Cambridge Display Technology makes announcement.

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) today unveiled its Light Emitting Polymer (LEP) dot matrix display, which it will show in public at the Society for Information Display (SID meeting) in San Diego this month.

This will be the world's first public demonstration of such a prototype.

The display has applications in a wide range of potential markets, ranging from replacement technology in applications such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) or advertising display boards, through to completely new products such as virtual reality headsets.

The prototype LEP dot matrix display combines the low voltage DC benefits of traditional LEDs with the large area patternability associated with non-emissive display technologies such as LCDs. The prototype display consists of a grid of pixels of density 100/cm(2), and measures 60mm by 20mm. Graphical, text and moving images are generated by driving the displays with conventional matrix display drives, consolidating the advantage the displays have due to their low cost manufacturing base.

"LEP displays are constructed using simple techniques and the intrinsic properties of the materials means that high resolution is easily obtainable. At present, the display size and resolution is limited by our in-house equipment rather than the technology," said Mark Gostick, business development manager at CDT. "We believe the demonstrations show that LEPs are beginning to fulfill the long term goals we have set ourselves for making high information content displays," he added.

One of the unique properties of LEP displays is that they can be designed to have good legibility and wide viewing angles at low power use levels. The low power characteristic combined with the potential to display high information content makes the screen ideal for mobile applications such as digital watches; hand held games machines; calculators; and mobile telephones. Meanwhile the ability to produce flat large area displays means the technology is an ideal replacement in applications such as airport timetable indicators, tube and rail indicators, electronic advertising hoardings or promotional moving displays.

Initially CDT has fabricated a green dot matrix display. By engineering the properties of the light emitting polymers they expect to demonstrate a red version very shortly. In the last year, CDT has synthesized polymers which emit light in the red, green and blue regions of the visible spectrum.

Work is underway to develop driving schemes which would allow these to be used to make full colour graphics displays without the need for a complex active array of electronic switches such as those found in today's high performance flat panel displays. This would allow LEPs to be used as a replacement for the cathode ray tube and LCD in computer displays and television.

"The dot matrix is one of a range of products that we plan to introduce to the market using LEPs," said Danny Chapchal, CEO, "and today's announcement shows that we are on target to achieve that. We are working with our partner Xyratex to aggressively scale up our device manufacturing process and bring our first product to market. At the same time we are developing the capabilities of the technology so that we can quickly move to higher added value and LEP specific products for the mobile communication market, which is our focus. The dot matrix demonstration is a good example of how we have accelerated LEP development because of our company's focus, and how this can benefit our partners and licensees," Chapchal concluded.

"As Light Emitting Polymers were discovered in Cambridge, it is entirely appropriate that we are leading the world in the commercial development of products based on the technology. The prototype dot matrix LEP display is the next stage in the commercial realisation of LEP technology, following on from the LEP-based back lights and seven segment displays which we demonstrated last year," said Professor Friend, who is the Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge University, and also a director of Cambridge Display Technology.

The dot matrix screen is constructed from a thin film of light emitting polymer on a glass substrate coated with a transparent, indium tin oxide electrode. An aluminum electrode is evaporated on top of the polymer. The electrodes are patterned, in orthogonal rows and columns. Light is emitted from the area at the intersection of these lines when current is applied.

Unlike liquid crystal or plasma displays, which require thin film processing on two glass plates, LEPs can be fabricated on one sheet of glass or plastic. This greatly simplifies processing and reduces cost. Additionally, the ability to manufacture devices on flexible plastic substrates introduces new form factor opportunities and, for example, allows displays which conform to product shapes to be made.

CONTACT: Cambridge Display Technology

Mark Gostick, [phone]

or

A Plus Group

Stephen Waddington, [phone] REPEATS: New York 212-575-8822 or 800-221-2462; Boston 617-236-4266 or

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