach, which involves optimizing the organic stack and the replacing the ITO anode with a thin film of silver deposited on a layer of copper. This kind of approach can be applied to other light emitting structures such as inorganic LEDs, perovskite LEDs, quantum dots and more.