“We make OLEDs better” was the motto of the company Cynora, headquartered in Bruchsal in Baden-Württemberg. Samsung's display subsidiary is obviously convinced of their work on materials to improve organic light-emitting diodes and, according to Bloomberg, has taken over Cynora for the equivalent of 300 million US dollars.
Although the acquisition has not yet been publicly announced, renowned Bloomberg author Mark Gurman is apparently certain that his sources are right. According to these, Samsung Display is said to have paid around 300 million US dollars for Cynora GmbH and thus acquired their technology for OLED displays, but not their staff.
TADF emitter for more efficient displays
Cynora has specialized in the development of blue and green emitter materials of the thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) type and in March 2020 presented a fluorescent blue emitter that is said to work 15 percent more efficiently than previous ones. The company marketed the new material under the name cyBlueBooster. cyUltimateGreen was presented in January 2021. A red counterpart has not yet been presented, but is also possible on this basis.
“TADF technology can be used efficiently for all OLED colors red, green and blue, which has not been achieved by any other technology to date,” Cynora explained on its website, adding: “TADF combines the advantages of phosphorescence (high efficiency) and fluorescence (lifetime)”. The higher efficiency compared to previous solutions should reduce the power consumption of OLED displays.
One pixel of such an RGB OLED display consists of a blue, green and red subpixel together. LG, on the other hand, relies on WOLED with white OLEDs and color filters. With Samsung's new QD-OLED technology, only blue OLEDs are used as a backlight; Quantum dots are used here as color filters to also generate green and red light.
Only the technology will be taken over
Samsung and LG had previously invested in Cynora. As reported by OLED-Info, Cynora recently ran into financial difficulties and laid off its entire workforce a few weeks ago as part of the transaction. Samsung therefore only acquires the technology of the company, which has more than 700 patents on its flag.