JDI raises its stake in JOLED for $100 million, receives $650 million from INCJ to grow its LCD and OLED business

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display (15%), Sony (5%) and Panasonic (5%) with an aim to become an OLED medium display producer using printing technologies. The Innovation Network Corp of Japan (INCJ), which funded JOLED, had a 75% stake.

In early 2016 it was reported that Japan Display (JDI) aims to acquire JOLED, and this deal is finally taking place - JDI will pay around $100 million USD to INCJ and will raise its stake to over 50% (which values JOLED at around $300 million). Reuters say that the financing transactions, though, will only end towards the end of 2017.

Read the full story Posted: Dec 13,2016

UBI: solution-processed OLED TVs to emerge by 2019

UBI Research predicts that OLED TVs produced using a solution-based process will start to appear in the market in 2019. Evaporation-processed WOLED TVs will still be the market leader with a 85% market share (of the total OLED TVs) in 2021.

WOLED vs  solution-processed OLED TV market (2017-2021, UBI)

Solution-based OLED emitters are not as efficient or long-lasting as evaporation OLEDs, but ink-jet printing will enable to reduce costs compared to evaporation, and for OLED TVs this can make business sense, especially as a WOLED (WRGB) structure is less efficient than a direct-emission RGB architecture. UBI sees solution-based OLEDs competing with WRGB OLEDs for the mid-range TV market, not the premium one.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 30,2016

Is TADF the future of efficient OLED emitters?

This is a premium OLED-Info article

TADF, or Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence, represents a class of OLED emitter materials that aim to provide efficient and long-lifetime performance. TADF research started in earnest in 2012, and some believe that TADF represent an exciting new platform for next-gen OLED emitters.

As OLED display adoption grows, researchers and developers at Universities and companies are looking to develop more efficient and cost-effective OLED materials. There are currently three main drivers for these efforts - the development of an efficient and long-lasting blue color emitter, the development of alternative non-phosphorescent emitters and the development of soluble materials that can be deposited in ink-jet printing and other "wet" methods.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 02,2016

UBI: WOLED Technology to lead the premium TV market

UBI Research says that WOLED technology will lead the premium TV market from 2020 onwards. LCD will not be able to match the performance of OLED TVs at the high-end of the TV market, and solution-based OLED TVs and QD TVs will find it hard to penetrate the market as WOLED technology is one step ahead in commercialization.

According to UBI, in 2016 OLED TVs will grab a 16.7% share of the global premium TV market. In 2020, OLED TVs will lead that market with a 68.1% share.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 23,2016

Nissan Chemical Industries acquires Solvay's soluble OLED IP

Nissan Chemical Industries announced that it acquired Solvay's OLED IP and expertise. These patents are related to the production of soluble HIL and HTL materials.

Solvay, an international chemical company based in Belgium, had several OLED activities, which it consolidated under Solvay OLED following the acquisition of Plextronics in 2014. Solvay decided to exit the OLED market as it sees further delays in soluble OLED introduction.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 22,2016

Kateeva's new Chief Product Officer gives us a company overview and update

Kateeva recently announced a large $88 million Series-E funding round, and the ink-jet equipment maker today announced that Ink-Jet guru Eli Vronsky has been promoted to the company's Chief Product Officer.

Eli Vronksy at Kateeva

During our recent visit to San Francisco, we caught up with Kateeva’s executive team on a break from their presentations on inkjet printing for flexible OLEDs. Chief Product Officer Eli Vronsky gave us an update, as well as an overview of the company’s product strategy.

Read the full story Posted: Jun 29,2016

UDC's evaporable emitters still outperform the best soluble materials

A few weeks ago we posted about Merck's soluble OLED material performance, and today we have some more data from the OLED Association. In the table below you can see how Merck's, Sumitomo and DuPont's soluble materials compare to UDC's evaporable OLED's materials.

Soluble vs evaporable oled performance (table, OLED-A)

As you can see, for the red material, evaporable OLEDs have a clear lead in lifetime and efficiency. For the green material that efficiency gap has pretty much closed, while the lifetime of the evaporable materials are still about double than the best soluble materials.

 
Read the full story Posted: Feb 05,2016

OLED-A says 2015 was a great year for the OLED industry, gives interesting projections for 2016

The OLED Association posted an interesting article, summarizing 2015 and giving its projection for 2016 and onwards. So first of all, they conclude that 2015 was a great year for the OLED display industry, with shipments up 53% over 2014 to reach almost 275 million units. AMOLED Revenues grew to almost $13 billion - up 40% over 2014.

OLED-A OLED shipments chart (2008-2015e)

The growth was mostly due to Samsung Display's effort to commercialize flexible OLED displays for mobile phones and the expansion of AMOLED customer beyond Samsung Electronics. LG Display also contributed to the OLED display market, and the OLED association estimates the LG sold over 400,000 OLED TVs. They also say that they shipped around 14,000 flexible OLEDs, but they probably mean around 14 million - as that about makes sense for the Apple Watch.

Read the full story Posted: Jan 07,2016

Mitsubishi and Pioneer to start mass producing color-tunable OLEDs made using a wet-coating process

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation Pioneer Corporation have developed a color-tunable and dimmable OLED lighting panel produced using Mitsubishi's wet-coating process. The companies say that this panel can be produced for less than one-third of the cost of OLEDs made with regular evaporation-based production methods.

MCPionner color-tunable wet-coated OLED prototype photo

Mitsubishi and Pioneer say that these panels will be mass produced in early 2016. They will make three panels, the OLE-P0505 (55x55 mm, active area 40x35 mm), the OLE-P0707 (69x69 mm, active area 54x51 mm) and the OLE-P0909 (92x92 mm, active area 76x76 mm). All three panels are 1.08 mm thick and feature a max luminance of 2,000 cd/m2 and a color temperature of 3000K to 5000K. The panels will be distributed by MC Pioneer OLED Lighting Corporation.

Read the full story Posted: Dec 10,2015

Merck reveals the efficiency and lifetime of their red and green soluble phosphorescent emitters

In January 2013, Merck said that the performance gap between soluble and evaporable OLED emitters is closed - at least in the lab. Earlier this month at the OLED World Summit the company revealed the development results of their phosphorescent materials, comparing them to UDC's materials (as published on UDC's website).

Merck's red emitter features an efficiency of 19.1cd/A, a lifetime (L90) of 5,900 hours and the CIE is (0.66, 0.34). UDC's red material features an efficiency of 29 cd/A and a lifetime of 23,000 hours. Merck's green material features an of 76.4cd/A, a lifetime of 5,200 hours, and the CIE is (0.32, 0.63). UDCs green features an efficiency of 85 cd/A and lifetime of 18,000 hours, The CIE is similar (0.31, 0.63).

Read the full story Posted: Nov 28,2015