Universal Display Corporation

Universal Display Corporation is a developer and manufacturer of organic light emitting diode (OLED) technologies and materials, and it is a provider of services to the display and lighting industries.

Founded in 1994, the company currently owns or has license rights to more than 6,500 issued and pending patents worldwide for the commercialization of phosphorescent based OLEDs and also flexible, transparent and stacked OLEDs - for both display and lighting applications. Its phosphorescent OLED technologies and materials are licensed and supplied to companies such as Samsung, LG, AU Optronics CMEL, Pioneer, Panasonic Idemitsu OLED lighting and Konica Minolta.

UDC is working with many other companies, including Sony, DuPont and Novaled. In 2009, UDC claimed that "virtually all AMOLEDs on the market use our technology". Based in Ewing, New Jersey, with international offices in Ireland, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, Universal Display works with a network of organizations, including Princeton University, the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan, and PPG Industries.[1]

Technological advantages of OLED

The different manufacturing process of OLEDs lends itself to several advantages over flat panel displays made with current LCD technology.

Some disadvantages include:

According to OLED Display "Samsung Display uses different Sub Pixel Matrix technologies for their smartphone Super-Amoled Displays. For the Galaxy S4 and S5 they use the Diamond Pixel Matrix."[38]

Lower cost in the future: OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate by an inkjet printer or even by screen printing,[31] theoretically making them cheaper to produce than LCD or plasma displays. However, fabrication of the OLED substrate is more costly than that of a TFT LCD, until mass production methods lower cost through scalability. Roll-to-roll vapour-deposition methods for organic devices do allow mass production of thousands of devices per minute for minimal cost, although this technique also induces problems in that devices with multiple layers can be challenging to make because of registration, lining up the different printed layers to the required degree of accuracy.

Lightweight and flexible plastic substrates: OLED displays can be fabricated on flexible plastic substrates leading to the possible fabrication of flexible organic light-emitting diodes for other new applications, such as roll-up displays embedded in fabrics or clothing. As the substrate used can be flexible such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET),[32] the displays may be produced inexpensively.

Wider viewing angles and improved brightness: OLEDs can enable a greater artificial contrast ratio (both dynamic range and static, measured in purely dark conditions) and a wider viewing angle compared to LCDs because OLED pixels emit light directly. OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90° from normal.

Better power efficiency and thickness: LCDs filter the light emitted from a backlight, allowing a small fraction of light through. So, they cannot show true black. However, an inactive OLED element does not produce light or consume power, thus allowing true blacks.[33] Dismissing the backlight also makes OLEDs lighter because some substrates are not needed. This allows electronics potentially to be manufactured more cheaply, but, first, a larger production scale is needed, because OLEDs still somewhat are niche products.[34] When looking at top-emitting OLEDs, thickness also plays a role when talking about index match layers (IMLs). Emission intensity is enhanced when the IML thickness is 1.3–2.5 nm. The refractive value and the matching of the optical IMLs property, including the device structure parameters, also enhance the emission intensity at these thicknesses.[35]

Response time: OLEDs also can have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas LCD displays are capable of between 1 and 16 ms response time offering a refresh rate of 60 to 480 Hz, an OLED theoretically can have a response time less than 0.01 ms, enabling a refresh rate up to 100,000 Hz . OLEDs also can be run as a flicker display, similar to a CRT, in order to eliminate the sample-and-hold effect that creates motion blur on OLEDs.[36]

Power consumption: While an OLED will consume around 40% of the power of an LCD displaying an image that is primarily black, for the majority of images it will consume 60–80% of the power of an LCD. However, an OLED can use more than three times as much power to display an image with a white background, such as a document or web site.[37] This can lead to reduced battery life in mobile devices, when white backgrounds are used.

Flexible displays

OLEDs enable screens to be made in curved or flexible format. Samsung's flexible AMOLEDs will be fabricated on a plastic (Polyimide) substrate and will be able to withstand high temperature (up to 350-400 degrees). The displays can be bendable - but since the first products will use them inside rigid glass cases - so it'll actually be "curved" displays and not flexible ones. A plastic based AMOLED will be shatterproof, and will also be lighter and thinner compared to glass based OLEDs.[39]

OLED Info reports that for flexible displays on plastic, UDC's UniversalBarrier single-layer encapsulation technology is being evaluated by Samsung. UDC has a working 6" R&D deposition machine for the encapsulation layer.[40] They go on to describe how Corning Glass have developed a flexible glass to help speed up the adoption of bendable OLED screens. "On Aug. 28 2013, Corning and AU Optronics announced that Corning is an important and strategic high-performance display glass collaborator for AUO’s line of AMOLED panels. AUO selected the Corning Lotus Glass platform based on the glass substrate’s outstanding thermal and dimensional stability. This aids AUO with efficient manufacturing during the high-temperature processes that are required to develop its AMOLED panels." Corning is also developing a Roll to Roll manufacturing process that will greatly reduce costs of mass-producing flexible displays.[41]

UBI Research published a new report on flexible OLED displays, forecasting a very fast growth: from 20 million units in 2012 to 150 million units in 2013. UBI sees $6.3 billion in flexible OLED revenues in 2017. This is far more optimistic than the recent report by Markets&Markets who see the entire flexible display market at $3.2 billion in 2017.[42]

The Flexible Display Center announced that it has successfully manufactured the world's largest flexible color AMOLED prototype using advanced mixed oxide thin film transistors (TFTs). Measuring 7.4 diagonal inches, the device was developed at the FDC in conjunction with Army Research Labs scientists. It also meets a critical target set by the U.S. Department of Defense to advance the development of full-color, full-motion video flexible OLED displays for use in thin, lightweight, bendable and highly rugged devices. "This is a significant manufacturing breakthrough for flexible display technology," said Nick Colaneri, director of the FDC. "It provides a realistic path forward for the production of high-performance, flexible, full color OLED displays, accelerating commercialization of the technology in the process."[43]

Universal Display's Sid Rosenblatt talking about the future of OLED technology was quoted as saying: "Samsung is going to introduce flexible screens, but the flexible plastic substrates are difficult to manufacture. Plastic is porous and oxygen with moisture causes OLEDs to degrade. [However]...These kind of displays are unbreakable, flexible on stainless steel foil. It would result in a thinner device because you don’t have the pieces of glass. It could conform around the sides, so you can show information on the sides. It would be lighter. So you can either make it smaller or thinner or you can make a larger battery so that it lasts longer. The challenges are encapsulation, so you need an encapsulation process. The temperature is too high to deposit them directly to the plastic, so they do is they literally deposit them on glass." Further, Sid Rosenblatt thinks that flexible OLEDs will be initially a niche market for the high end.[44]

iSuppli, a market research firm, sees the flexible OLED display market growing significantly from 2013 to 2020. Their estimates are from a market value of $21 million in 2013 to $100 million in 2014 and reaching $12 billion by 2020. IHS says this will bring about "unprecedented change(s) in flat displays".[45] Both LG and Samsung believe that flexible displays will make up as much as 40% of the Smartphone maker by 2018.[46]

At the Flextech Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Plastic Logic and Novaled demonstrated a new, really bendable, and completely organic AMOLED display. OLED News said: "This is a very important technological advance. For the first time we have an entirely plastic AMOLED with backplane electronics manufactured in a special low temperature process. The industrial techniques applied open up real prospects of mass producing these displays at a very competitive unit cost." Plastic Logic CEO, Indro Mukerjee, spoke of 2014 as the year when wearable technology is going to really take off. He described the advance that has been made in the following: "Flexible electronics is a reality, already proven through the development and manufacture of plastic, bendable displays and sensors. For the first time a fully organic, plastic, flexible AMOLED demonstration has been achieved with a real industrial fabrication process. This marks the start of a revolution in wearable products, the next frontier in consumer."[47]

foundation	1994
location city	Ewing, New Jersey
location country	U.S.
key people	Sid Rosenblatt (CFO) Steven V. Abramson (CEO)
industry	Display, Lighting, Technology, Computer Hardware
products	Organic Light Emitting Diodes
type	Public
traded as	nasdaq: OLED S&P 400 component Russell 1000 component
website	oled.com

Universal Display Corporation

Products that use UDC technology

Smartphones

Technological advantages of OLED

Flexible displays

OLEDs in lighting

Patent disputes

References

Smart watches

Tablets

Televisions