Color palette of polymer display is 'commercially acceptable'

17 Jun 2002

A light-emitting polymer (LEP) display with a commercially acceptable color range has been developed by researchers at Cambridge Display Technologies (CDT) of the UK in collaboration with the company's Japanese licensee Seiko Epson.

Jeremy Burroughes, CDT's technical director, told Opto & Laser Europe magazine (OLE), "Our most recent display now has the same color range as the screen in a Sony VAIO notebook computer. This is great news for us as we now have a color range that is acceptable in the market place. The display has 16 gray scales. We could make more, it is just a matter of developing the drivers for the display."

Philips' PolyLED business in Heerlen, the Netherlands, is in the process of commercializing LEPs licensed from CDT. But Jan Willem Vogel, PolyLED's marketing manager, told OLE that his company had decided to skip a product for backlights and concentrate on segmented and graphic displays for mobile applications. A pilot line is now up and running, he said.

CDT has also recently signed an agreement with Delta Electronics of Taiwan to develop computer and flexible displays based on LEPs.

LEPs have fast response times making them ideal for video. Full-color LEP displays are also thin, lightweight, have a low power consumption and a wide viewing angle, making them a contender for mobile phones.