Direct and Spillover Effects of ATP-Funded Photonics Technologies

which was to give DuPont access to market entry-level, commercial-scale poly-OLEDmanufacturing capacity. However, these displays were based on glass substrates becausetechniques for fabricating flexible poly-OLED displays based on Uniax technology were notyet commercially viable.As it turned out, neither were the passive-matrix glass OLED displays. DuPont andRiTdisplay were unable to get high enough production yields or the 2,000–3,000 hourdisplay lifetimes needed to be attractive in cell phone applications. 39 Compounding thecompetitiveness problem, DuPont’s target prices were reportedly in the $9–10 range forsmall cell phone displays, while prices for comparable LCDs fell to about $2.50. 40 DuPonteventually dropped these passive OLEDs from its planned line entirely, withdrawing fromthe manufacturing agreement with RiTdisplay. Instead, in 2004, DuPont began focusingexclusively on bringing active-matrix OLED glass-based displays to market and continued topursue R&D at the Uniax subsidiary for flexible poly-OLED displays. Uniax licensee Philipsalso has continued pursuing solution-based processing of flexible poly-OLEDs. In early 2004,the company demonstrated a 13-inch inkjet-printed flexible poly-OLED television. 41 Theybelieve flexible displays are attractive enough that Philips is no longer pursuing R&D onglass-based displays.So far, however, flexible poly-OLED displays cannot be made cost-effectively using roll-torollprocessing and, until that occurs, are unlikely to achieve large-scale commercial volumes.A major hurdle is that the complementary manufacturing equipment is not yet standardized,and so the equipment supply base has not achieved the scale and efficiency economies torival the 100-times-larger LCD industry. 42DIRECT ECONOMIC BENEFITSTo summarize the economic value story so far, presumably the $15–20 million Uniaxacquisition price from DuPont represents the risk-adjusted market value of the overalltechnology and patent portfolio, including potential licensing fees, accumulated by Uniax bythat point in time. As such, it also is a lower bound on the forecasted future economic valuecreated by Uniax technology overall. Even as a lower bound, it is well in excess of the $2.3million in federal funding and $3 million reported in private funding (beyond Neste’s originalstake) to that point and, as such, represents an impressive social return for the combinedfederal and private investment. Ideally, we would add in past and future employment effectsand past licensing revenues, but we were not privy to this private financial information. Wenote that press reports 43 suggest that Uniax employment peaked at about 150 in 2002, whichis the same level as Displaytech’s employment peak two years earlier, and fell about 2039. Reported in Warren’s Consumer Electronics Daily, May 26, 2004.40. Reported in Warren’s Consumer Electronics Daily, May 26, 2004.41. Yoshida (2004).42. Yoshida (2004).43. Van De Kamp (2003).Comparison of Displaytech and Uniax 57