LEP display technology gets ready to enter commercial market place

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom,  – Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), the leading researcher and commercial developer of light emitting polymer (LEP) technology, and owner of the fundamental intellectual property for LEPs, revealed today the next phase of its development as Minister for Science and Innovation Lord Sainsbury officially opened the company’s new £18 million, 1,750m sq. LEP Technology Development Centre.

The centre, located in Godmanchester, 20km from CDT’s current Cambridge headquarters, is the world’s first open and flexible LEP display manufacturing environment dedicated to LEP technology advancement, evaluation and technology transfer.  CDT’s LEP technology has already been licensed to world-class OEMs, including Philips,  Seiko Epson, Osram, DuPont and Delta Electronics, as a route to making lighter, brighter, less power consuming and more responsive displays for next generation products such as mobile phones, PDAs, and eventually computer monitors and televisions.

To drive forward the next stage of LEP technology commercialisation, CDT has installed a display fabrication pilot line in the centre as a vehicle to demonstrate advanced LEP manufacturing technologies for high volume production of LEP displays to licensees and support the continued development of LEP technology for future display markets.

“LEP technology is ready to enter the commercial marketplace,” said David Fyfe, CEO of CDT. “CDT has made this sizeable investment in its new LEP Technology Development Centre  to demonstrate the use of the technology for high performance displays for a host of mainstream and novel applications. Our licensees are well advanced with plans for commercialisation, indeed two are already delivering displays to consumer goods customers. This investment shows that CDT, far from sitting on its strong intellectual property position, is intent on pushing the technology to new heights of its potential and so encourage other companies to adopt and commercialise it”.

Minister for Science and Innovation Lord Sainsbury said, “Turning new ideas into prosperity and jobs is vital to the strength of the UK economy. I am delighted CDT has transformed a university research success story into a commercial reality. The new development centre will help put the UK firmly on the global map as a leading provider of advanced technologies for application in current and future display markets”.

CDT has started production of prototype single colour segmented LEP displays on the pilot line for reliability testing and materials development.  A wide array of product concepts and prototypes are planned for fabrication to demonstrate manufacturing technology and diverse market viability.

A key feature of the LEP technology is the fact that the display can be created by ink jet printing the light emitting polymer. This is exciting many in the industry who believe that the technology will result in a very low cost route to colour displays. CDT, in November 2001 announced that it had purchased Litrex Corp of Pleasanton, California, a specialist designer and assembler of ink jet printers for the LEP application. A rapid transition to ink jet printing at the centre, using Litrex printers, to enable the production of full colour passive matrix displays will take place in  2002.  The full commercialisation of LEP technology for high volume display markets will include continuing manufacturing infrastructure development as well as optimisation of production costs. The technology development centre is ideally positioned to facilitate these activities.

The centre currently employees 25 people and will expand to about 35 people by the end of 2002.
The heart of the centre is a 600m sq. state-of-the-art cleanroom, comprising class 100 and class 1000 areas, which is being used to process 350 mm square glass substrates through several stages to form sheets with a multiple number of displays fabricated on them.

There is a further 350m sq. area dedicated to testing the sheets, separating them into individual displays, and assembling into display modules for commercial products. To address future technology and capacity requirements, a further 300m sq. of space is available for expansion.

CDT has existing chemistry laboratories with cleanrooms for polymer material and display development and research at its headquarters at Greenwich House in Cambridge. The centre will augment these existing capabilities and move polymers and display technologies from R&D to pilot production scales.

LEP technology is a form of Organic Light Emitting Diode. The OLED display market has been forecast to grow in revenue to $2.5 billion in revenue by 2007. The OLED display market consists of a wide range of electronics products that includes mobile phones, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, camcorders, microdisplays, and eventually personal computers and other consumer products.

Images of CDT’s LEP Technology Development Centre and prototype LEP displays are available on request.