News Briefs (Jan. 13, 2006)

AU Optronics Corp. of Hsinchu, Taiwan, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have signed a broad patent cross-license agreement to allow expanded access to their patent portfolios for TFT-LCD and OLED technology, particularly for LCD-TV applications. . . . Flexpoint Sensor Systems Inc., a Draper, Utah, a developer of thin-film sensing technology for automotive, medical, industrial control and consumer product industries, said it recently filed a patent for a hygrometer bend sensor. (A hygrometer measures the moisture content or the humidity of air or any gas.) Flexpoint said its engineers originally discovered the bend sensor's ability to measure humidity while working on automotive applications; they realized that by changing the sensor's chemical compounds and bending the sensor to reveal its microscopic fractures, it could very accurately measure changes in electrical resistance that is affected by humidity. Flexpoint said it is looking into including humidity sensors in hospital beds; other potential applications are clothes dryers, measuring humidity in homes and buildings, and pharmaceutical, perishable food, paper and chemical markets. . . . Universal Display Corp. (UDC) a Ewing, N.J., developer of phosphorescent organic light-emitting diode (PHOLED) technology for flat panel displays, lighting and other optoelectronics applications, was awarded a two-year, $730,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase II contract by the US Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center. UDC will develop and demonstrate an active-matrix, flexible PHOLED display containing infrared (IR)-emitting PHOLED pixels and visible spectrum PHOLED pixels. Its IR-emission OLED technology is being designed to be seen only through night vision goggles to avoid detection in darkness. By combining IR-emitting and visible PHOLED pixels into one display, it will create a display that works in high-, low- or no-light conditions. The active-matrix PHOLED display will be built on flexible metal foil using polysilicon backplane technology from Palo Alto Research Center. As a continuation of the Phase I program, the University of Southern California will develop PHOLED materials for evaluation in the prototype.