Eastman Kodak Company
Kodak Digital Camera First To use Active-Matrix OLED Displays
Kodak EasyShare LS633 Camera Ushers in New Era of Easy-to-View Displays
ROCHESTER, New York, March 3 -- For Eastman Kodak Company, it's another display industry first: the debut of the world's first product featuring a full-color, active-matrix (AM) OLED display.
The Kodak EasyShare LS633 zoom digital camera uses Kodak's innovative, award-winning AM OLED technology to display bright, sharp images for better on-camera viewing and sharing from virtually any angle. Coupled with the new Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock, the OLED screen offers unencumbered image previewing, enabling a PC-free approach to capturing and sharing images.
The LS633 camera represents a major milestone in the development and manufacture of displays exhibiting more vivid images and crisper video to consumer electronics. The camera's award-winning Kodak display AM550L lets people share their pictures with friends and loved ones immediately, through its 165-degree viewing, and in detail, on a 2.2-inch screen that is up to 107 percent larger than the LCDs on most cameras. The wide viewing angle also enables people to use the screen as a viewfinder from almost any angle. The camera will be available initially in Europe, Asia and Australia in April.
"The commercialization of our OLED technology opens new opportunities in new markets for Kodak and for the display industry,"said Bernard Masson, senior vice president of Eastman Kodak Company, and president Display Group. "Our display technologies will change the way people view their pictures, share their pictures, and work with electronic devices. We expect and, in our own company, are planning innovative products and new, display-based devices that extend today's product categories."
Research firms such as DisplaySearch and Stanford Resources predict the OLED display market could reach up to $3 billion by 2007. Consumer electronics devices expected to incorporate OLED technology in the next five years include mobile phones, digital cameras, PDAs and DVD players.
"The LS633 camera is just one of myriad applications for this versatile technology," said Masson. "Launched just months after we shipped evaluation kits, the camera's debut validates the technology. We will see more products with this technology, and we will license display manufacturers to help drive this technology into the market."
Kodak scientists discovered the light-emitting properties of organic substances more than 20 years ago and patented advances in designs and materials. Through a joint development program, Kodak and Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., produced the first full-color 2.4-inch AM OLED display in 1999 and less than a year later, a 5.5-inch AM OLED, and in 2002 demonstrated a 15-inch display. Their joint manufacturing venture, SK Display Corp., produced the world's first AM OLED displays for Kodak's evaluation kit and is manufacturing displays for the LS633 camera.
OLED Technology
OLED displays comprise self-luminous pixels, requiring no backlights used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs). So they offer design and performance advantages, including clearer images, crisper video, and thinner designs in digital cameras, mobile phones, PDAs and other devices. Additional benefits over conventional technologies include higher contrast for superb readability in most lighting conditions, faster response time to support streaming video, and industry-leading (165 degree) viewing angle for superior ergonomics. In addition to the joint manufacturing venture for AM OLED panels with Sanyo, Kodak licenses OLED technology to more than one dozen display and device manufacturers worldwide. For further information on Kodak displays and licensees, go to http://www.kodak.com/go/display/.
Eastman Kodak Company and Infoimaging
Kodak is the leader in helping people take, share, enhance, preserve, print and enjoy pictures -- for memories, for information, for entertainment. The company is a major participant in infoimaging a $385 billion industry composed of devices (digital cameras, printer docks and PDAs), infrastructure (online networks and delivery systems for images) and services & media (EasyShare software, film and paper enabling people to access, analyze and print images). Kodak harnesses its technology, market reach and a host of industry partnerships to provide innovative products and services for customers who need the information-rich content that images contain. The company, with sales in 2002 of $12.8 billion, is organized into four major businesses: Photography, providing consumers, professionals and cinematographers with digital and traditional products and services; Commercial Imaging, offering image capture, output and storage products and services to businesses and government; Components, delivering flat-panel displays, optics and sensors to original equipment manufacturers; and Health, supplying the healthcare industry with traditional and digital image capture and output products and services.