European companies boost light-emitting polymer capacity

17 Jun 2002

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has invested USD 25 million in a UK manufacturing plant to commercialize light-emitting polymers (LEPs) for integration into polymer organic LEDs.

The OLED display market includes mobile phones, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, camcorders and will eventually include personal computers. According to research by DisplaySearch, OLED display revenue in 2000 will be USD 24 million, up by 100% on 1999, and is expected to grow to USD 3.3 billion by 2005.

"This investment is a major step for CDT," said chief executive officer David Fyfe. "We have spent the last five years developing the technology base to enable the commercialization of LEP displays. Several of our licensees have announced that they will launch commercial products in 2001 and this manufacturing investment by CDT will keep us at the forefront of technology development on a commercial scale."

The investment will be at Godmanchester, 15 miles from CDT's headquarters in Cambridge. The plant will be used to test and demonstrate the latest technologies that are based on LEPs and make limited runs of specialized displays that are used in avionics and other low-volume applications.

The company says that it is also looking to establish a joint LEP manufacturing venture with an established display maker using the new facility at Godmanchester.

CDT already licenses its technology to Covion, DuPont, Agilent, Hoechst, Philips, Seiko-Epson and Uniax. CDT has already demonstrated a full-colour video display that is based on CDT's polymers and Seiko Epson's ink-jet technology.

CDT recently announced that Keith Bergelt of Motorola is to join the company to become senior vice-president, responsible for strategy, business development and intellectual property. Only last October, Bergelt's former company Motorola assigned its entire OLED patent portfolio to Universal Display Corporation at the same time becoming a shareholder in UDC.

CDT has also appointed Stewart Hough from Candescent Technologies as vice-president responsible for business development.

In a related announcement, one of CDT's licensees, Covion Organic Semiconductors of Frankfurt, Germany, has completed a USD 5 million extension to its polymer-production facility. The company can now make more than 40,000 litres of conjugated polymer annually. The new facilities include a Class 10 cleanroom.

Covion already works with Philips on its PolyLED devices, which are produced at the recently opened Heerlen plant in the Netherlands.