Thursday, July 08, 2004

GE joined Nanotechnology Team

By W.D. Crotty , originally published on Fool.com
July 7, 2004

When Carl Wherrett and John Yelovich provided their excellent commentary on nanotechnology, all the usual electronics suspects were there: IBM (NYSE: IBM), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Intel (NYSE: INTC), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). Now add General Electric (NYSE: GE) to that list.

The company announced its nanotechnology breakthrough as a cover story for "Applied Physics Letters." Don't have a subscription? Well, GE has developed the world's best performing diode built from a carbon nanotube. It's small. It's fast. It's a key to GE's technology future.

For those saying, "What does this mean?" GE offers the following quote: "Just as silicon transistors replaced old vacuum tube technology and enabled the electronic age, carbon nanotube devices could open a new era of electronics." Initial applications, which are just starting to be developed, include computing, communications, power electronics, and sensors.


GE's breakthrough is continuing proof that the road to smaller, faster, and cheaper electronics is still on the horizon. The promise of advanced sensors that enable enhanced security at airports, office buildings and other public areas also provides hope to those worried about terrorism.

The nanoelectronics marketplace is crowded with giants. But, as Carl and John said, "Investors should know that nanotechnology is not likely to produce a revolutionary upstart that will leapfrog the established electronic giants with advanced technology. We're not saying it's impossible for a true Rule Breaker to emerge, but it won't be easy. With fabrication plants costing $2 billion to $4 billion each, it probably will be prohibitively expensive for smaller companies to land the kind of financing it would take to unseat firms with deeper coffers."


Tuesday, July 06, 2004

OLED Display Tech on CNN news

From CNN.com

June 4, 2001 Posted: 12:28 p.m. EDT (1628 GMT)

By Douglas F. Gray

(IDG) -- Display vendors this week will show the public what they believe screens of the future will look like at the Society for Information Display's (SID) annual symposium, seminar, and exhibition when they fight for attention with tiny OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays.

OLED displays use emissive technology, meaning they emit light themselves, like a CRT television or a plasma display, eliminating the need for the backlight required by LCDs. By cutting out the backlighting, display makers can create panels that are both thinner and consume less power, said Kimberly Allen, director of technology and strategic research for analyst group Stanford Resources.

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The market for OLED displays is set to explode from a $29 million market in 2000 to a $1.6 billion market in 2007, according to a Stanford Resources report.

Although consumers probably will not see OLEDs in their notebooks for at least five years, the technology will probably make it to PDAs within the next couple of years, Allen said.

In Asia, some companies use the term OELD (organic electroluminescence display) to refer to the same technology.

Currently, Pioneer is the only company with OLED technology on the market. Pioneer launched the first OLED product, a car stereo display in 1998, and Motorola Timeport phone uses a Pioneer OLED display, Allen said.

"There are more products expected this year," Allen said. Products including another car stereo, a handheld game display, and more mobile phones are all expected to be rolled out onto the market this year from various vendors.

However, until prices fall, the manufacturers will not make displays much larger than mobile phone and car stereo displays. "They just don't have the manufacturing technology to make large panels reliably and at a reasonable price," Allen said. "But manufacturing cost is expected to be much lower than that of LCDs somewhere in the near future," she added.

Although OLED is not yet as common as LCD to consumers, there is a lot of development going on behind the scenes. "Every large Japanese display company is involved in OLED," Allen said. There is also a partnership between Samsung Electronics and NEC working on OLED, and Koninklijke Philips Electronics has been working on the technology as well.

Nearly 500 booths will fill the McEnery Convention Center for the display show, ranging from household names like Toshiba, NEC, and Sharp Electronics to lesser known companies including Candescent Technologies and LCD manufacturer Optrex America.

Tohoku Pioneer, a unit of Pioneer, will be demonstrating its three-inch color OLED panel, aimed at PDAs, which it created with Semi Conductor Energy Laboratory. The companies have also teamed up on a 1.8 inch color OLED display that they will be showing.

Optrex America, which was founded as a joint venture between Asahi Glass and Mitsubishi Electric, will also be showcasing its own OLED technology, which it expects to see in production of automobiles, most likely used in displays on stereos and climate control panels, by 2004.

Toshiba will show a prototype of its full-color polymer OLED at the show this week. The 2.85 inch display supports 260,000 colors in Q-CIF format. The current OLED technology on the market is small-molecule technology; polymer OLEDs have not been put into mass production yet, Allen said.

The only difference between polymer OLEDs and small-molecule OLEDs is the technique used to produce the display. "I wouldn't say that one is technically better than the other, but polymer is in an earlier state of development," Allen said.

Toshiba expects to start production of the polymer displays in fiscal 2002, initially targeting the mobile phone and small to midsize PDA markets, the company said. Following that, the company will target midsize and large displays, including high-end portable PCs that require higher resolution, Toshiba said.

Eastman Kodak is key patent holder for small-molecule OLED technology, Allen said.

Monday, June 28, 2004

[ODCAD]Spin on inorganic semiconductor

Did I make mistake in typing "inorganic"? No, it is true. Spin techlogy is usually regarded as a cheap method to deposite organic material because organic material can be dissovled in popular solvent. Si based inorganic semiconductor is covalent bond, and it has very low slubility in virtually any solvent. However, some inorganic material such as chalcoginide has relatively weak bond compared with Si. IBM's T.J. Watson Resaerch Center has discovered that this type of material may be dissolved in solvent hydrazine (N2H4) with other adding chemical. for example, Sn(S)y(Se)x can be dissovleved when extra solfur is added. The solution then is spin on substrated. After baking, the solvent and extra sulfur is evaporated. This results in very thin semiconductor Sn(S)y(Se)x.

Copy right owned by OD Software Incorporated (ODSI)(http://www.odcad.com/)-the expert and toolkit provider of electronic material, device

Monday, June 07, 2004

[ODCAD] Sharp-Blue Laser Diodes

Blue-violet Laser Diode is one of the components used in next generation of DVD. This high density (27 gigabits/disc) DVD requires Blue laser light to record digital information. The lab of Sharp in UK has developed a method to make this diode. The material is Indium-Gallium-Nitride (InGaN). This lab used a technique of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Sharp has already used this technique to manufacture Red laser diodes. This new method can compete with the others[1] that have been protected by patents.

1. Blue-laser using metal organic chemical vapor deposition developed by Shuji Nakamura, Nichia Corp, Tokushima, Japan
Copy right owned by OD Software Incorporated (ODSI)(http://www.odcad.com/)-the expert and toolkit provider of electronic material, device

Friday, June 04, 2004

[ODCAD] Samsung-OLED competing with LCD

Source from ZDet UK on May 18, 2004

Samsung SDI, the Korean giant's display division, has announced prototypes of a 17-inch active matrix organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. Due for launch next year, the display has a resolution of 1600x1200 pixels and a brightness of 400 lumens, and is the largest OLED matrix display to date according to the company.

It will consume no more power than a 15-inch display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said. The prototype will be shown at the 2004 Society for Information Display (SID) conference, taking place from 25th May in Seattle.

The displays are made using a transfer technology developed by Samsung and 3M, where the pattern of plastic pixels on the screen is printed by scanning a laser across a set of organic films. This can produce a larger screen than is possible by the alternative method of spraying the plastic through a patterned shadow mask, says the company, while allowing a similar precision.

Organic LEDs are luminescent plastic semiconductors with the theoretical potential to replace LCDs, CRTs and other display technologies through greater efficiency, easier production, more physical flexibility and lower cost. To date, however, problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use to mobile devices and backlights. Samsung's basic OLED technology was licenced from Kodak and developed in conjunction with NEC, which sold its stake in the joint venture to Samsung at the beginning of 2004.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

[ODCAD] Events in June, 2004

Asia: Tokyo, Japan, June 7, 2004 CIE Expert Symposium on LED Light Sources: Tokyo, Japan, more information

Asia: Taiwan, June 9-12,2004 Display Taiwan 2004
Taipai,Twain, for more informationn email sephony@mail.pida.org.tw.

US Bay area: Jun. 17, 6:00-9:00PM, PMIEEE EDS/SCV Evening Seminar in Bay area, CA, National Semiconductor, Building 31, 955 Kifer Rd. Sunnyvale, CA

Europa: Germany, June 20, 2004, 7th International Conference on Nanostructured Materials, Wiesbaden, Germany, more information

Asia: Tokyo, Japan, June 30,2004, 14th FPD Manufacturing Technology Expo & Conference/Finetech, Tokyo, Japan, more information


Copy right owned by OD Software Incorporated (ODSI)(http://www.odcad.com/)-the expert and toolkit provider of electronic material, device

Friday, May 28, 2004

OLED Displays Spice Up Mobile Phones

With the arrival of newer, slicker display technologies like organic lightemitting diodes (OLEDs), the LCD looks like the newest "old" technology in the fast-moving mobile handset market. Indeed, OLEDs have strong potential in mobile phones. Yet LCD technology is improving rapidly, providing healthy competition for OLEDs and limiting their market penetration.

OLED displays are attractive to mobile-phone makers because they deliver a high-quality image that doesn't suffer from poor viewing angles, lackluster color, or low brightness levels. OLEDs also are lightweight and increasingly inexpensive. And, they don't need backlighting, making them thinner than LCDs.

OLED Mobile Phone Display Shipments

OLEDs' thinness brings another key advantage to mobile-phone designs. This edge may be magnified by the use of a thin-film encapsulation layer, eliminating one of the two glass substrates now needed to fabricate OLEDs.

Given these advantages, market research firm iSuppli/Stanford Resources expects shipment revenue of OLEDs for mobile-phone displays, mainly color, to rise to $2.3 billion in 2009. That's up from $195 million in 2003.

LCDs still maintain a cost advantage and are much more widely manufactured and available than OLEDs. So, LCDs will remain the market leader in the mobile-phone display market by a wide margin through 2009. Improvements in LCD technology will temper OLEDs' advantages as well.

With Mitsubishi's double-sided, "reversible" LCD, designers can use a single panel for both the inner and outer displays-i.e., the main display and sub-display-on a clamshell phone. The key innovation is the use of a transparent backlight unit. Two of these units sandwich a single LCD panel between them. The display can be viewed from either side by using one backlight and transmitting the image through the other one. Because the display uses only one LCD panel, it's thinner and costs about a third less than two separate displays, Mitsubishi says.

With the arrival of a viable alternative to LCDs, mobile-phone designers now have more options in display technologies to add new features or to reduce cost, size, and power consumption.

iSuppli/Stanford Resources

www.isuppli.com

Kimberly Alien is director of technology and strategic research at iSuppli/Stanford Resources, El Segundo, Calif. ED Online 7833

Copyright Penton Media, Inc. Apr 26, 2004

Source: Electronic Design

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

[ODCAD]Nanotech company Lumera files with SEC for IPO

This is news from Wall Street.

NEW YORK, May 19, (Reuters) - Lumera Corp., which specializes in
nanotechnology to develop products from polymer materials, filed on
Wednesday to go public.
The Bothell, Washington-based company, a majority owned subsidiary of
Microvision Inc. (NasdaqNM:MVIS - News) filed a registration
statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed
initial public offering of 5 million shares of its common stock. All
the offered shares will be sold by Lumera.

The lead manager for the IPO will be Paulson Investment Co., with I-
Bankers Securities Inc. acting as co-manager.

ODCAD Comment: The amount to raise is $24 millions.

Monday, May 17, 2004

[ODCAD] US Defence Dept.- Organic Photovotaics (PV)

Effective solar cell device definitly has great application in any electronic products that require power supply. Inorganic semiconductors like Si currently rule the market. Organic materials potentially have advantage of smaller size (thinner), light weight, effcient, flexible (bend without breaking), and low cost. Many experts, and labs bet the future of photovotaics (PV) on organic materials.

US Dept. of Defence may be the biggest investor in this technology. Lynne Samuelson, a researcher at the US Army's Natick Soldier Center, in Massachusetts, claimed that his lab is starting to make proto-type PV devices to try out in the field. That Lab teamed up with a chemistry lab at Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell. The structure and materials used in their cell may contain Titania (? it may mean Ti)-TiO2 particles/Polymer. Titania particle can be as small as 20nm. The polymer is polyethylene terephthalate. Its effciency has not been disclosed. It is estimated that it may be >4%. This lab is expecting 20% effciency in five years.

Information source is Spectrum of IEEE.
ODCAD from OD Software Incorporated (ODSI)(http://www.odcad.com/)-the expert and toolkit provider of electronic material, device

Thursday, May 13, 2004

[ODCAD] Nano conveyor of Metal

[ODCAD] Nano conveyor of Metal
Source: Chemical Eng. News, May 3, 2004

Scientists from Univ. of Californian, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have found a way to transport molten metal along nanotube.

Physics professor Alex Zettl, postdoc Christ Regan and their coworkers applied electrical current to a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT), and the heat generated can melt contacting metal crystal. The metal then migrate along the tube from the anode to the cathode. The metal particles are shuttled along the surface of the nano tube in atomic form without evaporation. They observed that the metal can move over a greater distance than 2 um.

Potentially, this may be useful technology to make nano circuit or nano device combining metal with nano tube.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

[ODCAD] Philips-high efficiency polymer OLED (breakthroughs)

Improvement of power efficiency is critical for success of OLED display technology. Scientists from Philips claims that a breakthrough in that aspect has been made.

One development Philips made is using proper hole transportation layer (HTL) material. Usually, conductive polymer has more hole injected than electron, which results in waste of energy from extra hole. Choosing proper HTL material to reduce the hole injected can improve the power efficiency. (Sounds like anode junction barrier is increased) The quantum efficiency has been raised to 12% that is about 3 to 6 times higher than standard OLED devices.

Another development Philips made is dispersing a phosphorescent guest material into a light emitting polymer host. The polymer host used by Philips is carbazole-oxadiazole derivative. The guest material is iridium complex. A research fellow Meulenkamp from Philips presented the work on April 28, 2004 at the International Society for Optical Engineering's Photonics Europe conference in Strasbourg, France. Philips expects that these developments can significantly improve polymer OLED (PLED) device performance.

Copy right owned by OD Software Incorporated (ODSI)(http://www.odcad.com/)-the expert and toolkit provider of electronic material, device

Monday, May 10, 2004

Recent report from Electronic News says Opticom Stops Polymer Memory Development with Intel.

The wheels of collaboration on organic thin-film transistors (TFT) have come to a grinding halt between Opticom ASA and Intel Corp.
Based on a agreement reaching back to late 1999, Opticom ASA subsidiary Thin Film Electronics ASA (TFE) said it believes it will not make further deliverables or continue development work with Intel, according to Opticom’s Q1 report, released on Wednesday. Intel first invested in Opticom ASA’s Thin Film Electronics ASA (TFE) subsidiary in November 1999 and began collaborating on the development of data storage module prototypes utilizing TFE’s thin polymer film technology. In 2000 , Opticom claimed to have broken the performance barrier with its organic TFT technology that enabled a higher cycle speed than flash memory with true random access writing and erasure, according to the company at the time. In June 2001, Intel made a second investment of $7.85 million in TFE, increasing its stake in the company to 13 percent. At that time, the companies entered into a second license agreement that gave Intel the right to take up a non-exclusive royalty-bearing license in additional fields of use and provided a framework for the companies to enter into a possible productization phase. Based on this latest report, Opticom said technical issues with Intel related to mass volume production under a productization and licensing agreement have not yet solved, therefore, even though the companies have been negotiating and no final decision has been made, TFE does not believe it will make further deliverables nor will it continue ongoing joint development work with Intel. Intel has paid $4 million of the license fee so far for the expanded field of use of TFE’s technology and TFE said Intel has expressed its intention to pay the remaining two installments, however, as it is not a contractual obligation, Intel may choose to abandon the expanded license before that occurs. Intel has not yet released any written statements regarding the matter.

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

[ODCAD] Coming Events in May, 2004
May 4, Singapor: Semicon 2004
Location: Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre (SICEC)
When :May 4-6, 2004
More Info:http://www.semi.org/wps/portal/_pagr/103/_pa.103/259?id=19040&startRow=1

May 4 US: The 15th Annual IEEE/SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference
Location: Seaport Hotel,Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Mre Infor: http://www.semi.org/wps/portal/_pagr/103/_pa.103/259?id=18967&startRow=1

Ma 7 Bay Area, CA, US:IEEE EDS/SCV Evening Seminar in Bay area, CA
Location: National Semiconductor, Building 31, 955 Kifer Rd. Sunnyvale, CA
Topic: Compact Modeling
When: 6-8 PM
Admission: Free

May 17 NY, US: Nanobusiness Conference
Location: Marriott Financial Center, NY
More Info :snemeth@penton.com

May 23-28 Seattle, US: SID Display 2004
Location: Washtington Sate Convetion and Trade Center
More info :http://www.sid.org/conf/sid2004/sid2004.html

May 25 Pennsylvania, US:Pennsylvania Nanotechnology Conference 2004
Location: The Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA
More Info: http://www.pananoconference.org/

To check events in June or later, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OrganicDevice/, chect its calendar, and add interesting event to yours.

ODCAD from OD Software Incorporated (ODSI) (http://www.odcad.com/)-the expert, and toolkit provider of electronic material, device.

Saturday, May 01, 2004

[ODCAD] IBM: Nanotube Transistor, outperformed Si technology

Carbon nanotube can be used for many device application because of
its special electronic properties such as high electron mobility. IBM
developed a transistor based on C6 nanotube with the same drain,
source, gate and dielectric as Si CMOS technology, but using C6
nanotube instead of Si based semiconductor. The transistor has much
better performance than conventional one such as CMOS.
http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20020520_nanotubes.shtml

For IBM, and all of the industry, they still have manufacture
difficulties to massive produce the device.

[ODCAD] Blue Color Life of OLED

The industry standard for display device life is 100,000 hrs. LCD and Plasma are two popular FPD technologies. All of them have reached this standard.

Color of OLED can be achieved by three elemental color materials. Each material gives one of the colors Red, Yellow and Blue. There are the other technologies to achieve full color of OLED, which will be covered later.

One of targets of OLED is to increase the life of each color material. This is particularly true for Blue color material. The longest life for this is 45,000 hr (this is my knowledge, you may share with us if you have the latest info). For chemist, material scientist, it is a great job ahead of them.