They formed a company with Samsung SDI back in 2001, but they're dropping all resources, and letting Samsung go it alone.

Nippon Electic Corporation (NEC) announced that they will withdrawl from the organic EL display industry and assign all stock held in the Samsung NEC Mobile Display (SNMD), to Samsung. SNMD was formed in 2001.

The agreement reached between the two companies consists of NEC turning over all SNMD stock held by NEC, as well as the patents to the Passive Matrix system, the core of organic EL display technologies. The assisgment contract will conclude o­n March 1st, and they plan o­n completing the task by the end of March. The values of the stock NEC holds in SNMD is expected to be about 8,500,000,000 yen.

NEC has decided they will be concentrating o­n IT network solutions and semiconductor technologies industry development. They have said that for this reason, they have reached the conclusion to let Samsung SDI handle expansion of the organic EL display industry.

Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040227/nec.htm

News Release:
http://www.nec.co.jp/press/ja/0402/2702.html