News Release：Pioneer Succeeds in Developing"Organic Electroluminescence (EL)Full Color Display"

Organic Electroluminescence (EL)Full Color Display

TOKYO, Japan, September 28, 1998 --- Pioneer Electronic Corporation announced that they succeeded in developing a very versatile and innovative display: organic electroluminescence (EL) full color display ^*1, which features best under 10 inch size. Pioneer announced this innovative technology at “EL98 (The 9th International Workshop on Inorganic and Organic Electroluminescence)” (September 15, Oregon, US). The prototype will be displayed at “Japan Electronics Show ‘98” which will be held from October 6 in Osaka, Japan.

Pioneer has been researching organic EL display since 1988, and in November 1997, succeeded in introducing mono-color type for the first time in the industry to the market. In the newly developed organic EL full color display, Pioneer realized RGB emitter's selective deposition method which emits arbitrary colors (red, blue and green) by choosing organic materials, as well as improving the organic materials which realizes the color purity of RGB, the NTSC standard chromaticity coordinates of full color display.

The newly developed organic EL full color display is a self-emitting type ^*2 with superior features of high luminescence, high visibility, ultra-thin thickness and very little power consumption. With these unique features, Pioneer has a merchandising plan by the year 2000 for displays for car navigation products, portable equipment such as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and subnotebook-type personal computers.

< Background of the Development >

With the coming of the multimedia-age, one of the most important technology will be the display device technology which links human beings with multimedia as a human interface. What is required is an attractive, eye-friendly display which can be used at any place and any time.

As a result, a display which fulfills the following conditions are required;

• High visibility under any brightness level and from any viewing angle.
• High quality, refined visual image.
• Very thin thickness.
• Very little power consumption which is indispensable for battery-driven portable equipment.
• Low cost.

The current display devices are CRT (cathode-ray tube) and LCD (liquid crystal display) which forms a large market. Each of these devices has its own characteristics, and none have been able to meet all the above mentioned conditions. Therefore, according to the purpose of equipment or its characteristics, an appropriate display device had to be chosen from products which are currently available. However, as the demand for small-sized display devices used in portable equipment became high, development of a superior display device became necessary for the market.

< Features of the Organic EL Full Color Display >

The newly developed organic EL full color display of surface-emitting ^*3 type has organic thin-multi-layer structures and has many features as follows:

• High visibility (self-emitting type)
• High level of brightness (surface-emitting type)
• Thin body (4mm thickness) enables compact products.
• No backup light is necessary. As a result, very small power consumption is required.
• It only needs voltage DC of about 15V, so very useful for PDA and other portable equipment.
• Fast response to the input information (more than 1,000 times faster than LCD) makes it possible to adopt to any kinds of products.
• Enable to use in tough temperature conditions.

The organic EL display device has a great potential use as can be adopted to a wide variety of use such as for car navigation products, PDA and subnotebook-type personal computers. Pioneer will continuously engage in R&D to improve to extend the operation life as well high-efficient emitting.

< Specifications of the Prototype of Organic EL Full Color Display >

1. Display Size: 5.2 inch
2. Pixel Number: 320 x RGB x 240dot
3. Pixel Pitch: 0.33mm
4. Driving Method: Simple Matrix
5. Driving Duty Ratio: 1/120
6. Emitting Colors: 260,000 (64 color tones/each color)
7. Luminance: 150cd/square meter
8. Contrast: more than 100:1(at the time of using filter)
9. Power Consumption: 6W (100% emitting)1.8W(30% emitting --- average brightness of typical video screen)
10. Operating Life: about 2,000 hours (period the brightness becomes half)