HsinChu, Taiwan,
On June 6th, AUO Corporation ("AUO" or the "the Company") (TAIEX: 2409 ; NYSE: AUO), was recognized in two outstanding categories at "The 2005 Gold Panel Display Awards". The company is the proud recipient of awards for "The Outstanding Industry Contribution" and "The Best Technology", demonstrating AUO's significant achievements leadership position in the flat panel technology.
Just last month, AU Optronic's self-developed Double-Sided AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic LED) was honored with SID's (Society for Information Display) Distinguished Paper Award and is now again recognized for the "Best Technology Award". The Double-Sided AMOLED Display is the first in the world to be driven independently on each side, displaying different images simultaneously. The current thickness of the panel is the width of two pieces of glass (at 1.8 mm) and is expected to further reduce to less then 1mm. AUO overcame the challenge of applying TFT onto AMOLED by integrating the design and process technology together with the innovated OLED component structure. The application of specialized circuit driving methodologies creates high resolution and high color saturation on both sides of the display. Future application possibilities for this technology may span to mobile phone, portable multimedia player, portable game device or even notebook.
For the "Outstanding Industry Contribution Award" , AUO's Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Fan Luo without doubt deserves the award. In 1974, Dr. Luo successfully developed the world's first TFT-LCD panel during his stay in the United States, a significant historical breakthrough for the flat panel industry. Known as the pioneer of TFT-LCD, he was first to apply TFT-LCD panels onto avionic applications. From 1997 to 2003, as Director of SID, Taipei Chapter, Dr. Luo had greatly contributed in promoting Taiwan's technological standards and uplifting its international positioning in the TFT industry. Currently he is acting Chairman of Technology Committee and the Principal Investigator for the Advanced Research Project, TTLA (Taiwan TFT LCD Association) leading various research activities.
As AUO's CTO, Dr. Luo is dedicated to developing a system of intellectual property rights and innovations, leading the company to become Taiwan's top applicant and assignee for patents among the TFT-LCD industry for both 2003 and 2004. Under his leadership, AUO accumulated a great quantity of patents within recent years. Currently the number of patent applications filed and patents granted are close to 4,000 and is continuing to increase every year. According to the IFI Claims Patent Services, the figure compiled for USA patents granted to worldwide IT companies, AUO ranked No. 5 this year among the top 10 performers in the category of patent growth with 79 USA patents at 98% of annual growth rate.