Commercial Prospects for OLEDs

Kodak is commercialising its low molecular weight OLEDs for use in both passive and active matrix display architectures. It has also licensed its technology to Pioneer Corp who have commercialised passive matrix displays for car radios and cellular phone displays. TDK has displays for cellular phones, personal digital assistants and car instrumentation clusters. Perhaps the most significant collaboration to date has been with Sanyo. Sanyo s capabilities in low-temperature polycrystalline silicon have been married with Kodak s low MW materials to produce a full colour, 5 inch active matrix display, commercialisation of which was expected in 2001. 

A larger number of companies are active in the LEP area. DuPont s purchase of Uniax and its technology gave them the necessary intellectual property to marry with their expertise in plastic substrates. Their aim is to produce devices on thin flexible substrates such as nylon and PET etc. that, they believe, will bring a manufacturing cost advantage over low MW materials. It is collaborating with Phillips who has a production scale unit in Holland for small alphanumeric displays suitable for watches and mobile phones. 

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