With its goal of producing polymer OLEDs in an air-stable, nonvacuum, fully printable manufacturing process, Add-Vision (AVI) is one of the more intriguing little companies coming of age in the flexible/printed/organic electronics space.
I'd heard a presentation from the Scotts Valley, CA-based outfit earlier this year, so I was eager to get an update from CEO Matt Wilkinson at the recent Flexible Displays and Electronics conference.
The company has a mid-2008 commercialization target date, so I hoped to hear encouraging news. I was not disappointed. AVI has made significant progress in all six of its tech development focus areas: substrates, light-emitting polymer (LEP) inks, cathodes, encapsulation, testing, and external projects. Among other milestones, Matt said that R&D device lifetimes have been pushed to more than 2400 hours, with fully encapsulated units hitting the 1000-hour mark. He also noted that AVI's P-OLEDs had recently surpassed thick-film electroluminescent displays in brightness performance and were gaining ground on mainstream-type P-OLED devices.
I followed up with Matt after the conference, regarding his mention of a grant that AVI received to do degradation studies. I also wanted a bit more info on the company's two manufacturing-related joint development agreements (JDAs). Stepping in for his boss, Robert Roeloffs, AVI's biz dev manager, provided some answers.
"AVI was recently awarded a STTR Phase-I grant from the Department of Energy (DOE). We will receive funding from the DOE, and we will work with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), to carry out sophisticated degradations studies of our printed doped P-OLED devices. The aim of the study is combine the teams’ abilities to identify the primary efficiency degradation factors for AVI’s doped P-OLED devices (Phase-I), develop a new generation set of materials based on this analysis (Phase-II), and create a high-performance, low-cost, easy-to-manufacture P-OLED technology for specialty SSL [solid-state lighting] applications (Phase-II).
"Because AVI’s modified P-OLED device structure is built onto flexible substrates and uses a doped light-emitting polymer layer...and a proprietary-developed air-stable printable cathode technology (not evaporated), the degradation mechanisms for AVI’s P-OLED technology will differ sharply from counterpart mainstream RGB OLEDs targeted for high-resolution display applications."
The Phase I award---a total of $98,858---was announced in late April; the performance period of the first phase is July 1, 2007, to March 31, 2008. "If the AVI/LBNL team demonstrates the feasibility of Phase-I objectives and meets/exceeds its milestones, we will have the opportunity to apply for Phase-II funding in 2008."
As for those JDAs and when we can expect AVI's first products to launch, Roeloffs said the following:
"AVI has entered into several JDAs with two global manufacturing partners. One manufacturing partner is a top-tier manufacturer of high-performance electronic components; the second manufacturing partner is a giant in the global printing industry. AVI is collaborating intensively with each partner to scale up display manufacturing (using AVI technology) to high volume. The aim with each partner is to produce and ship hundreds of thousands of P-OLED display modules/products per month, with shipments commencing in 2008.
"There are two early-entry commercialization paths for AVI’s technology. The first path is application of AVI’s printed P-OLED technology to increase the functionality and performance of consumer and mobile appliances. Specifically, flexible P-OELDs could be used in low-resolution displays; backlights; decorative and iconic status indicators; and/or to create other specialty lighting effects.
"The other JDA partner is showing interest to apply AVI’s P-OLED technology to commercialize (manufacture and sell) flexible P-OLED displays to create more 'intelligent' printed media products, moving beyond 'ordinary' or 'static' display of information by traditional ink-on-paper products. Specific applications include point-of-purchase and promotional signage, as well as electronic card-like products (eg. flexible displays for smart cards, security cards, promotional cards etc.), to name but a few.
"Each of these early-entry market paths requires a unique set of display characteristics (efficiency, brightness, lifetime, color, form factor) and cost performance; each manufacturing partner wishes to combine AVI’s P-OLED technology with their own in-house expertise and resources to scale up the manufacture to pursue opportunities in their respective markets."
|
Blogs 
