So the adjacent possible makes for parallel developments as everyone has the bits and pieces but slightly different approaches..Better glass? Forget GTAT and look at these guys…

Kateeva

Mark Rogowsky
Contributor
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I write about technology, trends and companies on the leading edge.

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Kateeva’s YIELDjet machine quickly at work making an OLED display.

When we last visited Kateeva, a startup based in a modest building not far from Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters, the company was fresh off the acquisition of a small firm halfway around the world. That purchase gave Kateeva a toehold in the backyard of the two most important display makers, LG and Samsung. It seemed like an especially good fit, given Kateeva hopes to convince companies that make screens for everything from smartphones to televisions to use its technology to manufacture next-generation OLED displays. Today, Kateeva has reaped the first tangible benefit from its adventures in Korea, announcing a new $38 million funding round with Samsung’s venture capital group coming on board as the sole new investor.

Kateeva has just over 70 employees, but it has now raised more than $110 million in total capital (existing investors including Spark Capital, Sigma Partners, and Madrone Capital Partners all participated in the most recent funding). And better still, its equipment has been in testing with a major manufacturer for some time. While the company didn’t say who, it did say thing have gone well enough to move from testing to production. Specifically, Kateeva expects customers to use its machines to build flexible displays that can be bent and even folded in half.

The end result would be nearly unbreakable smartphones and possibly even devices that allow you to fold out an extra display when you need more workspace. The larger display could be seamless and nearly allow your phone to be transformed into a tablet and back again. Kateeva’s CEO Alain Harrus believes products using this type of display will reach the market as soon as next year.
“Customers are strongly pushing [for] a ramp of flexible display,” Harrus said. “This is going to mass production as early as February or March.” He’s seen prototypes of everything from displays that roll up to multi-pane models that fold. “Once you’ve seen some of these flexible displays, you start imagining: ‘Why have all these displays been flat until now?’ ”
While Samsung and LG have experimented with phones that have slightly curved screens — shaped like a banana — nothing with a truly flexible display has yet reached the market. Part of the challenge has been the very slow progress of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) in its march to replace the ubiquitous LCD that’s likely already in your living room or smartphone. The two most apparent manifestations to date have been Samsung’s Galaxy phones and some of its tablets as well as a high-priced TV from LG that has thus far made little impact on the market.
The stumbling block has been making OLED displays in large quantities, a trick that only Samsung has figured out and even then only for small screen. Samsung’s technology scales up so poorly to large sizes, it has essentially abandoned the OLED TV market for now, allowing LG time to try and grow its business there. Kateeva’s technology should allow for anyone adopting it to have an easier time making screens, eventually driving the cost down to be more competitive with LCD.
Harrus thinks the timetable for Kateeva-based TVs is about 2 years out. LG, for its part recently introduced a couple of super-high-resolution “
4K” TVs based on its OLED technology and claimed it has a 10-year lead on the competition. With nothing to challenge LG until at least 2 years from now, that might be less outlandish than it seems. It takes time to reach mass production of any new display technology. Samsung spent several years getting good enough to make OLED screens for the Galaxy smartphones and only after several generations of the phone was it able to extend the technology to a portion of its tablet family. LG has been increasing production of its OLED TVs, but with capacity to build only about 1.5 million next year can’t even capture 1% of the global market.
The endorsement of Kateeva by Samsung, therefore, speaks volumes. Dozens of companies have spent the past decade trying to perfect the technologies to make OLED screens and the innovative approach of the California company appears to be a breakthrough. By working in a special nitrogen chamber, Kateeva’s machinery offers high throughput and low defect rates — both essential to get the economics of display-making right. It’s also worth noting that at a time Silicon Valley firms have gotten criticism for not solving “hard problems,” investors have stood by the company, despite its low profile and its long path to market. Kateeva sells equipment to people to make things. That’s not especially sexy, but the company thinks its near-team market opportunity is in the hundreds of millions nevertheless.
If it’s correct, the first step will be enabling a class of mobile devices that move away from the glass rectangle that has defined the industry since the 2007 introduction of the iPhone. Should that happen, it could have an impact on Apple, too. I asked Harrus if Apple could be vulnerable to a spate of unique, origami-like devices coming out of the Korean companies, which have the advantage of both making screens and mobile products. He said yes, but was quick to add that Apple could easily follow with its own similar designs a year or two later. Samsung or LG would likely introduce flexible devices at the top end of their product line first, Apple would eventually follow with a more mainstream iPhone 7 using a similar display, and then Samsung would mock Apple in a commercial.
In the meantime, Harrus is excited that Kateeva is ready to ship production machines to customers and believes the world will be excited to see the resulting displays in action. Fresh with new investment and a key strategic partner, he’s got plenty of runway to see it all come into focus.
For casual readers, Samsung has a device coming out soon called the EDGE. It must be their first move into the above sort of devices.
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Silicon Valley hardware startup Kateeva raises $38M for flexible displays
Above: Kateeva uses inkjet printing to layer chemicals on flexible displays.
Kateeva has raised $38 million to build flexible displays using its inkjet printing technology. Its technology could lead to bright and thin TVs with curved and bendable screens.
Fundings for hardware startups are rare in Silicon Valley. But Kateeva is an exception thanks to its patented technology that has been in development for years.
The fourth round of funding included new investor Samsung Venture Investment Corp. (SVIC). Other existing investors participating in the round are Sigma Partners, Spark Capital, Madrone Capital, Partners, DBL Investors, New Science Ventures, and Veeco Instruments.
Above: Alain Harrus of Kateeva
Image Credit: Kateeva
The company has raised more than $110 million since it was founded in 2008. Kateeva makes the Yieldjet platform, which uses inkjet printing technology to deposit a layer of chemicals atop flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. Kateeva says the technology adds better protection for displays, leading to longer lifetimes, higher yields, and lower production costs.
OLED displays are bright and thin, but their manufacturing costs are high. With Kateeva’s equipment, it’s easier to create a sealed display that is also curvable, bendable, and rollable. Kateeva can print on large sheets of glass, including sheets that are as large as a king-sized bed. It uses advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques, combined with inkjet printing, to spray uniform layers of chemicals on displays. The flexible displays could be used in TVs with curved displays, as well as smartphones and wearable electronics.
Kateeva will use the money to expand manufacturing, sale, and support, said Alain Harrus, chief executive of Kateeva, in an interview with VentureBeat.
“You can think of this like an inkjet printer dropping small drops of chemicals on the surface of glass,” Harrus said.
The company is currently building its displays for early orders at a production facility in Silicon Valley, at its Menlo Park, Calif.-based headquarters.
Kateeva is announcing the funding at 2014 OLEDs World Summit taking place this week in Berkeley, Calif.
“Kateeva is a technology leader and has built a significant business in the OLED space,” said Michael Pachos, senior investment manager at Samsung Venture Investment Corp., in a statement. “The company has demonstrated both a technical and business vision in driving adoption of OLED displays and lighting.”
Harrus said Samsung’s involvement says volumes about the company’s value for OLED display makers. In 2008, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Conor Madigan and Vladimir Bulovic founded the company.
Kateeva has 70 employees, and it competes with companies that are divisions of large TV-related conglomerates, such as Epson and Tokyo Electron (soon to merge with Applied Materials). But Kateeva is the company close to mass production, Harrus said. The company has customers, but it can’t talk about them yet.
Harrus said the rival technology, dubbed vacuum evaporation, is approaching obsolescence. That’s the only reason that a small startup can challenge rival tech giants.
“We feel we are the only ones with this technology,” Harrus said. “Imagine having an 11-inch tablet that you can fold into three parts and put in your pocket. Or something like a helmet with an IMAX-like display.”
Maybe Samsung is backing someone who can help move the mobile devices into the future. Inflexible Saphire GTAT is out and the new king will be Kateeva enabled screens?
Samsung as an ecosystem has some things that Apple does not.