Universal Display was recently awarded a new patent (USPTO #20170186976) that describes high electroluminescent efficiency TADF OLED emitter and host materials based on benzotriazoles.

It is very interesting to see UDC developing TADF material. The company is focused on phosphorescent based OLEDs but, as they explain in the patent application, "phosphorescent materials generally contain a rare metal element such as Ir or Pt. These metals are rather expensive and are dependent on limited global resources". TADF could also be a viable route towards an efficient blue emitter (blue-emission is specifically mentioned in UDC's new patent).

Dr. Andreas Haldi was appointed as CYNORA's Chief Marketing Office in 2016. CYNORA develops efficient blue TADF OLED emitters, and Dr. Haldi was kind enough to participate in this interview and help us understand CYNORA's business and technology.

Q: Thank you Andreas for helping us understand CYNORA's business and technology better. CYNORA has set up on a focused mission to develop a commercial blue TADF emitter. What will you consider to be a market-ready material, in terms of lifetime, efficiency and color point?

For the last 5 years, CYNORA has worked on developing thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) OLED emitters. End of 2015 we started to focus on efficient blue materials, which are still a key issue for OLED displays. Compared to the red and green pixels, the blue pixel is much less efficient. An increased efficiency of the blue pixel would therefore significantly reduce the power consumption of the display.

Universal Display was granted a new patent that describes a novel hybrid MEMS display that uses patterned red, blue and yellow sub pixels combined with a MEMS-LED display.

The idea here that the whole display sits on top of a blue-emitting edge-lit LED structure. The blue light only goes through small subpixel-sized "holes" which are controlled using tiny MEMS shutters. A blue LED is much more efficient and long lasting than a blue OLED, so the idea here is to combine the efficient red, green and yellow phosphorescent OLEDs with the efficient blue LED.

Universal Display signed a five-year OLED Technology License Agreement and Supplemental Material Purchase Agreement with Tianma Micro-electronics. Under the license agreement, UDC granted Tianma non-exclusive license rights to manufacture and sell OLED display products based on its IPs. UDC will also supply phosphorescent OLED materials to Tianma.

Tianma is currently producing AMOLED displays in low volume in its 5.5-Gen pilot fab in Shanghai (our own sources say that these displays are not commercial yet but will be so by the end of 2016). In May 2016 the company demonstrated flexible and rigid OLED prototypes, including a 5.5" 702p (270 PPI) flexible OLED prototype with a bending radius of 20 mm.

Universal Display announced that it acquired BASF's entire OLED IP portfolio, for 87 Euro million (about $96 million). BASF's IP portfolio, representing 15 years of R&D, includes over 500 issues and pending patents around the world in 86 patent families - mostly regarding phosphorescent OLED materials and technologies. BASF’s OLED portfolio has an average lifetime of 10 years.

UDC says that BASF's patents will help the company develop and deliver an all-phosphorescent emissive stack. Specifically, UDC is believing that this will help the company develop commercial blue emissive systems. Including the new BASF patents, UDC will have over 4,000 issued and pending patents

IGNIS Innovation announced that it has signed a non-exclusive patent license agreement with LG Display. Ignis will provide LGD with access to its circuit technology to enhance the performance of OLED displays.

CSOT 5.5-inch MaxLife AMOLED prototype

Ignis Innovation developed several OLED circuit technologies. It's basic technology involves OLED compensation, both external and internal - which can improve the power consumption and lifetime of OLED displays. The technology should also increase production yields and enhance the picture uniformity and stability.

In October 2012 we reported that Taiwan's AU Optronics is suing two former executives that allegedly stole technologies (including AMOLED related ones) from the company and supplied it China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT, a subsidiary of TCL).

Today we learned that those two executives were found guilty by the Hsinchu Court in northern Taiwan. Tsung-Yi Hsu, a former OLED R&D department manager at AUO was charged of leaking AMOLED manufacturing and Thin-Film Transistor (TFT) structure research findings to CSOT (where he was employed as the director of the R&D center). Hsu will be jailed six months and fined NT $180,000 (around $5,500 US). The prosecutors are still deciding whether Hsu can pay a fine instead of facing imprisonment.

The US PTO published a new patent application from Apple that describes an OLED display with a built-in fingerprint reader. The idea is that integrating Near Infrared (NIR) emitters and detectors between the OLED subpixels will enable a much thinner design compared to separate display and detector layers. This also means that there is no need to have a separate reader in the home button as in current iPhones.

The Fraunhofer Institute has demonstrated bi-directional OLED microdisplays back in 2012 that are based on a similar idea - embedding photo detectors (in the visible light range, in that case) within the OLED sub pixels. The latest prototype unveiled in 2015 supports SVGA resolution and a hi-res image sensor. The bi-directional displays are available for sampling.

OLED-Info, in collaboration with Global IP News, is offering a daily newsletter covering OLED patents news for some time now. The OLED Patent Newsletter provides patent information from more than 85 countries and can be a valuable tool in tracking the OLED patent scene and protecting your company's assets.

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As a special feature-launch offer, if you subscribe by October 31 you will get a 25% discount - a yearly single-user subscription for only $300 (down from $400). We now also offer company-wide subscriptions - up to 10 subscribers for only $750.

In August 2011 Samsung signed a long-term license agreement with Universal Display. This agreement (which runs till 2017, and will probably be extended) included a license fee and allowed Samsung to acquire and use UDC's patented phosphorescent OLED materials.

In total, Samsung is set to pay (and already paid) UDC hundreds of million of dollars in royalties and materials. This got me wondering - why didn't Samsung acquire UDC back then, which would have given them a lock on the OLED market? Let's look at the numbers, but the answer is probably not related to the financials, really.