Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 2

Universal Display Corporation announced that it will acquire an OLED patent portfolio from Merck, for $50 million. The OLED portfolio has an average remaining lifetime of approximately 10 years, and it includes more than 300 issued and pending patents worldwide, covering more than 110 unique patent families in the field of advanced OLED emissive device structures and related material components.

Merck says that this sale aligns with its strategy to focus on charge transport and triplet host materials, rather than emissive OLED materials. The closing of the transaction is expected in January 2026. 

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.

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.