NEWS: the highlights of the week

28 Jun 2002

Here is a round-up of the latest news:-

CDT and Seiko-Epson set up joint company
Two of the pioneers of OLED technology have cemented their relationship after speculation they might separate.

Optrex licenses Kodak OLED technology
The competition between small molecule and polymer hots up with Kodak this time stepping in.

Japanese invest heavily in plastic substrates for LCDs.
Sony has developed a lightweight plastic substrate

Canon and Toshiba are to commercialize electron-gun technology

Canon and Toshiba plan to commercialize a jointly developed large-screen display using surface-conduction electron-emitter (SED) technology in 2003.

SEDs use an array of minute electron guns, one per pixel, to emit light. They give colour and contrast on a par with CRT displays, and energy consumption is lower than plasma display panels and they will probably cost less.

So far there have been manufacturing problems because in the structure of an SED a vacuum is formed between two sheets of glass.

Canon began collaborating with Toshiba three years ago and they are aiming the SED technology at the 40 inch plus market where the two companies have been relatively absent.

LG.Philips expands new-generation LCD plant

Following the opening of LG.Philips LCD's fifth-generation manufacturing plant last month, the company has announced it is to invest more than $1 bn to expand the facility to use even larger substrates, 1100 x 1250 mm, instead of 1000 x 1200 mm.

The company will be producing 120 000 sheets per month of fifth generation glass (where both glass substrate sides are more than 1 m) by the end of 2003 which the company says will make it the largest TFT-LCD supplier.