Universal Display and LG Display announced that the companies have extended their long-term agreements. LGD and UDC signed new OLED Technology License and Material Purchase Agreements. The new extended agreements run for five years.
UDC and LG did not disclose any further details or any financial terms. The two companies signed the original agreement in 2015.
Phosphorescent materials are based on the addition of a heavy-metal to the emissive materails, and most (if not all?) commercial materials use Iridium. The price of this rare metal has hit an all-time high last week.
Towards the end of last year, the price of one oz of Iridium was $1,760. Last week it hit $6,000 - the price jumped over 300% in just three months. Experts explain that the price has risen due to a disruption in the supply in South Africa (which supplies around 80% of the global market) and strong demand from the electrical and electrochemical sector.
PPG Industries and Universal Display established a strategic relationship in 2000, and since then PPG is the exclusive producer of UDC's PHOLED emitter materials. The two companies announced that they will establish a new manufacturing site in Shannon, Ireland, for the production of UDC's emitters.
The new facility will double the production capacity of UDC's OLED emitters at PPG, and will also diversify the company's manufacturing base. UDC leased the Ireland site (which, up until now, was producing pharmaceutical intermediates) and will adapt it to PHOLED production. Facility improvements and regulatory approvals are expected to be completed in the next 12 months, and operations are scheduled to commence in early 2022.
Researchers from Osaka University developed the best performing heavy-metal-free room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) OLED emitters.
The researchers say that the new emitter (called SiAz), made entirely out of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and silicon atoms, combines the mechanisms of TADF and RTP to create an efficient emitter system.
A couple of months ago we reported that researchers at UDC developed an OLED device with plasmonic decay rate enhancement that dramatically increase device stability. It turns out that UDC filed for two new trademark applications that seem to hint it is aiming to commercialize this technology.
The two trademarks at PLASMON PHOLED and PLASMONLED, which both of course indicate that these are emitters that adopt plasmon technology.
Universal Display reported its Q3 2020 financial results, with revenues of $117 million (up from $58 million in Q2 2020 and $98 million in Q3 2019, and a net income of $40.5 million. UDC ended the quarter with with $673 million in cash and equivalents
UDC reports a significant pickup in customer orders in the third quarter, and the company expects full-year 2020 revenues to be in the range of $385 million to $400 million. UDC sees meaningful growth in the OLED industry in 2021 and beyond.
Researchers at Universal Display, developed an OLED device with plasmonic decay rate enhancement that dramatically increase device stability. By including a nanoparticle-based out-coupling scheme to extract energy from the plasmon mode, the researchers managed to maintain the device efficiency.
The device used an archetypal phosphorescent emitter to achieve a two-fold increase in functional stability at the same brightness as a reference conventional OLED device and extracted 16% of the energy from the plasmon mode as light.
Researchers from Korea's Pusan National University have developed an efficient deep-blue phosphorescent OLED emitter. The researcher say that their new materials has an EQE of 24% while the color point is CIE (0.149, 0.085).
According to the Korean press, the main achievement in this research was the adjustment of the doping concentration of a novel dopant (mer ‐Ir1) to optimize the balance of electron and holes in the light emitting layer.
TCL subsidiary China Star Optoelectronics (CSoT) signed an OLED technology license agreement and material purchase agreement with Universal Display (UDC). UDC will supply phosphorescent OLED materials CSoT to be used in its display products.
CSoT is currently producing flexible OLEDs in its T4 line which has a monthly capacity of 45,000 6-Gen substrates. Last week it was reported that CSoT is planning to build a new flexible OLED production line in Wuhan, in a $1.4 billion investment.
Universal Display reported its Q4 2019 financial results - revenues were $102 million, an increase of 45% compared to Q4 2018. Net income in the fourth quarter was $26.4 million.
Looking at 2019, UDC had a record year - with revenues of $405 million and a net income of $138 million. 2019 was a year of significant capacity additions, and 2020 will see less significant growth due to "capacity digestion". Looking into 2020, UDC sees revenues in the range of $430 to $70 million. UDC estimates that the coronavirus outbreak in China could lower its 2020 revenues by $40 - 50 million.