Phosphorescent

Universal Display announced that it will detail advances in its latest PHOLED materials at Display Week 2023. The company's latest red, green, and blue PHOLED materials offer a narrow emission spectrum, which increases the efficiency of OLED devices, in addition to enhancing the color gamut.

UDC also unveil a new OVJP system printed on a 200mm x 500mm Corning Astra Glass substrate. UDC will also showcase the first-ever fully printed seven-layer (HIL/HTL/EBL/EML/HBL/ETL/EIL), 80 PPI, green commercial-level PHOLED device fabricated by its R&D OVJP system that has comparable device performance with vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE). 

In 2000 PPG Industries and Universal Display established a strategic relationship in 2000, and since then PPG has been the exclusive producer of UDC's PHOLED emitter materials. In 2021, the two companies announced that they will establish a new manufacturing site in Shannon, Ireland, for the production of UDC's emitters. Now UDC announced that the new fab is commencing operation.

The new production site will double PPG's production capacity of UDC's PHOLED emitters. This will also increase the company's ability to ensure uninterrupted supply of its crucial materials for the OLED industry. 

Universal Display Corporation announced that it has acquired Merck's Phosphorescent OLED Emitter Intellectual Property (IP) assets. This portfolio includes over 550 issued and pending patents around 172 patent families with an average lifetime of 10 years, and represents over 15 years of R&D. 

The two companies also entered into a multi-year collaboration agreement, in which the two companies will create advanced PHOLED stacks based on UDC's OLED green and yellow emitters and Merck's transport and host materials.

Universal Display reported its financial results for Q1 2023, with revenues of $130 million (down from $150 million last year) and net income of $40 million (down from $50 million in 2022).

UDC says that near-term demand for OLED displays is still soft, but the company remains confident on the long-term growth path for OLED displays. Looking ahead into 2023, the company expects yearly revenues to be in the range of $550 million to $600 million.

This is a sponsored post by Nanomatch

Using their in-house virtual design tools, Nanomatch developed a new class of emitters that enables the production of stable, fluorescent OLED devices with close to 100% internal quantum efficiency also in the blue color range.

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The specific class of fluorescent emitters facilitates the generation of only singlets with radiative decay of the order of 10-8s, thereby eliminating quenching processes induced by long-lived triplets. Having filed the patent end of February 2023, Nanomatch is now looking for partners to commercialize this new concept in order to realize efficient, stable blue OLEDs on an industrial level.

Researchers from Korea's Pusan National University have developed a new low-cost hole injection layer (HIL) material for solution-processed OLEDs, achieving higher efficiency and lifetime compared to the current state-of-the-art.

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The new material is solvent-resistant (>99%) and thermally cross-linkable. The researchers used this material to create a solution-procssed red phosphorescent OLED device. The researchers placed the material between the ITO electrode and the HTL material, thus achieving photo-crosslinking of (poly-TPD) as HTL on top of crosslinked HIL. 

Universal Display Corporation reported its financial results for Q4 2022, with revenues of $169 million and a net income of $65 million. Looking at 2022 as a whole, revenues reached $617 million (up 11% from 2021) while net income was $210 million, up 14% from 2021. The company ended 2022 with $826 in cash and equivalents.

The company expects the OLED industry to begin a new investment cycle in 2024, but in the near term the company sees a "temporary backdrop", and so expects its 2023 revenues to be in the range of $550 million to $600 million.

 Universal Display announced that it has signed an OLED evaluation agreement with Seiko Epson. Under the agreement, Universal Display will supply its proprietary phosphorescent OLED materials and technology to Epson for AR/VR microdisplay applications.

Seiko Epson is producing OLED microdisplays (branded as Si-OLED) for many years. It's latest announced display is a 0.453-inch 1920x1080 panel. The company's displays are used in its Moverio series of AR smartglasses. The company is also developing optical design engines (its 4th-Gen one is pictured above).

Universal Display announced that it has signed long-term OLED material supply and license agreements with Samsung Display. 

These new agreements mean that UDC will continue and supply its PHOLED OLED emitter materials to Samsung Display. The agreements are scheduled to run through December 31, 2027, and may be extended for an additional two-year period. Financial terms of the agreements have not been disclosed.

Universal Display reported its financial results for Q3 2022, with revenues revenues reaching a record high of $161 million, and a net income of $53 million. The company reiterated its forecast for 2022, with revenues of approximately $600 million, plus or minus $10 million.

Looking ahead, UDC remains positive of the OLED industry, but the near-term OLED demand may fluctuate due to uncertainties in the macro economy. UDC sees 2024 as a "pivotal year" for the OLED industry, with several new 6-Gen and 8-Gen OLED fabs due in that year.