Investment speeds development of next generation display technology
Cambridge, England,  - Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) announced today that Intel has completed a minority investment in the company. CDT is developing Light Emitting Polymers (LEP), a technology used for making flat panel displays. Unlike other display technologies, LEP can be manufactured on a single piece of glass or plastic and consequently could have flexible properties. CDT has already demonstrated a single-colour LEP dot matrix display and expects to show more complex applications by the end of 1997.

"We are pleased to have the financial support of Intel", said Danny Chapchal, Chief Executive Officer of CDT. "We believe that this and other recent announcements clearly indicates that the potential of LEP technology for display applications is now recognised by the scientific, technical and business communities."

Since its founders discovered LEP in 1990, CDT has followed a strategy of commercial exploitation through licensing and joint development, with fundamental research focusing on the core LEP technology taking place in the company's Cambridge laboratories. CDT has licensed its patented technology to Innovative Display Technologies, Hoechst, Philips and Uniax, with the latter two expecting to make beta products available as low information content displays for mobile phones in early 1998.

The Intel investment will support CDT's ongoing research and development work led by Cambridge University's Cavendish Professor, Richard Friend. Friend's team is currently developing schemes to allow synthesised polymers, which efficiently emit light in the red, green and blue regions of the visible spectrum, to be used to construct colour graphic displays.