eMagin Corporation announced the United States Patent & Trademark Office’s issuance of U.S. Patent application No. 09/957,221, "Method and system for stabilizing thin film transistors in active matrix OLED displays,” October 21.
The patent describes a method and system for creating electrically stable thin-film transistors (TFTs) that, eMagin said, could mean lower-cost visual microdisplays and potentially large screen, very high resolution OLED displays. Such displays can be utilized for video gaming, data processing, and the viewing of movies, among other uses.
"This new invention provides an opportunity to not only create ultra high performance microdisplays on single crystal silicon ICs, but to also create a lower cost alternative for many customers desiring large virtual images at a very low cost," eMagin chief marketing/strategy officer Susan Jones said announcing the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office notification.
"We also look forward to working with partners interested in using this innovative technology to create low cost, large area OLED displays," Jones said.
That news comes as the world market for OLED displays is seen as going from an expected $429 million by the end of 2004 to about $4 billion in 2008, according to market researchers iSuppli Corp.
The technology in question involves the control signals to each thin film transistor (TFT) gate including data signals proportional to the desired visual resolution output for the OLED, as well as a reverse data signal used to reverse-bias the TFT to stop threshold drifting, eMagin said.
The data signal alteration, the company continued, is done at either a frame or a line rate, resulting in large color ranges and more stable controls than previously available in devices using TFT.
