Kodak licenses Opto Tech Corporation to make OLED displays

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/display/optoTech.jhtml">http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/display/optoTech.jhtml</a><br /><br />This press release was published on September 5th, but I thought it was worth passing along - it looks like we're getting one step closer to OLED screens on our Pocket PCs. I doubt we'll see one until perhaps late 2003 or early 2004, but it's good to see progress being made. Moreso than the enhanced viewing angle, I'm hoping that OLED will bring some serious battery saving technology to the table.<br /><br />To give you an example of how much power the screen sucks, consider this: in my tests, an iPAQ 3870 will stay on for 3.7 hours with the backlight on the highest setting. The same device will last 16.2 hours with the screen turned off. The device is effectively idling in these tests, so CPU drain isn't a big factor. Now imagine if OLED can cut that power drain by 50% - we'd see a significant increase in our battery life. Beyond fuel cells, I think OLED technology will be the most significant technology to impact the battery life on a Pocket PC. And maybe by then we'll have 640 x 480 resolution on our Pocket PCs! 8) <br /><br />"Eastman Kodak Company has added another licensee to the growing list of manufacturers of organic displays. Opto Tech Corporation of Taiwan has licensed Kodak's organic light-emitting diiode technology for use in flat panel passive-matrix displays. Opto Tech also has demonstrated a full-color PDA-size display. <br /><br />"This agreement between Kodak and Opto validates the utility of Kodak display technology for broad applications," said Leslie Polgar, president, Display Products, Eastman Kodak Company. "Manufacturers like Opto can capitalize on supplying differentiated displays to various consumer devices, especially displays as impressive as what Opto demonstrated. So we're proud and pleased that they have chosen to pursue our technology." <!><br /><br />"Organic solid-state displays offer a bright, full-motion image display that is viewable from a very wide angle. The displays comprise specially designed organic thin-film materials that emit light when stimulated an electric charge. The emitted light can be individual colors of red, green or blue. Or they can be combined to create full-color, high-resolution image displays. Benefits over conventional technologies include higher contrast for superb readability in most lighting conditions and faster response time to support streaming video, as well as industry-leading (165 degree) viewing angle and thinner design for better ergonomics. <br /><br />The royalty-bearing license to Opto covers use of passive-matrix OLED modules in a variety of flat panel display applications. The agreement also gives Opto the opportunity to purchase Kodak's patented OLED materials for use in manufacturing displays. This license illustrates the versatility of Kodak's OLED technology.<br /><br />Pioneered by Kodak in the late 1980s, the technology and its practical applications have generated more than 50 Kodak patents. Besides Opto Tech, Kodak OLED licensees number more than a dozen, several of whom have announced mass production plans and customer design wins in 2002." Source: Foo Fighter

[Bob Anderson]

Well, I suppose OLED will end up on PocketPCs, but I bet the first devices to see the technology will be cell phones. Uh, maybe MS Smartphones!

Since battery technology just doesn't improve much (or does so very slowly) I'm glad to see innovation on other fronts to improve the effective life of batteries. I also think the Xscale, when running on a properly optimized operating system will also save some power.

So all is bright on the PocketPC front! (pun intended!)

[PJE]

To get the best from these new screens won't the colors need to be inverted - white on black rather than black on white - as white is basically everything switched on.

Just a thought.

PJE

[Will T Smith]

Small and simple first.
Large and complex last.

Most definitely this will be deployed on digital cameras, cell phones, watches, status displays, and sees a PocketPC.

The real boon for this technology will be on Notebook and tablet PCs. The Notebook screen is just to darn big to be sidelit (though I'm anxious to see a tranreflective implemtation on a 12" notebook display).

OLED will be a complete coup-de-gras for the industry. Why? Because OLED is ultimately (once scaled to mass production) cheaper to produce. The substrate is flexible and much easier to deal with. I've even seen one process that involved using a modified inkjet mechanism to literally PRINT a display on a roll of plastic "think about printing a banner on a banner paper roll".

Once OLED gets into the PocketPC space, it's all downhill. It will COMPLETELY replace traditional LED display technology the way printed circuits replaced traditional transistors.

Oh, one more thing. I've busted about 10 LCD screens in my day (thank goodness for replacement plans). Say goodbye to the cracked LCD display and the truly "pocketable" handheld computer. Since plastic is flexible, it wont crack. In fact "roll up" displays are one of the (ala "Global" from Earth: Final Conflict) applications slated for OLED technology.

It's great to see that deployment of high resolution displays is just around the corner.

[vincentsiaw]

just curious want to know, this OLED tecnolgy is basically depends on organic stuff man (the o stand for organic rite?) so how long this display would last ? 1 year-2 or what ? as far as i know, the OLED display screen don't last very long, so do anybody know exactly how long OLED display will function properly? :?:

[Will T Smith]

just curious want to know, this OLED tecnolgy is basically depends on organic stuff man (the o stand for organic rite?) so how long this display would last ? 1 year-2 or what ? as far as i know, the OLED display screen don't last very long, so do anybody know exactly how long OLED display will function properly? :?:

The "Organic" basically signifies any compound that includes carbon. It's labeled "organic" because all living things consist of combination of Carbon compounds.

In this case, the "organic" material in question is well ... plastic. Or succinctly, very refined petroleum. Which of course is derived from biomass from long since expired rain forests from millions of years ago.

How long does the plastic last? Well beyond the predicted life span of the device.

BTW, the term you were thinking of is "biological". As in biological components. Components consisting of living tissue.

[Timothy Rapson]

I've read recently that displays cost about $50-70 of the cost of most PDAs. I expect these screens will cut that way down. Like Will said above, the yield is far beyond LED. This is truer the higher resollution and bigger size you try to make. Seems I read that as many as half of the LED screens made for 14 inch display laptops wind up just thrown out before the product is fully assembled due to bad pixels and other defects. If they can get 90+% the price almost drops in half per display. Of course, this is not as significant with small QVGA PDA displays. Nor do I know if it is just the resolution or the size or both that cuts the yield so much.

I have also read that Motorola already makes on color phone with an OLED display, but it must not be a particularly groundbreaking one as we hear little about it from PDA affecionados.

In any case, OLEDS offer at least some advance in almost every way over LEDs; cheaper, sharper, brighter, lower power, better viewing angle, and more durable. If each advantage is only 25%, the net effect is a big win for us.