Cambridge, England,  - Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), the UK company leading research and commercial development of Light Emitting Polymer (LEP) technology for display applications, has signed a technology licensing agreement with Hoechst AG , Europe's largest chemical company, located in Frankfurt, Germany.

Under the terms of the deal, in exchange for an up front fee from Hoechst, CDT will grant licenses on agreed terms to a number of Hoechst's customers. The agreement covers the precise license terms to be granted to Hoechst's customers and includes royalties on product sales.

Hoechst manufacture the polymer material fundamental to the construction of an LEP display. The technology licensing agreement means that Hoechst can provide its key customers with both the core technology to enable them to begin development of LEP displays and access to key patents held by CDT.

Hoechst has already made a considerable investment in LEP technology. Earlier this month it announced a corporate partnership with UNIAX Corporation and Philips Electronics BV to develop LEP technology. Based in Santa Barbara, California, UNIAX is developing small emissive display products based on LEP technology for portable, battery powered applications.

The first fruit of the Hoechst/Philips Electronics/UNIAX partnership is a $2million clean room and prototype manufacturing line for small - approximately 1 inch by 2 inch - light emissive displays, expected to be operational by July 1997 and producing low quantities of displays by the end of 1997.

"At Hoechst we recognise LEP to be one of the few technologies with the potential to replace a whole series of traditional display technologies. Our agreement with CDT means that we are in the position to provide our customers both the core technology and patent access to develop pioneering LEP products",said Dr Hermann Schenk, LEP project leader, Hoechst.

According to Cambridge Display Technology:

"Hoechst is the leading chemical company in Europe with a customer base that includes Fortune 500 electronics corporations. Its endorsement of our technology recognises the global potential and interest in LEP technology. We have seen from our sales of materials, that there is a great and growing interest in our technology. Everybody recognises however, that for our technology to be commercialised, the market needs at least one mainstream material company involved in the production. We are delighted that Hoechst have made this commitment to our technology".

Philips Electronics and Hoechst completed a multi-million dollar minority investment in Uniax in February 1996. In addition to the equity investment, Philips Electronics and Hoechst each have co-development contracts with UNIAX. Both companies have substantial internal development programs underway, and the three partners together have accelerated the development of this technology such that practical, long life devices and displays can be fabricated today.

LEP Technology
LEP displays are constructed by applying a thin film of the LEP onto a glass or plastic substrate coated with a transparent indium tin oxide electrode. A metallic electrode is deposited on top of the polymer. Application of an electric field between the two electrodes results in emission of light from the polymer. The technology combines the light emission characteristics of traditional Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) with the patternability of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) in a technology which promises low manufacturing cost.

Potential benefits of this technology over current technologies such as light emitting diode (LED) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology are that it will eventually enable licensees to manufacture in a simpler way thinner displays which will operate at lower voltage and will consume less energy.

The initial target for the coming years is to replace the existing backlights for LCDs in applications where space, low voltage and low power consumption are at a premium, such as in mobile telephones. In the next phase displays will be developed for application in consumer products that currently depend on LEDs or LCDs, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), CD players, electric razors, alarm clocks, radios and, ultimately, television sets.