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Indias Samtel Eyes Leading Role In Oled Display Technology

India, despite its talent pool, has never been a global leader in technological development. Lack of investments in research and development and infrastructure have often been cited as reasons for the country lagging behind in terms of innovation and discoveries.

Things are, however, changing with the concept of partnership between the government, industry and university taking shape. In certain instances it has almost reached a stage of fructification and ready to take the global leadership position in various areas of technology.

A case in point is the prototype development unit in the Samtel Centre for Display Technologies at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. A collaborative effort between the Samtel Group, IIT Kapur and Department of Science and Technology, the centre was set up with a total investment of around Rs 250 million (US$5.4 million) with the private partner pumping in Rs 100 million.

The prototype unit, which was recently dedicated to the nation by Union Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, is set to become the nursery for Indias quest to be leaders in the Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs), which are now finding increasing usages as full colour displays in applications such as digital cameras and mobile phones.

In a fast and rapidly developing technological global environment, it is important to choose the right kind of areas to work on if India wants to be a leader and hence the choice of OLED as the focus area for the centre is a well thought out decision.

“In plasma and LCD technologies we are far behind the global leaders like Japan and Korea; it will take up about 10-15 years for us to catch up. By the time we catch up they would have moved on to the next one,” Samtel Colour Ltd chairman and managing director Satish K Kaura explains.

“Therefore, picking OLED display technology, which is at a nascent stage of development, is a move that gives India the chance to be a leader in the field. Currently the technology is about to take off globally and we are in the right position to take advantage, he said. With the prototype development through, the centre is ready to go for the pilot project of using the OLED display screen in small appliances.

“We can now go for the pilot project of using this new technology for devices like the mobile handsets. In another 18 months time we are expecting to go for the commercial production of OLED screens,” Kaura said.

Once the technology is successfully used in smaller screens, Samtel is looking to make its utilization in bigger devices too.

“The good thing about OLED is that it is not size restricted unlike the plasma and LCDs. Our next aim is to take this technology to bigger applications of 15 inches screens,” Samtel Vice-President Strategic Planning and Business Development Rajesh Kakkar said.

Kakkar said the next challenge for the centre would be how to make OLED screen applicable in a variety of applications. The challenge, however, does not appear to be too big considering the spirit of the people involved in the centre. The creation of the Centre is a testimony to the faith that Indian industry has on IIT Kanpur. It is powered by the graduates, undergraduate students and project scientists and engineers from the institute and also from Samtel, IIT Kanpur Director Sanjay Govind Dhande said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Sibal said university system was the nursery for innovations and the government and private partners should come together to encourage such centres.

“If any nation wants to move forward, the centre for innovation has to be the universities. It is the young minds who drive the faculty to lead them to innovation and discoveries,” Sibal said.

“Strongly supporting giving free hand to the universities for innovation-led researches,” he said, “the more we allow university system more freedom, the more we give them autonomy the more there will be innovation and discoveries.” Sibal also said the government would actively continue to support R&D in universities acknowledging the fact that private players take the risk of investing heavily on development of new technologies.

He said the government was planning to protect the ownership of its citizens for the innovations they made.

“In the coming monsoon session of Parliament, the government is planning to introduce a bill to give innovators the ownership of intellectual property for the creation they made,” Sibal said.

Having secured the support of the government and the academia, and its OLED screens ready to take off, Samtel is also focusing on expanding its existing business. The leading entertainment display devices manufacturer has embarked on a Rs 3.1 billion capacity expansion for its television picture tube manufacturing, while it has also decided to foray into plasma and flat panel screen manufacturing.

By next year the total picture tube capacity of the company will reach about 10 million units from the current level of half a million as our capacities are being expanded, Kaura said.

He said the company has invested about Rs 310 crore in total for expanding the existing capacity of its Dadri (UP) plant and setting up of a greenfield plant at Kota in Rajasthan.

“This year, our overall picture tube production capacity should be 8.5 millon units, he said, adding of the total of 10 million units expected next year, 3.3 units would be exported.”

Kuara also said that going forward, the company planned to foray into the plasma and flat screen manufacturing.

At present the plan is being discussed and will take about 6-8 months for finalisation, he said when asked what further investments would be required for the foray into the new technology product.

Kaura said once that is decided, Samtel would focus on the domestic market for marketing plasma and flat screens. With the OLED technology more or less in the pocket and the planned foray into plasma and flat panels, Samtel in now poised to enhance its portfolio to enhance its position the market.

Source : http://www.tmcnet.com/

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