Wakeup call from Nokia

At a recent conference in Europe, Matti Ryyanen of Nokia explained how the company works with innovators. It is not interested in materials but only fully functional components and systems. It will help to further evaluate and maybe develop such things in Nokia Research Centre. Activities include displays, lights, actuators and decoration.

 

He sees OLEDs as high priced, thick, with limited life and high power consumption - the opposite of industry publicity - but he hopes for improvement. He acknowledges that there are some cases today when OLED is superior to LCD but questions whether they are in cellphones. For example he thinks some openings may be where limited life is not a problem and that is not mobile phones. He sees flexible OLEDs at low price being available late in the next decade not early as the industry projects.

 

As for the innovative applications he asks "Does a wrapping paper with organic electronics fall under the European Union recycling directives?" He says that anyone wanting to supply Nokia with such innovations must already know the answers to such questions. He seemed optimistic about inorganic nanomaterials because they do not age like organics. However, he reiterated that those developing new materials must invent new applications if they are to succeed.