Vitex Systems today announced that it has signed a license agreement with Advanced Neotech Systems (ANS) Corporation of Korea. The agreement includes a technology transfer package from Vitex to ANS, and gives ANS the non-exclusive rights to make and sell GuardianTM thin-film encapsulation systems, which can be used in the manufacturing of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. While the financial terms of agreement were not disclosed, the license includes an upfront fee and on-going royalty payments based on tool sales.

Thin-film encapsulation is the obvious trend for significant cost reduction and reduced thickness of OLED displays on rigid substrates, and is a must for OLED displays on flexible substrate. Vitex is the leading technology supplier in this field, and we are excited about our ongoing relationship with them, said KB Bae, president of ANS. With the recent investment in our company by SNU Precision coupled with our license agreement with Vitex, we now have the financial strength and technological capability to address the developing OLED display market. Moreover, the addition of Guardian to our deposition equipment portfolio will allow us to be more competitive in the marketplace.

Commenting on its agreement with ANS and licensing successes, Chyi-Shan Suen, director of sales and marketing for Vitex, said, ANS has been one of Vitex's equipment partners for the past two years. Signing this license agreement not only validates ANS’s confidence in Vitex’s BarixTM technology and IP portfolio strength, but also reaffirms the growing adoption and need of our thin-film encapsulation technology to enable future OLED displays. He adds, This announcement follows on the heels of a licensing agreement signed in September with a major optical film manufacturer for our proprietary Flexible Glass technology, which also illustrates the success of our new licensing model."

Ron Mertens from OLED-Info.com recently had the opportunity to interview Chyi-Shan Suen, director of sales & marketing of Vitex systems.

Headquartered in San Jose CA, Vitex is an IP-centric licensing, engineering service and material company in the business of thin-film barrier coatings and flexible substrates for the FPD market. Vitex's development of a thin-film moisture barrier technology continues to gain acceptance within the industry due to its demonstrated ability to meet the rigorous environmental requirements for thin-film encapsulation of bottom- and top-emission OLEDs. In addition, this technology can be applied to a wide range of organic semiconductor applications such as photovoltaics and batteries.

Q: First of all, thank you for accepting to do this interview session with us. Can you describe the Barix system?

The Barix Encapsulation™ is comprised of alternating layers of organic and inorganic films. The organic layer smooths and planarizes the display surface, while the inorganic is the real barrier. The total thickness of the coating is only about 3 microns or less. It is flexible, transparent and is applied at low temperature. The coating can be applied directly on top of an OLED display, eliminating the mechanical packaging components while providing the moisture and oxygen protection required by an OLED display.

Thin-film encapsulation materials supplier Vitex Systems Inc. plans to change its business model to focus on the company’s portfolio of IP and related engineering services.
Vitex (San Jose) has for the past few years done significant development of its Barix thin-film barrier encapsulation technology for manufacturing OLED displays as well as roll-to-roll Flexible Glass technology. The company had a pilot production plant in Windsor, Ct., that manufactured some materials. Under the new business arrangement, Vitex will close the plant and license the core IP to substrate makers having high-volume roll-to-roll manufacturing capacity.

In addition, capital equipment makers will be able to license the IP for Vitex’s Guardian thin-film deposition system with access to the company’s hardware and software.
Vitex expects the revised business model to enable OLED display manufacturers and producers of organic optoelectronic devices to speed time-to-market for thinner, lighter, lower-cost products.

In the paper titled Full Color 100 dpi AMOLED Displays on Flexible Stainless Steel Substrates, Dr. Anna Chwang will highlight the performance characteristics of a novel flexible, full-color AMOLED display prototype that is based on the Company’s proprietary phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED™), top-emitting OLED (TOLED®) and flexible OLED (FOLED®) technologies. The full-color AMOLED prototype also uses LTPS TFT backplanes designed and fabricated by PARC, a subsidiary of Xerox Corporation, and was encapsulated by Vitex Systems.

The four-inch diagonal display can portray a variety of images, including full-motion video. This advance is significant in proving the fundamental feasibility of the Company’s approach and also clearly demonstrates several key performance advantages. The display (without external drive electronics and package) is approximately 0.1 mm thick and weighs a mere 6 grams. The comparable glass-based LCD would be approximately 1.0-1.5 mm thick and weigh 20-30 grams. Research and development activities are continuing in a number of areas including enhanced display flexibility, defect elimination and enhanced electronics capabilities

Vitex Systems today announced it has received a major order from a leading Korean OLED display manufacturer. The order is for Vitex's Guardian(TM) thin-film encapsulation system, which is slated for shipment this August.

According to Dr. Malcolm J. Thompson, CEO of Vitex, this order is the culmination of an extensive two-year R&D effort with this customer. "This order takes our relationship one step further as we work with this customer to integrate thin-film encapsulation in-situ with OLED device fabrication-truly disrupting the industry's current manufacturing norm. We are extremely pleased to have reached this pinnacle of success with this major OLED player as it continues to underscore the growing global confidence surrounding Vitex in delivering the industry's most effective solution for the manufacture of oled displays.

Signaling the first commercial acceptance surrounding its barrier technology, Vitex Systems Inc., today announced it has received its inaugural order -- worth more than $2 million from a major Japanese corporation.

The flagship order is for one of the company's Guardian deposition systems and its proprietary Barix(TM) thin-film barrier coating solution, both of which will be used by the Japanese company for research and development on next-generation OLED displays and materials.

Vitex's Barix thin-film encapsulation, applied with its Guardian tool, enables the display manufacturer to deposit, in-situ, a planarizing Barix coating directly on top of the OLED material on the glass substrate thereby, eliminating the requirement for a sealed metal can or glass cavity lid with internal desiccant. This provides a much thinner, lighter and more robust display at a reduced manufacturing cost. Vitex's Guardian tool combines an in-line vacuum polymer deposition chamber and a ceramic deposition chamber that can be customized to interface with essentially any manufacturing equipment used to produce OLED displays, such as cluster tools and in-line deposition systems.

Vitex Systems announced that it has been awarded an R&D contract from the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) to scale up its flexible glass substrate technology to roll-type manufacturing for producing flexible OLED displays.

Vitex has developed a thin-film encapsulation solution, called Barix, to resolve moisture and oxygen sensitivity problems common in flexible substrates. Under this new USDC contract, Vitex will explore producing the flexible glass substrate on a high-volume, roll-to-roll manufacturing line with the improved barrier performance and lower defect levels needed to meet stringent quality requirements associated with producing OLED displays.

Vitex Systems announced it is established a new subsidiary in Japan, to be named Vitex Systems KK.

The new subsidiary will provide development and support capabilities surrounding Vitex's thin-film barrier coating and flexible substrate technology for OLED display makers in Japan.