AUO Corporation (NYSE:AUO) and Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:PANL) announced today that AUO has successfully developed the world's first low-power consumption, full-color Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Device (AMOLED) display combining its proprietary amorphous silicon (a-Si), thin film transistor (TFT) backplane technology with Universal Display's Phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED™) technology. This display will be shown at UDC’s booth (#440) at the Society for Information Display International Symposium ("SID") in Baltimore, Maryland, from May 20-23. There will also be a presentation of a joint scientific paper describing this advancement on Tuesday, the 20th.
Today, a-Si TFT's are the dominant backplane technology for LCD's. It has been thought that less mature, but higher performance, poly-silicon TFT technology would be needed for OLEDs. AUO's announcement, in March 2002, of its successful launch of the world's first full-color AMOLED display using a-Si backplane technology has served as a door opener for utilizing well-established a-Si manufacturing infrastructure; providing potentially significant cost savings and additional market opportunities.
The SID demonstration will show that Universal Display's PHOLED technology can provide superior performance over conventional fluorescent OLED materials. In AUO's 4 inch diagonal, full-color a-Si TFT AMOLED display, UDC's proprietary red PHOLED material alone improved the display power efficiency by greater than 40% and provided notably better color purity. The lower PHOLED power consumption will reduce the battery requirements for mobile devices (i.e., provide extended battery life between charges or the opportunity to use a smaller battery), and extend the lifetime of the a-Si backplane.
"The successful demonstration of the full color a-Si TFT AMOLED has opened up the possibility of using a-Si TFT as OLED backplane in manufacturing AMOLED. Together with higher efficient OLED materials like phosphorescent materials developed by Universal Display Corporation, the technology can be very competitive," said Po-Yen Lu, Executive Vice President of AU Optronics. While, Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Operating Officer of UDC reiterated, "We are very excited to be working with AU Optronics, a world leading amorphous silicon TFT-LCD display manufacturer, to demonstrate the world's first AMOLED combining low-cost, amorphous silicon backplane technology with our PHOLED technology,"
The 2003 SID International Symposium Exhibition, taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, USA will begin May 20th. UDC and AUO’s jointly developed 4" Phosphorescent a-Si AMOLED will be on display at UDC's booth for the duration of the exhibition. On May 20th, AUO will take part at the Seminar Session, presenting results from the joint forces of AUO and UDC. Universal Display Corporation was established in 1994 and is a world leader in the development and commercializing of OLED technologies. Its collaboration with AUO, world’s third largest maker of large size TFT-LCD modules, has opened great possibilities for this industry.