Phosphorescent

Universal Display Corporation, or UDC, is one of the OLED industry's pioneers, and the company that probably represents the best success of any startup within the industry. UDC is worth $7 billion, and it has been historically the go-to company for anyone that wants to invest in the OLED industry.

In this article, we detail the company's history, products and technologies, explain what PHOLEDs are all about, and also look into its future, and discuss both bull and bear cases as a investment opportunity. Disclosure: the author of this post holds shares in Universal Display.

The history of Universal Display Corporation

The history of Universal Display starts at 1994, when the company was founded by Sherwin Seligsohn in Ewing, New Jersey. The company was established to commercialize OLED technologies developed at Princeton University and the University of Southern California. UDC holds the basic patents of phosphorescent OLED (branded as PHOLED by UDC) technology. 

Universal Display Corporation reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2025, with revenues of $171.8 million (up 8.4% from $158.5 million in Q2 2024). Its net income in the quarter was $67.3 million, up from $52.3 million in Q2 2024.

The company says it had a strong quarter, and it is forecasting strong demand for OLED displays, mostly driven by higher demand for IT OLED panels and automotive OLED panels. UDC updated its full-year 2025 guidance, increasing the lower end of its revenue projection which now in a range of $650-700 million.

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.

Korea-based OLED materials maker Solus Advanced Materials announced that it's green phosphorescence OLED host has received customer approval and is now getting ready to start mass producing it.

The company says it has spent years in R&D, and has developed a proprietary host material that offers high performance (low voltage, high efficiency and long lifespan), and a good price level as it does not require deuterium substitution. The company hopes to secure design wins in both large-area TV panels and small-area smartphone and wearable panels. Solus aims to next develop a red phosphorescence material. 

A team of researchers led by Prof. Forrest at the University of Michigan designed a new highly promising blue phosphorescent OLED emitter. The researchers demonstrated a tandem device that is based on these new emitters, that increased the lifetime 250 times compared to a conventional single-stack PHOLED device. This new design provide a real path towards a commercial blue PHOLED device.

To achieve that dramatic increase in lifetime, the researchers applied a polariton-enhanced Purcell (PEP) cathode and anode, to create a so-called PEP-PHOLED device. The blue color coordinate is CIExy = (0.14, 0.12). The researcher say that this double-sided PEP effect can be integrated with other established lifetime-extending technologies. 

Researchers from Tsinghua University have developed a deuterated exciplex-forming host material for deep-blue phosphorescent OLED devices, with improved stability.

The researchers say that this research unveiled an external deuteration effect on OLED dopants, which reduces the shoulder emissions for slightly blue-shifted colors and also accelerates the radiative decay rates. This leads to improved photoluminescence efficiency.

LG Display is demonstrating its latest OLED technologies, displays and prototypes at SID Displayweek 2025. The company is focused, this year, on three technologies: large sized WOLED panels, automotive displays, and next-generation technologies.

In the large-area WOLED zone, LG Display is showing its 4th-Gen WOLED panels, that adopt LG's tandem stack to reach a brightness of up to 4,000 nits. The new OLED panels also boost energy efficiency by approximately 20% compared to the previous generation (based on 65-inch panels), through enhancements in the element structure and power supply system. LG is also showing its latest 27-inch gaming WOLED panels, and its 45-inch 5K2K (5120x2160) monitor panel.

LG Display announced that it has successfully verified the commercialization-level performance of blue phosphorescent OLED panels on a mass production line. LG is using a hybrid two-stack Tandem OLED structure, with blue fluorescence in the lower stack and blue phosphorescence in the upper stack. This enabled LG to achieve a power consumption reduction of 15%, while maintaining a similar level of stability to existing OLED panels.

The blue PHOLED emitter was supplied by Universal Display. LG Display says that it has independently filed patents for its hybrid blue phosphorescent OLED technology in both South Korea and the United States.