Displays are essential for a wide variety of consumer electronics products, such as mobile phones, wearables, IT and TVs as well as virtual reality, automotive and signage. Compared to LCDs, OLEDs provide markedly improved performance features. OLEDs are thinner, lighter and more attractive than LCDs, and offer much faster response times, wider viewing angles, higher contrast ratios and brighter, more saturated colors – for a more enjoyable viewing experience. With Universal Display’s proprietary UniversalPHOLED® technology, OLEDs can also be more energy-efficient than LCDs.

OLEDs are already cost-effective for mobile applications. In smartphones, OLEDs have already proven themselves to have cost parity in a like-for-like basis with LTPS high-end LCD screens. As illustrated below, OLEDs have fewer processing steps and are also less component intensive than today’s LCDs, notably with the elimination for the need of a backlight (OLEDs are self-emissive). As OLED manufacturers continue to gain experience, OLED production yields are improving and larger-scale equipment is coming on line. As a result, production costs will continue to decrease – ultimately enabling even large-sized OLEDs to outperform LCDs on a cost basis.

With lighting consuming over 15% of the world’s total electricity and accounting for 5% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, more energy-efficient lighting products are in high demand. Based on the Company’s UniversalPHOLED® technology and materials, OLEDs have the potential to offer power efficiencies that are superior to those for today’s incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes. Traditional incandescent light bulbs are inefficient because they convert only about 5% of the energy they consume into visible light, with the rest emerging as heat. Fluorescent lamps use excited gases, or plasmas, to achieve a higher energy conversion efficiency of about 20%-25%. However, the color rendering index, or CRI, of most fluorescent lamps – in other words, the quality of their color compared to an ideal light source – is inferior to that of an incandescent bulb. Fluorescent lamps also pose environmental concerns because they typically contain mercury.

Solid-state lighting relies on the direct conversion of electricity to visible light using semiconductor materials. By avoiding the heat and plasma-producing processes of incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lamps, respectively, solid-state lighting products can have substantially higher energy conversion efficiencies.

There are currently two basic types of solid-state lighting devices: inorganic light emitting diodes, or LEDs, and OLEDs. Current LEDs are very small in size (about one square millimeter) and are extremely bright. Having been developed about 25 years before OLEDs, LEDs are already employed in a variety of lighting products, such as traffic lights, billboards, replacements for incandescent lighting, backlights for smartphones, computer monitors and televisions, and as border or accent lighting. However, the high operating temperatures and intense brightness of LEDs may make them less desirable for certain general illumination applications, where diffusers cannot be readily employed.

OLEDs, on the other hand, are larger in size and can be viewed directly, without using diffusers that are required to temper the intense brightness of LEDs. OLEDs can be added to any suitable surface, including glass, plastic or metal foil, and can be cost-effective to manufacture in high volume. Given these characteristics, product manufacturers have launched some initial OLED lights for diffuse specialty lighting applications and are working toward general illumination. If these efforts are successful, we believe that OLED lighting products will be used in applications currently addressed by incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lamps, as well as for new applications that take advantage of the OLED form factor. In particular, the ability of OLED technology to produce uniform illumination over arbitrary shapes is making OLED lighting very attractive to the automobile industry. Commercial OLED tail lights were introduced into the market in 2016 and there is work on utilizing OLEDs for signal lights and other applications in automobiles and the aerospace industry.

The novel and truly exciting features of Universal Display’s proprietary FOLED® flexible technology have the potential to engender a wide variety of new display and lighting products. With FOLED technology still in its infancy, the first commercial FOLED displays are targeted for use in portable electronics and lighting tiles – leveraging their advantages in ruggedness, thinness and light weight. Based on Universal Display’s FOLED technology roadmap, the next generation of FOLEDs may provide added functionality through increased conformability. This feature may open up a wide range of new product opportunities – ranging from new shaped cell phone designs to novel communication devices that are wearable, for example, on the cuff of your shirtsleeve or your backpack to safe and energy-efficient displays that can be made to conform to internal curved surfaces within an automobile.

Continued progress in Universal Display’s FOLED roadmap may, then, enable the realization of Universal Display’s innovative product concept, the Universal Communication Device (UCD). Envisioned as a truly portable, cell phone-like communication device, the UCD is designed to offer advanced voice and data communication capabilities – via a roll-out, full-color, full-motion video display that’s as flexible as it is energy-efficient.

With FOLED technology development advancing well, initial flexible OLED products may be ready for the market within the next few years. With continued product innovation enabled by these new FOLED performance features, we believe that the potential may be much greater.