Flexible Substrate

Transcription

Flexible Substrate

We are pleased to provide this sample of the Flexible Substrate newsletter from Veritas et
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A discount is available to subscribers who order all five of our newsletters. Our five
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3D
Touch
High Resolution
Flexible Displays
Display Standards
The goal of this newsletter is to bring subscribers the most comprehensive review of recent
news about the emerging markets and technologies related to flexible displays. This
newsletter combines news summaries, feature articles, tutorial, opinion & commentary
columns, summaries of recent technology papers, interviews and event information in a
straight-forward, essentially ad-free format. Flexible Substrate enables you to easily and
affordably stay on top of the myriad activities in this exciting market.
We look forward to adding you to our rapidly growing list of subscribers!
Best regards,
Mark Fihn
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Veritas et Visus
http://www.veritasetvisus.com
Flexible Substrate
Veritas et Visus
Hussein Chalayan, p7
October 2007 Vol 3 No 5
Sharp, p15
Kent Displays, p43
Cornell University, p11
Letter from the publisher: There’s Indium in them ‘thar hills… by Mark Fihn
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News from around the world
4
Organic Electronics Conference and Exhibition 2007, September 24-26, Frankfurt, Germany
29
Phillip Hill covers this Cintelliq organized event with presentations from ITRI, National Chung Hsing University,
National Tsing-Hua University, SAIT, Binghamton University, and Tosoh Corporation
Flex-Stretch Electronic Workshop, September 7-9, Leuven, Belgium
33
Mark Fihn covers presentations from Freudenberg/IMEC/TFCG Microsystems, SiliconPipe/Verdant Electronics,
Freudenberg NOK Mechatronics, Nippon Mektron/FFD, Fraunhofer IZM, and Hightec
Flexible Displays 2007, June 19-21, Oakland, California
38
In this second of three reports from the Intertech/PIRA-organized conference, Phillip Hill covers presentations
from ipCapital Group, Honeywell, Arizona State University, Palo Alto Research Center, and Innos
Society for Information Display 2007 Symposium, May 20-25, Long Beach, California
43
Flexible displays were high on the agenda at SID this year with around 50 papers spread across a dozen
sessions. In this third report, Phillip Hill covers presentations from Kent Displays, Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology/Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, Corning, DuPont, and ITRI/ Cheng Kung University
Smart Fabrics 2007, May 7-9, Washington DC
48
In this third report from the Intertech/PIRA-organized event, Mark Fihn covers presentations from
JFMagic/Exmovere, Philips, Textronics, Milliken, Interactive Wear, Future Shape and Foster-Miller
Industry Forum on Plastics Electronics, April 24, Chicago, Illinois
51
Phillip Hill’s third report on this one-day conference on printed electronics covers presentations from GSI
Technologies, Add-Vision, Optomec, Honeywell, Novalia, and Polyera
Printed Electronics Europe 2007, April 17-18, Cambridge, UK
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In this second of three reports on the IDTechEx-organized event, Phillip Hill covers presentations from
Arizona State University, Aveso, Enfucell, Kodak, and Leeds Lithium Power Limited
The Flexible Substrate is focused on bringing news and commentary about the activities of the companies and
technologies related to the development of flexible substrates for the displays industry. The Flexible Substrate is
published electronically 10 times annually by Veritas et Visus, 3305 Chelsea Place, Temple, Texas, USA, 76502.
Phone: +1 254 791 0603. http://www.veritasetvisus.com
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Mark Fihn
mark@veritasetvisus.com
Managing Editor
Phillip Hill
phill@veritasetvisus.com
Associate Editor
Geoff Walker geoff@veritaetvisus.com
Contributors:
Lawrence Gasman, Peter Harrop, David Lieberman, Jutta Rasp, Bart
Vandevelde, Chris Williams
Subscription rate: US$47.99 annually. Single issues: US$7.99 each. Hard copy subscriptions are available upon
request, at a rate based on location and mailing method. Copyright 2007 by Veritas et Visus. All rights reserved.
Veritas et Visus disclaims any proprietary interest in the trade marks or names of others.
Veritas et Visus
Flexible Substrate
Ghim Wei Ho, p4
JFMagic, p48
Discovery Museum, p25
October 2007
FDC, p55
Interview with Craig Cruikshank from cintelliq
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Interview with Adam Laubach from GSI
63
Interview with Mike Thwaites from Plasma Quest
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The huge impact of printed transistors by Peter Harrop
70
Silicon inks for electronics by Lawrence Gasman
72
ILEDs: Placeholders for OLED lamps? by David Lieberman
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Smart Technology – Smart OLED – Smart Content? by Jutta Rasp
76
The Last Word: Bring on November! by Chris Williams
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Display Industry Calendar
78
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
There’s Indium in them ’thar hills…
by Mark Fihn
Over the past few months, I’ve read several new items suggesting that the flat panel display industry needs to find
an alternative to indium tin oxide (ITO) as transparent conductor for display applications. ITO used in virtually all
LCDs, OLEDs, EL displays, electrophoretic displays, photo-detectors, and touch panels. And recently, the
emergence of printed and thin film electronics and CIGS photovoltaics applications are creating demand for an
ever-increasing amount of ITO.
A May article in the British publication New Scientist that indium is one of several elements being used up at “an
alarming rate”. The article cites the work of Dr. Armin Reller, a materials chemist at the University of Augsburg in
Germany, who predicted that supplies of indium could be exhausted by 2017.
What normally happens when demand increases and/or supply decreases is that prices increase. Indeed, the price of
indium has increased from about $60/kg in 2003 to more than $1000/kg last year and early this year. Some display
industry analysts have predicted that surging demand for LCDs is likely to quickly boost indium prices to as much
as $10,000/kilogram.
So, considering these dire predictions, imagine my surprise when I read recently that spot pricing for indium in
early October had dropped below $500/kg. Especially just prior to the Christmas selling season for big-screen TVs,
and in consideration of recent highs for various precious metals, how could it be that pricing for this supposedly
scarce commodity had dropped so significantly?
Over the past couple of years, I’ve studied numerous technologies offering promise as an alternative transparent
electrode. Most of the justifications for such alternatives to ITO have been offered in relation to the fact that ITO is
relatively brittle, and thereby problematic for devices built on flexible substrates. When combined with the more
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October 2007
recent concerns about scarce supplies of ITO, I figured there would suddenly be a huge clamor to fully develop
these alternative technologies. But it doesn’t seem to be the case. Several LCD manufacturers have advised me that
of course they are looking at alternative technologies, but that ITO performance has not yet been equaled, and even
with a 10-fold increase in ITO pricing, since very little ITO is actually used per LCD, it’s inconsequential.
Brian O’Neill, who is the indium materials manager at AIM Specialty, a company that makes sputter targets, was
very helpful in explaining the dynamics of the indium market. He identified several factors that influence indium
pricing:
•
•
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Indium is a thinly-traded metal, such that pricing can be very volatile. News about a single mine, or
manipulative efforts by a single trader can heavily influence short term pricing.
Indium is a by-product of zinc mining. If zinc demand goes down, then the supply of indium drops.
There is no economic sense to mining indium – it is a “minor element” – and dependent on the fate of
zinc mining. So, a couple
years ago, when a French
Indium pricing: 1995 – July 2007
zinc mine closed, one of the
consequences was a rapid
increase in the price of
indium. Today, however,
demand
for
zinc
is
climbing; hence the price of
indium is dropping.
I suggested to Brian that I’d read
reports that the earth’s supply of
indium was likely to run out in a
few years, to which he quickly
advised that there is plenty of
Brian O’Neill, AIM Specialty Materials
supply still in the ground. “The
total global supply of indium is similar to that of silver. We’ve been mining silver for centuries, but we’ve only
been using indium for past two or three decades. Quite simply, indium is not a scarce rare metal, and there is
nothing to suggest that we are going to run out”… He went on to explain:
•
•
•
•
•
•
There’s currently more indium wasted than is produced.
ITO sputter targets, for example, currently have very low utilization rates, (less than 35%).
As a result, the current market is an upside-down market – more indium is currently made from recycled
material than is mined from the ground.
And considering that zinc has been mined for centuries, there are huge amounts of indium available by
simply recycling the waste from previous zinc mining.
Moreover, relatively few of the zinc producers today even bother to extract indium.
And to date, there has been very little effort to really go out and find additional sources of indium.
Bottom line, we’re not going to run out of indium any time soon. Gold prospectors for centuries (and again today)
have held high hopes that metal prices would stay high and that they would find the mother lode. But as prices
increase, new ways to get precious metals are developed, and the prices drop. The same will be true for indium.
While there may be many good reasons to develop alternatives to ITO in the displays industry that are related to
performance, it seems unlikely that supply/demand factors will play a long-term role in driving demand for
alternative transparent electrodes. So, despite the recent hype, unless such alternative technologies really offer
improved transparency, sheet resistivity, flexibility, or manufacturability, or something else, it seems that ITO is
likely to be the dominant technology used in most display technologies for the foreseeable future…
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News from around the world
compiled by Phillip Hill and Mark Fihn
Just for fun…
OK. These fascinating images aren’t really related to flexible substrates, but might spark some thoughts
nevertheless. As creative people do more and more with organic electronics and lighting effects, it’s quickly
recognizable that humanity still has a long, unknown creative genius in front of us.
On the left, obviously, is an “organic keyboard”, which will no doubt blossom into something better than the NTSC
color gamut... On the right is a novel nano-structure fabricated by Ph.D. student Ghim Wei Ho, whose Ph.D. is
focused on understanding the potential device aspects of extraordinary structures like this one.
On the left is the stunning “Mirror Ball”, a sculpture by artist Michael Trainor, a lighting show in Blackpool,
England that lasts approximately 15 minutes as a backdrop for special events. The light show is comprised of not just
the Mirror Ball but also the surrounding pedestrian areas, enabling a high level of interaction with public. The light
show incorporates six moving headlights that would normally only be found indoors within nightclub environments
and stage shows. On the right, Eric Darnell designed a boomerang embedded with LEDs that not only can be used at
night, but enables some amazing photo opportunities.
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LumiGram adds to luminous clothing line
France-based LumiGram recently introduced several new custom clothing products based on their specialty
luminous fabric. The technology weaves plastic optical fibers alongside synthetic fibers, forming a luminous fabric
without customary problems of heat and electricity. Power comes from traditional batteries (rechargeable or
disposable) or AC adapter plugged into the wall. Unlike standard optical fibers, the fiber optic fabric emits light
along the full length of the fibers. While several colors are available, the most common and the most luminous
colors are blue, red, green and white). The luminous fabric can be hand washed with water up to 70°C and natural
soap (the battery must be removed prior to washing). While several colors are available, the most common and the
most luminous colors are blue, red, green and white). In addition to clothing, LumiGram’s products include
pillows, tablecloths, and accessories. http://www.lumigram.com
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FlashWear develops sensor-based T-shirts
A number of T-shirts have been introduced recently with electroluminescent panels that react to the environment in
some way or another. The T-Qualizer shirts are now available in a variety of styles, with an embedded graphic
equalizer that reacts to the noises around it. The flexible EL panel reacts to an audio sensor and then flashes in
multiple colors to the beat of the music. FlashWear recently introduced a woman’s version of the T-Qualizer with a
heart-shaped equalizer. A somewhat different approach was recently introduced by ThinkGeek, called the WiFi
Detector, in which the EL panel reacts to the strength of nearby WiFi hot spots. The glowing bars on the front of
the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding WiFi signal strength fluctuates. The shirts all run on four AAA
batteries that are hidden in an inside pocket. The T-Qualizer shirts are available for about $39, while ThinkGeek is
promoting the WiFi Detector Shirt for $29.99. For washing, the panels are removable. http://www.flashwear.com
Picard introduces solar travel bags
Picard, a Germany-based high-end bag company recently launched their Fall/Winter 2007 bag collection including
three models with solar-power charging functionality for the environmentally-minded traveler. The solar panels
charge an integrated lithium ion battery that charges to 4500mAh, enough to charge a notebook PC. Unfortunately,
the conversion factor is not so good, as a full charge requires about 21 hours in the sun. The battery can be charged
in about 5 hours via a car adapter. Picard charges a hefty fee for the feature - the Picard Solar Messenger and
Business Backpack goes for $1,100 and the Solar Trolley for $1,375. http://www.marc-picard.de
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Hussein Chalayan designs Sparkling Crystal Dress
In early October, Hussein Chalayan surprised the audience at the Paris Fashion Week with a showing of
“Technology Meets High Fashion”, showcasing a Sparkling Crystal Dress. Rather than featuring models on the
runway, however, Chalayan bent the rules by airing a short movie. The Crystal Dress uses hundreds of servo motor
driven tiny lasers diodes. The laser diodes are integrated into the garments, illuminating strategically positioned
Swarovski crystals, not only as part of the garment, but also then extending the light beam beyond the dress into
space. The effect is an explosion of laser beams and light effects the make the crystal look like “living, flowing
lava”. Moritz Waldemeyer was the technical creator of the dress. One reviewer wrote, “The result is a stunning
light/laser show radiated from the dress that changes continuously the light effects and reflections with the
movement of the wearer of the dress.” http://www.husseinchalayan.com
A collaboration between designer Hussein Chalayan and technology guru Moritz Waldemeyer resulted in the
Sparkling Crystal Dress. A video about the creation of the dress can be seen at:
http://www.swarovskisparkles.tv/video/fashion/spring-summer-08/paris/hussein-chalayan-making/
Hui-Zong Chen shows off concept digital yoga mat
The Yanko Design Group recently showed off an
intriguing concept from Hui-Zong Chen. Chen developed
a conceptual digital yoga mat with speakers and
streaming video. The idea behind this combination of
technologies is so that people can attend yoga classes
from anywhere, utilizing the streaming video that plays
right on the mat. In theory, the yoga enthusiasts can even
video-conference with friends. One commentator noted a
paradoxical aspect to this concept, in that it also means
that it would enable users to actually exercise less by
saving themselves the effort associated with attending the
yoga class. http://www.yankodesign.com
Color Kinetics introduces Terrarium project in New
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York City
Color Kinetics, recently acquired by Philips, is showing their Terrarium project, a permanent, site-specific public
art project that reflects the evolution of TriBeCa – a neighborhood constantly in flux. The project features a light
design in the lobby of a New York City landmark building built in 1881, enabled by Color Kinetics LED lighting
systems. Shifting patterns of light radiate from an assortment of acrylic bubbles mounted on the walls. Visualized
by artist Grimanesa Amorós of Amorós Studio, the installation was intended to inspire reflection. Illuminating the
acrylic bubbles are strands of iColor Flex SLX, a flexible LED-based strand that can generate countless colors and
effects without the constraints of fixture size, shape or space. Each LED strand has 50 individually controllable tricolor nodes that are driven by Color Kinetics proprietary Chromasic technology, which allows each node to
generate over 64 billion color combinations. The strands are mounted along the wall with an acrylic bubble placed
over each LED-based node. Using iPlayer 2, a multiple show storage and playback system, and ColorPlay, light
show authoring software, Amorós was able to program the Terrarium display in a few days. The DMX-based
control system, which allows simple authoring and playback, removes the time and guesswork associated with
bringing intricate light shows to life. Amorós said that Terrarium will inspire the community of TriBeCa for years
to come. http://www.colorkinetics.com
Yeon-shin Seung conceptualizes portable DVD player with flexible OLED
Yanko Design recently showcased Yeon-shin Seung’s portable DVD player (which the design house unfortunately
dubbed a “PDP”). The device is comprised of a candy-bar shape that twists open to let you insert a DVD on one
side, and to unroll a flexible OLED on the other. http://www.yankodesign.com
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FlexiDis Project shows progress with EPLaR process
The website for the European FlexiDis Project is newly showing off an image
that demonstrates continued progress related to their ElectroPhoretic Laser
Release (EPLaR) process. The amorphous silicon TFT array was made on
polyimide and glass at the Thales-LCD factory near Grenoble, with laser
release at Philips Applied Technologies. The OLED was deposited by CEALETI, thin film encapsulation by Applied Materials, and the electronics were
furnished by Thomson Germany. The accompanying photo is of an OLED
flexible display made by the EPLaR process shown immediately after the
laser release process. www.flexidis-project.org
CMO announces investments in OLED and LED subsidiaries
Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) recently announced it will make additional investments in its OLED subsidiary
Chi Mei EL Corporation (CMEL), and a newly formed LED LCD subsidiary, Chi Mei Lighting, of NT$600 and
NT$595 million, respectively, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. http://www.cmo.com.tw
NEDO contracts OLED lighting development to Matsushita, Idemitsu, and Tazmo
An independent administrative institution, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization
(NEDO), contracted out the development of technology for OLED lighting as one of its fiscal 2007 projects to
Matsushita Electric Works Ltd., Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd. and Tazmo Co. Ltd. The contracted companies aim to
commercialize the technology by March 2010. http://www.nedo.go.jp/english
MIT scientists develop Photonic Gel Films that hold promise for display devices
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently demonstrated that by alternating layers of two
different polymers – one rigid and glassy, the other soft and easily swollen with liquid or vapor – they can create
photonic gel crystals that can be tuned to reflect light of many different colors across the visible and near-infrared
spectrum. The MIT research, reported in the Oct. 21 online issue of Nature Materials, demonstrate the degree to
which these photonic materials are tunable through changes in the soft layer’s thickness and index of refraction.
The responsiveness of the photonic crystals makes them likely candidates for active components of display, sensory
or telecommunication devices. In one example, the researchers show very large, reversible optical changes by
varying the salt content of a water
solution in which these films are
dipped. Multicolor patterns can be
made by sequential coating of films,
with the color of each region
depending on the degree to which
their molecules are chemically
interconnected. The National Science
Foundation funded the research in
2003 through a three-year grant
aimed at creating new nanomaterials
that are tunable through magnetic,
chemical or other techniques.
Following the discovery of intriguing
new effects involving the interaction
MIT researchers Edwin Thomas and Joseph Walish created photonic gel
of light and sound in the materials,
crystals that can be tuned to emit light of different colors across the visible
the grant was extended for two years
and near-infrared spectrum. The responsiveness of the photonic crystals
through a “special creativity award.”
makes them likely candidates for components of display, sensory or
http://www.nsf.gov
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Researchers from the University of Surrey enhance polymer luminescence
One solution to improve the lifetime of organic-based solution-processable devices that has been investigated is
incorporating carbon nanotubes in the polymer to form a composite. These “inorganics-in-organics” hybrid
composites add many new dimensions and functionality to traditional organic films. However, the addition of the
carbon nanotubes typically comes at a cost. For example, in light emitting materials, the presence of the CNTs
reduces the emission from the composite, due to quenching of charge carriers at the nanotubes. This quenching
reduces the emission efficiency of the devices. Researchers at the Advanced Technology Institute of the University
of Surrey, in collaboration with researchers from China and the USA, recently demonstrated that this quenching
effect is not an unavoidable problem. In fact, they demonstrate a 100-fold increase in the light emission from a
nylon polymer sample, by incorporating multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). This increase in lightemission only occurred when they acid treated the MWCNTs prior to inclusion in the polymer. They propose that
this increase is due to a novel energy transfer mechanism, from the acid-damaged surface of the MWCNT to the
emitting sites in the polymer. In addition to the enhanced light-emission, the study also demonstrates that the
MWCNT produced an improvement in the stability of the polymer to light-induced degradation. Professor Ravi
Silva, Director of the Advanced Technology Institute states: “The mere fact that now we can have a predictable
organic-nanotube hybrid composite, with enhanced properties should open the door for many new applications. The
enhancement in the luminescence properties bodes well a new generation of organic devices that could potentially
reach commercially viable figures of merit for large-scale production. We are very excited with these initial
results.” http://www.ati.surrey.ac.uk
University of Buffalo scientists deposit novel metal oxide thin films on substrates
University at Buffalo chemists have developed a novel way to grow chemically pure, zinc oxide thin films
characterized by dense, bristle-like nanostructures and a new method for depositing them on temperature-sensitive
substrates, including polymers, plastics and tapes. The recently published research may make possible the
deposition of versatile zinc oxide films onto flexible surfaces, enabling the development of more efficient solar
cells, liquid-crystal displays, chemical sensors and optoelectronic devices. High-quality zinc oxide thin films are
versatile and can be fabricated into many shapes, including films, nanorods and nanoparticles. However, there is a
drawback: they usually are deposited at high temperatures, which can damage or even melt the substrate they are
coating. The UB researchers grow the thin films by first reacting
zinc metal and oxygen in the presence of a high power, electrical
arc discharge. The method they developed, called “pulsed arc
molecular beam deposition” (PAMBD), strikes a discharge
between two pure zinc rods. The pure zinc metal is vaporized
and reacts completely with an oxygen gas pulse to create
chemically zinc oxide molecules. The gaseous zinc oxide is then
sprayed through a tiny aperture, a process that results in cooling
the expanding gas down to about 50 degrees Kelvin, allowing the
beam of now cold metal oxides to safely coat even the most
temperature-sensitive surfaces. “This is an enabling technology
that will allow for the deposition of thin films on batteries, credit
cards, on any flexible surface you have,” Garvey said, adding
that the UB process can use any metal and a wide array of
Chemist James Garvey from the University of
different metal oxides can be produced easily. Since it is a pulsed
Buffalo has developed a way to deposit metal
technique, the thickness of the resulting films can be precisely
oxide onto a polymeric substrate, as shown
controlled. The chemists now are working to use the thin films
in this scanning electron microscope image,
and the deposition technique to create nanorods and spintronic
magnified 30,000 times.
devices. http://www.buffalo.edu
Cornell University researchers discover nano-device that emits light
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In mid-October, nanotechnologists from Cornell University announced the discovery of a material that holds
promise for producing light-emitting, flexible semiconductors. An interdisciplinary team had long studied the
molecular semiconductor ruthenium tris-bipyridine. For many reasons, including its ability to allow electrons and
holes (spaces where electrons were before they moved) to pass through it easily, the material has the potential to be
used for flexible light-emitting devices. Sensing, microscopy and flat-panel displays are among its possible
applications. The researchers set out to
Top view of the ruthenium trisunderstand the fundamental physics of the
bipyridine light-emitting
material - that is, what happens when it
device
created by Cornell
encounters an electric field, both at the
University researchers. The
interfaces and inside the film. By fabricating
ruthenium metal complex is
a device out of the ruthenium metal complex
represented by red spheres,
that was spin-coated onto an insulating
and counter ions are
substrate with pre-patterned gold electrodes,
represented by green spheres.
the scientists were able to use electron force
The material is sandwiched
microscopy to measure directly the electric
between two gold electrodes.
field of the device. Essential to the effort was
Also visible is the probe of the
electron force microscope used
the ability to pattern the ruthenium complex
to measure the electric field of
using photolithography, a technique not
the device.
normally used with such materials and one
that took the researchers more than three
years to perfect, using the knowledge of experts in nano-fabrication, materials, and chemistry. The patterning
worked by laying down a gold electrode and a polymer called parylene. By depositing the ruthenium complex on
top of the parylene layer and filling in an etched gap between the gold electrodes, the researchers were then able to
peel the parylene material off mechanically, leaving a perfect device. http://www.cornell.edu
BioFlex Project shows wireless link designed into stretchable, submersible design
In the frame of the BioFlex project, a wireless link was designed in the stretchable technology. Due to the inductive
power transmission between the external coil and the embedded coil, a LED is burning. This application also
demonstrates the possibility to make stretchable circuits water resistant. The electronic design of the wireless link
and the driving circuit was done by KULeuven ESAT-MICAS, the technology for the water resistant circuit was
developed by TFCG Microsystems. http://tfcg.elis.ugent.be/projects/stretchable.html
On the left is an LED-powered by inductive coil embedded in PDMS; the image on the right is the same
inductive coil with the LED also embedded in the PDMS. Both devices are fully submerged.
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Georgia Institute of Technology develops new nanolithography technique
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new technique for nanolithography that is
extremely fast and capable of being used in a range of environments including air (outside a vacuum) and liquids.
Researchers have demonstrated the technique, known as thermochemical nanolithography, as a proof of concept.
The technique may allow industry to produce a variety of nanopatterned structures, including nanocircuits, at a
speed and scale that could make their manufacture commercially viable. The research, which has potential
applications for fields ranging from the electronics industry to nanofluidics to medicine, appeared earlier this year
in the journal Nano Letters. Using an atomic force microscope (AFM), researchers heat a silicon tip and run it over
a thin polymer film. The heat from the tip induces a chemical reaction at the surface of the film. This reaction
changes the film’s chemical reactivity and transforms it from a hydrophobic
substance to a hydrophilic one that can stick to other molecules. The technique is
extremely fast and can write at speeds faster than millimeters per second. That’s
orders of magnitude faster than the widely used dip-pen nanolithography (DPN),
which routinely clocks at a speed of 0.0001 millimeters/s. Using the new
technique, researchers were able to pattern with dimensions down to 12
nanometers in width in a variety of environments. Other techniques typically
require the addition of other chemicals to be transferred to the surface or the
presence of strong electric fields. TCNL doesn’t have these requirements and can
The initials for the Georgia
be used in humid environments outside a vacuum. By using an array of AFM tips
Institute
of Technology written
developed by IBM, TCNL also has the potential to be massively scalable,
with the thermochemical
allowing users to independently draw features with thousands of tips at a time
nanolithography technique.
rather than just one. http://www.gatech.edu
PARC develops novel sensor layers
As flexible electronics find their way into new applications, manufacturers are faced with problems that include
high-cost processing, brittle materials, large-area scaling and more. Active-matrix amorphous silicon image sensor
arrays are the workhorses for large-area sensor applications such as X-ray imaging. The problem is that the thicker
the sensor layer is, the more susceptible it is to cracking and breaking. Currently these arrays all are fabricated on
glass, but a group of researchers at Palo Alto Research Center in California, has been working with sensor arrays
fabricated by plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition
on glass and on flexible polyethylene naphthalate
substrates, reports Photonics.com. According to William S.
Wong, senior member of the research staff at the center, the
goal was to get the backplane to perform to specifications
normally seen for high-temperature devices on glass. An
added challenge was to keep the sensor’s dark current from
increasing as the thickness decreased. Tse Nga Ng,
postdoctoral researcher at the center, indicated that,
because thinner sensor films could lead to increased current
leakage, the problem became finding a film thick enough so
as not to jeopardize performance but thin enough to reduce
mechanical stress. This current research is in its last year as
a National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced
Technology Plan project in which the researchers worked
with Varian Medical Systems of Palo Alto to develop novel sensor materials. The next step in this research is to
develop large-area image sensors for cargo scanning, with the goal being to reduce the cost of large-area panels that
will be used in US ports of entry. http://www.parc.xerox.com
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October 2007
Anvik works with UIUC to pattern ITO in fewer steps
A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and from Anvik Corp. of Hawthorne,
New York recently demonstrated a fabrication technique that inscribes patterns onto thin films of ITO in fewer
steps than are typically used in traditional lithography. The group used laser-driven photo-ablation and subsequent
lift-off of an underlying photoresist layer to pattern
the ITO. In traditional lithography, a photoresist
coating is exposed so that a desired pattern is
transferred onto it. Subsequent steps involve
developing and, possibly, baking the resist to remove
it from unwanted areas and to prepare it for further
processing, etching the underlying film not covered
by the resist and then removing the resist itself.
Photo-ablation, in contrast, requires a single step for
patterning because exposure to high-energy photons
removes a polymer wherever the fluence is high
enough. The technique has been used in a variety of
areas, but processing problems including excessive
line roughness and high fluence requirements have
limited its application. To address these issues, the
group turned to the lift-off technique. Here, a polymer In a novel thin-film patterning process, a resist that covers the
entire area (left) is photo-ablated with an excimer laser
film is freed from a substrate; the lift-off removes the
(middle). Indium tin oxide is then deposited over everything.
film and anything on top of it as well. The technique
When the resist is removed via a lift-off process, the indium
will be most useful for high-volume manufacturing,
tin oxide (ITO) remains where the resist had been photowhere the saving of several steps could have a
ablated (right). TFT = thin-film transistor.
pronounced effect. http://www.anvik.com
NanoMarkets says silicon nano-crystal and printed silicon electronics markets to reach $2.5 billion by 2015
A new report from NanoMarkets says that silicon nanocrystals and printed forms of silicon will transform
electronics over the next decade with new memory, logic, photovoltaic and optoelectronic products enabled by this
new technology reaching $2.5 billion in revenue by 2015. The report states that this new silicon revolution enables
flexible and large electronics for the first time, challenging the historical role of organic materials. Key points from
the report include:
•
•
•
•
Ink jet, transfer printing and other forms of printing silicon are expected to bring new levels of
functionality and performance to printed RFID and display backplanes. Sales of printed silicon thin film
transistor products are expected to reach $1.9 billion by 2015.
The new silicon electronics and photonics will create important new opportunities to sell high margin
nanocrystalline materials, precursors, and inks – estimated to reach $529 million by 2015.
Computer memories made with nanocrystalline silicon floating gates will be half the size of
conventional flash memories, use less power and cost less. Silicon nanocrystals could also serve as the
basis for new optical memories that could help speed up next-generation optical networks. Revenues
generated by silicon crystal enabled memories will reach approximately $260 million by 2015.
Solar panels created using nanocrystalline silicon - some of them printed with silicon inks -- are
expected to offer efficiencies higher than any current commercial photovoltaic cells can offer. By 2015
solar panels created using this technology are expected to reach sales levels of around $245 million.
Firms mentioned in the report include: Aixtron, Applied Materials, Atmel, CEA-LETI, Dow Corning, Evergreen
Solar, Freescale, Innovalight, Infineon, Intel, Kovio, Luxtera, Micron, Mitsui, Motorola, NanoGram, Plastic Logic,
Polymer Vision, QinetiQ, Samsung, Seiko-Epson, Semprius, and United Solar Ovonic. http:///www.nanomarkets.net
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NanoMarkets to bring out new OPV report
“Materials Markets for Thin-Film and Organic Photovoltaics” is the upcoming NanoMarkets report, slated for
release in Q1’08, and will cover the markets for materials used in thin-film and organic photovoltaics namely,
amorphous silicon, nano-silicon inks, CdTe, CIGS and a variety of organic polymers, dyes, etc. These materials are
covered in a recent study published by NanoMarkets titled “Thin-Film, Organic and Printable Photovoltaics
Markets: 2007-2015” that looked at the entire thin-film/organic PV market. However, the intent of the new report is
to extend the analysis of the recent report and delve deeper into the advantages, disadvantages, research directions,
and manufacturability associated with PV materials. The report will also include profiles of firms involved in
developing and manufacturing thin film/organic PV materials and detailed eight-year forecasts of the materials
markets in value and volume terms with break outs by application and materials. http:///www.nanomarkets.net
NanoMarkets brings out report on thin-film batteries
NanoMarkets recently published “Thin-Film and Printed Batteries Markets: 2007-2014”. Many of the actual or
envisioned applications for printable and organic electronics require their own power sources to make them
function. Cases in point include active RFID tags, point-of-purchase displays, active cosmetic/drug delivery
patches, low-cost medical diagnostic products, remote sensor arrays and smart cards. A growing number of firms
are looking for thin-film batteries that can be printed. http:///www.nanomarkets.net
DisplaySearch report highlights OLED penetration
With the emergence of the highly anticipated AMOLED displays, this segment continues to develop, experiencing
unit shipment growth of 4% Q/Q and 24% Y/Y, hitting the 19.8 million mark in Q2’07, according to the latest
report from DisplaySearch. On a revenue basis, OLEDs hit $123.4M in Q2’07, down only 1% Q/Q and up 13%
Y/Y, even as ASPs fell 9% Q/Q. Over the last year, main display shipments were up 16%, sub-displays up 77%, car
audio displays up 35% and industrial displays up 295%. The report’s findings also show that AMOLED displays
are beginning to impact the market, as Samsung SDI moves into full production, and Chi Mei and LG begin to ship
qualification units. Furthermore, Sony is expected to begin shipping their highly anticipated 11-inch AMOLED TV
display in Q4’07. The top five OLED manufacturers shown in Table 1 accounted for a combined market share of
85.4%. For the first time in several quarters, there were two new entrants in the PMOLED market, Visionox and
Truly, which are both located in China. Next quarter, MED is expected to begin production of microdisplays and
will be the first OLED competitor for eMagin. http://www.displaysearch.com
Top Five OLED Manufacturers' Q2'07 Revenue Market Share and Growth (US$ Millions)
Rank
Company
Q2'07 Revenue (US$M) Market Share
Q/Q Growth
Y/Y Growth
1
Samsung SDI
33.8
27.4%
30%
50%
2
Pioneer
24.7
20.0%
-2%
62%
3
RiTdisplay
23.0
18.6%
-2%
67%
4
LGE
22.7
18.4%
-7%
-17%
5
TDK
5.6
4.5%
-5%
-29%
Others
13.6
11.0%
-29%
-40%
Total
123.4
100.0%
-1%
13%
Research and Markets brings out new report on polymer technology
Research and Markets has announced the addition of “Advances in Polymer Technology” to their offering. This
report analyzes several scientific and technological advances that have been achieved and which are leading toward
new applications for plastics and advanced polymers. The report reviews important research efforts in polymer
science, discusses potential commercial applications, and indicates when some potential products and processes
will be commercially viable. Polymer research is in the fields of electronics, nanotechnology, substrate science,
detection, optics and healthcare. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c71413
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Launch of Plastic Electronics Technology Centre website
The Plastic Electronics Technology Centre (PETeC) website has been launched. PETeC is a national prototyping
institute for the development and commercialization of printed electronics. Customers of the center will be able to
test design concepts and novel materials for a variety of products including thin film transistors (TFT) for flexible
displays including e-paper, organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs) and solid state lighting (SSL) applications.
http://www.ukpetec.com
USDC opens registrations for January conference
The US Display Consortium (USDC), a public/private partnership chartered with developing the flexible
electronics and displays industry supply chain, opened registration for its 7th annual Flexible Electronics &
Displays Conference and Exhibition. USDC announced that the 2008 conference keynote will be delivered by Dr.
A. Michael Andrews, vice president of research and engineering, and chief technology officer, of L-3
Communications Corporation. USDC has enhanced the 2008 conference with a new track of academic and
fundamental research peer-reviewed presentations from universities worldwide. The conference will be held
January 21–24, 2008, at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak in Phoenix, Ariz. http://www.usdc.org
IDTechEx expects record attendance for Printed Electronics USA 2007
According to IDTechEx, with 3 weeks to the show there over 45 confirmed exhibitors and more than 400 registered
delegates. The targeted figure of 500 delegates on the day is likely to be smashed. Record attendance has been
achieved by featuring world first presentations, such as from Kovio, and by focusing on the application of printed
electronics, with presentations from companies such as Hasbro and Cubic Transportation Systems that have not
presented on such activities before. Delegates include potential users such as Procter & Gamble, Lockheed Martin,
BP, Coors Brewing and Crayola. New for 2007 will be the "Printed Electronics Products" demonstration area,
designed to show the huge range of products which are already in the market place. These will include everything
from printed displays used already in commercial advertisement posters to commercial e-paper readers from Sony
to cosmetic skin patches from Estee Lauder - all powered today by printed electronics. Delegates will be able to see
what products are already in the market and how developers have achieved success - often by creating new
markets. http://www.IDTechEx.com/peUSA
Sharp shows off super-thin LCD for mobile applications
Sharp Corporation has successfully developed a 2.2-inch super-thin LCD for mobile devices with a thickness of
only 0.68 mm, the industry’s thinnest, the company says. Mobile devices such as mobile phones and digital
cameras are rapidly becoming thinner as manufacturers strive to improve portability and offer consumers more
stylish designs. As a result, thinner embedded components such as LCDs are also increasing in demand. In
addition, the increase in demand for One-Seg (terrestrial digital
broadcast) compatible handsets is leading to demands for greater
visibility and higher image quality in displays intended for mobile
devices. This new “Mobile Advanced Super View LCD” delivers
superior image quality approaching that of an LCD TV thanks to a
high contrast ratio of 2000:1, wide viewing angle of 176°, and fast
response speed of 8 ms. http://sharp-world.com
Sharp to take 14% stake in Pioneer
Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp will buy about $357 million worth of new shares from Pioneer Corp and
work with its loss-making rival in developing DVD players, car electronics and displays, reports Reuters. The deal
is the latest move by Japan’s electronics conglomerates to form alliances or ditch unpromising businesses to try and
keep up with deep-pocketed global rivals and respond to increasing shareholder pressure for better returns. While
Sharp is one of the strong players in the fast-growing flat TV market, Pioneer has been losing money because it
lacks the scale to make its products as efficiently as Matsushita Electric Industrial or LG Electronics.
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October 2007
ITRI develops novel color e-book technology
Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) Display Center developed a novel structure reflective
single layer color cholesteric LCD display. Current commercialized electronic paper are mostly available in a single
color, but in the past few years many manufacturers plunged into the development of full color electronic paper
display technology. Where electrophoretic display EPD coloration has to be combined with a color filter, this
resulted in lower brightness and contrast ratio. The traditional full color cholesteric LCD display is stacked by three
layers of monochrome cholesteric panels, for example, Fujitsu 3-layer reflective color cholesteric LCD display
where structural design adopted switching and reflection of various reflective layers to reach a color effect, but such
a structure has disadvantages of difficult pixel registration, increased
cost of the drive system and process, and enhanced difficulty of
electrode design, and being not easy to bend. In order to solve these
problems, ITRI developed a novel structure reflective single layer
color cholesteric LCD display, which adopted vacuum filling or inkjet
printing technology; red, green, blue cholesteric liquid crystals were
cast into or sprayed on the pixel structure, then the structural package
was done to realize a single layer color display. The overall thickness
is more than 50% less than a traditional color cholesteric LCD display.
The Specification of this technology is 10.4-inch, passive reflection,
resolution of 320x240 with 512 colors and a panel thickness of
1.4mm. http://www.itri.org.tw
Jinke Hanlin e-book device V3 uses Vizplex EPD
Tianjin Jinke Electronics of China announced the worldwide launch of their Hanlin ebook V3 based on Vizplex e-paper technology from E Ink. The worldwide release of
Jinke’s V3 follows the successful worldwide launch of the V8 and V2 over the past
year. The Hanlin eBook V3 offers easy operation, low power consumption with all the
benefits of an electronic paper display and a weight of 220 g. The display, which
utilizes Vizplex display, is 6 inches on the diagonal. The V3 will support a variety of
content services including e-books and e-magazines, as well as a wide variety of
content in common formats including PDF, DOC, WOLF, HTML, MP3, TXT, FB2,
DJUV and Images. It will also support e-pub and Mobipocket formats. The V3 runs
on LINUX OS, and open SDK to cooperators, supporting multi-language which
includes English, Chinese, Russian, Ukraine, Turkish, French, Spanish, German,
Bulgarian, Japanese and Korean. http://www.jinke.com.cn/english
Les Echos first French electronic daily newspaper on iRex iLiad
Les Echos, the French business newspaper, and iRex Technologies announced their cooperation in introducing the
Les Echos electronic paper edition on the iRex iLiad for the French market in September. There are two different
editions: Les Echos and AFP, updated every hour (7am – 9pm) from Monday to Friday via the WiFi delivery direct
into the electronic paper device, without the need for a PC. http://www.irextechnologies.com
Citala takes over Xymox Technologies’ display division
Israel-based Citala recently completed the acquisition of Xymox Technologies’ Display Products Division, also
known as Paneltec (Sunnyvale, California). Now an integral part of Citala’s international organization, Xymox
Display Products will be renamed Citala US Inc. Leveraging Citala’s versatile capabilities in the flexible display
market with Xymox’s strengths as a custom designer, manufacturer and integrator of flexible displays, this
acquisition will further position Citala as a premium global provider of integrated flexible display solutions. The
acquisition follows a couple of years of successful cooperation between the two companies in business, technology
and product development. http://www.citala.com
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Bridgestone shows latest electronic paper at 0.29mm thickness
Nikkei reports that Bridgestone developed a flexible color electronic paper with a thickness of only 0.29 mm. The
company aims to produce it by continuous roll-to-roll processing because the e-paper employs a film substrate. The
prototype panel was not manufactured by continuous processing, but the company is reportedly focused on the
establishment of a roll-to-roll production system by using the equipment brought to its technical center in Kodaira,
Tokyo. In May 2006, Bridgestone unveiled a flexible e-paper, which was a two-color display unit using electronic
liquid powder in two colors sealed in the device. The latest e-paper is capable of displaying 4,096 full-color with
the adoption of RGBW color filters combined with the powder. The panel was on display at FPD International
2007 from October 24-26, along with the A3-size full-color e-paper unveiled at the same time.
ZINK Imaging closes purchase of Konica Minolta manufacturing facility
ZINK Imaging, the innovators behind the recently-unveiled Zero-Ink digital printing technology, officially
completed purchase of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility from Konica Minolta Manufacturing USA
(KMMU). ZINK Imaging plans to begin manufacturing its Zero-Ink paper at the North Carolina facility this year.
They will also manufacture other digital imaging materials for OEM customers. ZINK Imaging originally
announced its intent to purchase the Konica Minolta facility on June 14, 2007. The plant, located in Whitsett, North
Carolina, is a coating and chemical mix facility originally built in 1989 for the production of a variety of imaging
products. ZINK Imaging plans to hire the remaining employee base of approximately 60 individuals, including the
senior management team. The patented ZINK paper is a material with dye crystals embedded inside and a
protective polymer overcoat layer outside. Before printing, the embedded dye crystals are clear, so ZINK paper
looks like regular white photo paper. A ZINK-enabled printer uses heat to activate and colorize these dye crystals.
http://www.ZINK.com
Samsung shows new 14.3-inch high resolution e-paper
In late September, Samsung showed off its new 14.3-inch flexible electronic
paper. Although monochrome, at 2048x1536 pixels, the solution boasts
remarkably high resolution, tripled from what the company showed in May
at SID. The new e-paper is only 0.3 mm thick and weighs less then 20 g.
Samsung says it can produce the new e-paper using existing TFT LCD panel
production lines without investing in new facilities. The device is based on
E Ink’s electrophoretic technology. http://www.samsung.com
memsstar Technology teams with SAFC Hitech on surface coatings
memsstar Technology announced that it is to enter into a strategic alliance with SAFC Hitech to supply fully
qualified memsstar SPD (surface preparation and deposition) systems with standard precursor chemical materials
from SAFC Hitech for surface coatings on micro devices. The alliance between the two companies, both
technology leaders for advanced microstructure and materials fabrication, will better service the emerging
technology needs of companies involved with MEMS and nanotechnology devices, claims memsstar. Example
applications include microfluidics to ensure hydrophobic or hydrophilic surface properties for devices such as
inkjets or micro-needles, and medical applications where bio-compatibility is essential. Other applications such as
moisture barriers or anti-stiction properties are required by moving micro-sensors. http://www.memsstar.com
Sunic System and Novaled in joint development on thin film encapsulation
Sunic System, a producer of vacuum deposition equipment for OLED, and Novaled, a provider of doping
technology and materials for organic electronics, announced a joint development. Both partners will work together
to build up the next generation of thin film encapsulation (TFE) tools, technologies and materials. Novaled and
Sunic System will develop a new generation of deposition tools and organic materials to improve the deposition
process and lifetime of TFE. http://www.novaled.com
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Vitex sells thin-film encapsulation system to major Japanese company
On October 22, Vitex Systems announced that its equipment licensee, Advanced Neotech Systems (ANS) of Korea,
secured a purchase order for its Guardian thin-film encapsulation system from a major Japanese customer.
Commenting on its successes, Chyi-Shan Suen, director of sales and marketing for Vitex, said, “ANS delivered the
first Guardian thin-film encapsulation system to Samsung SDI in 2005. ANS again successfully delivered the
Guardian system to MicroEmissive Displays (MED) for their production line. We are pleased with this latest
victory, which is a signal that thin-film encapsulation continues to gain broader adoption within the OLED
industry.” http://www.ansinc.co.kr http://www.vitexsys.com
Vitex Systems signs licensing agreement with Sunic System for its thin-film encapsulation system
Vitex Systems announced that it has signed a licensing agreement with Sunic System of Korea. The agreement
includes a technology transfer package from Vitex to Sunic, and gives Sunic the non-exclusive rights to make and
sell Guardian thin-film encapsulation systems, which can be used to encapsulate various electronic components and
devices, including OLED displays, thin film solar cells and thin film batteries. While the financial terms of
agreement were not disclosed, the license includes an upfront fee and on-going royalty payments based on tool
sales. http://www.sunic.co.kr
ArcelorMittal and Novaled to intensify flexible foil collaboration
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest quality steel maker, and Novaled, OLED technology and material provider, have
joined forces for a new OLED project. The partners have developing top-emitting OLEDs on flexible substrates for
signage and lighting purposes since 2006. By using ArcelorMittal’s steel plates as substrates, remarkable properties
for bendable OLED applications can be achieved. In this new collaboration Novaled contributes both its broad
technical experience with respect to highly efficient and stable OLED device architectures as well as its material
know-how for doped transport layers. RGB OLEDs have been processed directly on classical steel plates. The
striking results showed that the Novaled technology enables standard steel foil acting as a reflective bottom
electrode. http://www.novaled.com
Leadis upgrades their AMOLED technology and IP
In late October, Leadis announced a strategic partnership with VP Dynamics on RGBW technology for small and
medium mobile displays. Leadis will license VP Dynamics' VPW RGBW technology for use in LCD, AM-OLED
and other display drivers, empowering products with lower power consumption, higher resolution, better
brightness, and better contrast.
In a separate announcement, Leadis advised the acquisition of intellectual property from Nuelight Corporation
designed to correct image sticking issues that can occur with the display of static content and significantly improve
manufacturing yields in AM-OLED displays. This technology has the potential to accelerate AM-OLED market
share gains by making it more like the visual experience and low-power advantages offered with AM-OLED
displays. http://www.leadis.com
MED begins volume production of polymer OLED microdisplays
MicroEmissive Displays (MED) commenced volume production and commercial shipment of its polymer-based
OLED microdisplays. It is also an important milestone for Vitex in its effort toward full-fledged commercialization
of OLED displays leveraging the company’s proprietary Barix thin-film encapsulation and Barix resin system
material. John McEachran, director of operations for MED, noted: “The thin-film encapsulation process technology
provided by Vitex has allowed our company to take full advantage of our unique polymer OLED microdisplay
design. Our eyescreen product packs 76,800 pixels on a tiny, 6mm diagonal, silicon chip but delivers our customers
a superior viewing experience. We are pleased to be working with both Vitex and its partner, ANS. The leadingedge encapsulation technology from Vitex and excellent support surrounding ANS’s production equipment enabled
us to meet our aggressive production ramp goals.” http://www.microemissive.com
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eMagin announces new 3DS OLED-XL microdisplay
eMagin expects to begin shipping its 3DS OLED-XL microdisplay (800x600 pixels) in the first quarter of 2008.
The microdisplay offers both analog and digital signal processing in a 0.44-inch display. This high-density OLEDon-silicon microdisplay promises an affordable, easy-to-integrate solution for many virtual imaging systems.
Specific improvements include increased pixel uniformity, improved color gamut, on-chip temperature sensor and
compensation, and compatibility with both analog RGB and digital video signals. http://www.emagin.com
CMEL to expand OLED production
Chi Mei EL Corporation (CMEL), a subsidiary of Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO), announced that the company
will invest NT$1 billion (US$30.6 million) to expand to a second OLED production line. Volume production is
slated for 2008, said CMO president Chao-Yang Ho. The second line will house a monthly capacity of 700,000 2inch equivalent panels. Additionally, CMEL will introduce a 7.6-inch OLED in the second quarter, and when the
second OLED production line starts operation, CMEL intends to introduce 11- and 12-inch panels and expects to
offer 32-inch AMOLED panels during 2010. The company exhibited a 25-inch AMOLED panel at the FPD
International 2007 in Japan in late October. http://www.cmel.com.tw
Samsung SDI develops ultra-thin OLED panel with 0.25-mm thickness
Samsung SDI developed an ultra-thin OLED panel with a thickness of 0.25 mm. The product thickness of 0.25 mm
is the total thickness for the panel and deflecting plate, enabled by the use of a 0.05 mm glass substrate, which is
thinner than photographic film. The 4.0-inch ultra-thin OLED prototype features a resolution of 480x272 pixels.
The panel can be bent slightly as a result of its thinness. According to the company, the prototype panel can
reproduce 16.7 million colors, 100% of the NTSC color gamut, a luminance of 200 cd/m2, a contrast ratio of
1,000:1 and a service life of 20,000 hours. Low-temperature poly-silicon liquid crystal is used for the TFT
backplane. The OLED device is made of low-molecular material using a top-emission structure.
The slimness of the 0.25 mm panel allows it to be bent. The image on the right shows the glass substrate,
which measures only 0.05 mm. Next to it is a 0.12 mm photographic film – although the comparison
indicates the relative rigidity of the glass substrate…
Samsung shows 14-inch OLED TV
Samsung Electronics showed three prototype TVs based on 14-inch OLED panels at the FPD Expo in Yokohama in
late October. Samsung’s OLED screens were designed to be manufactured using an existing TFT LCD production
process. Samsung officials did not reveal when their OLED TV screens might be ready for mass production.
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Sony launches market’s first OLED TV
The XEL-1 from Sony is an 11-inch display that is only 3 mm thick. The measurements of the XEL-1 are 287 x
253 x 140 mm. Sony has put the ultra-thin display on a pedestal with a flexible arm. This latest OLED TV weighs
two kilograms and features a resolution of 940x540 and contrast ratio of
1,000,000:1, stated Sony. The XEL-1 was exhibited at the Sony exhibition
booth at CEATAC Japan 2007 in October. The Sony XEL-1 has an
integrated digital TV tuner for Japan. Other features of the Sony OLED
TV include USB, LAN interface, 1x HDMI port, headphone plug and SForce sound. Sony plans to start shipping the XEL-1 OLED TV on
December 1st for 200,000 Yen (~$1,740). This is a very high price for an
11 inch TV, but it is the first OLED TV that can be bought. The new
OLED TV will last 30,000 hours, about 10 years for someone using the
TV eight hours a day. An equivalent Sony LCD TV lasts twice that long,
Sony said. Toshiba also plans to begin selling televisions with OLED
screens as soon as panels are ready, according to a company
spokeswoman. The first Toshiba OLED television sets should hit the
market in 2009. http://www.sony.net
UDC and LG.Philips get US army contract for development of flexible OLED displays on metal foil
Universal Display Corporation announced that it has been awarded a $935,000 contract extension by the US Army
Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC). The extension builds on
an existing Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase III grant with CERDEC for the development of
flexible, active-matrix OLED display technology for demonstration in a prototype wrist-based communications
device. Development efforts under the contract extension will focus on combining Universal Display’s
phosphorescent OLED technology with LG.Philips LCD amorphous-silicon (a-Si) TFT technology. Bringing LPL,
a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCDs), to the program as a development
partner marks an important step toward the commercialization of flexible OLED display products. In May, the two
companies showcased the world’s first high-resolution AMOLED display built on flexible metal foil. Building on
this initial demonstration, UDC and LPL plan to work on a prototype with key design and performance
enhancements under this program. http://www.universaldisplay.com
Epson shows off new “black” OLED system
Seiko Epson has developed an OLED display system capable of producing “the ultimate black”. Having resolved
the problem of achieving long life for the device, a longstanding challenge with OLED, Epson put into operation a
manufacturing line for small-scale production of OLED for practical applications. This new technology by Epson
offers a new solution that makes effective use of advanced image
representation not possible with conventional flat panel displays
(FPD). Epson has been trying to achieve “the ultimate black”,
since it is black that holds the key to overall image quality.
Furthermore, the problem of early stage brightness deterioration,
until now a major obstacle to extending the life of the device,
was solved by improving the light-emitting materials and
through the development of Epson’s own original element
structure. As a result, Epson was successful in lengthening the
life of the device to more than 50,000 hours, a level appropriate
for practical application. Epson already installed and commenced
operations of a development and manufacturing line that is
capable of small-scale production at its Fujimi plant in Nagano
prefecture, Japan. http://www.epson.com
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OLED-T develops high efficiency green phosphorescent OLED
OLED-T announced a green phosphorescent OLED material with high efficiency. The new material called E255a
has a high color saturation making it ideal for a broad range of product applications in single color and full color
displays. The material also has a very high efficiency delivering high brightness at low power making it ideal for
mobile product applications with either passive matrix or active matrix driving. The University of Hong Kong has
manufactured OLED demonstrators using E255a and has reported a device efficiency of 40 cd/A at 1000 cd/m2
with a very saturated green color coordinate of (0.28, 0.64) which is wider than commercially available LCD
products. E225a will be available for customer sampling from January 2008 and can be deposited onto any desired
substrate by vacuum coating methods. http://www.oled-t.com
Sumitomo Chemical completes takeover of CDT
Sumitomo Chemical and Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) jointly announced that Sumitomo Chemical has
completed its $285 million acquisition of CDT, by means of a merger between CDT and a wholly owned subsidiary
of Sumitomo Chemical. The merger consideration represents a 107 percent premium over CDT’s 90-day average
closing share price and a 95 percent premium over CDT’s closing share price of $6.15 on July 30, the last trading
day prior to first public announcement of the acquisition. Holders of over 73% of CDT’s outstanding common
shares approved the merger, and all customary closing conditions have now been satisfied. As a result of the
merger, CDT's common stock will no longer be publicly traded after today and will be converted into the right to
receive $12 per share in cash. CDT has appointed Mellon Investor Services LLC to act as paying agent for this
transaction. http://www.cdtltd.co.uk
CDT and Sumation announce improved lifetimes
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Sumation announced substantially improved lifetime data for green and
red P-OLED materials. Data from spin coated devices using a common cathode and interlayer material demonstrate
lifetimes for recently developed solution-processable green and red P-OLED materials of 78,000 hours and 67,000
hours, respectively, from an initial luminance of 1000 cd/m2. This is equivalent to approximately 445,000 hours and
420,000 hours from an operating brightness of 400 cd/m2 for these materials. These latest lifetimes represent a 60%
and 280% increase in performance for green and red materials over results that were announced in May and March
of this year, respectively. http://www.cdtltd.co.uk
Organic Electronics Association gives away printed electronics demonstrators
The Organic Electronics Association (OE-A) has presented live demonstrations of flexible organic electronic
systems. The presentations illustrated all of the possibilities that exist with this platform technology. Additionally,
the new edition of the OE-A brochure includes inlays with a set of printed electronics devices and interactive
electronic paper cards. This is the first time that organic electronics are provided as a giveaway. Organic sensors,
logic circuits, push buttons, electrochromic and OLED displays, printed conducting paths, and batteries have been
combined to several flexible multifunctional systems. Acreo, Agfa Gevaert, BASF Future Business, COPACO,
Fraunhofer IAP, H.C. Starck, HDM-Stuttgart, MAN Roland, Mitsubishi Polyester, Plastic Electronic, PolyIC, Thin
Film Electronics and VARTA Microbattery are working together on this project.
Ormecon introduces ultra-thin organic nanometal surface finish on commercial scale
A completely new nano size surface finish was introduced by Ormecon International into the printed circuit board
market. The thickness is only 55 nanometers, and the layer consists of a nanoparticle complex formed between the
organic nanometal and silver (the silver only contributes less than 10%). This ultrathin layer provides a much more
powerful oxidation protection and solderability preservation than any other established metallic finish like ENIG,
immersion silver, immersion tin or OSP – although the established finishes are between 6 and 100 times thicker
than this new nanofinish. According to Ormecon, several tests in PCB manufacturers and assemblers have already
shown a superior thermal resistance and perfect solderability under lead-free multi-reflow conditions. A first
industrial line for the deposition of the new nanofinish will be installed in Korea at Ormecon’s customer YooJin.
The line will go into operation in the second half of October. http://www.ormecon-nanotech.com
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RNT teams with Kurt J. Lesker on nanofoils
RNT, developer and manufacturer of its patented NanoFoil, which precisely
controls the instantaneous release of heat energy for joining and reaction
initiation applications, has partnered with the Kurt J. Lesker Company to
expand worldwide sales and distribution of NanoFoil and its accompanying
NanoBond process. The venture is expected to accelerate access to the
superior bonded target performance of NanoBond within the vacuum
industry. Key markets to benefit from this partnership include
semiconductor manufacturing, LCD and flat panel displays, advanced
displays, glass coatings, film coatings and other vacuum industries utilizing
sputtering targets. http://www.rntfoil.com
Gentex supplies dimmable windows for Boeing Dreamliner
Gentex Corporation announced that the company this summer shipped the first set of dimmable aircraft window
shades to PPG Industries’ aerospace products group, for use in the passenger cabin of the new Boeing 787
Dreamliner series of aircraft. The dimmable window shades employ Gentex’s proprietary electrochromic
technology and each window shade in the passenger compartment will dim to five different levels utilizing a switch
located next to the window seat passenger. The aircraft flight crew also will have the ability to control all of the
windows in the passenger cabin at the touch of a switch. Gentex is also manufacturing the electronic switch for
each system. http://www.ppg.com
Five Star Technologies brings out ElectroSperse pastes
Five Star Technologies announced that it has introduced the ElectroSperse line of silver conductor pastes, initially
targeting applications in displays and solar cells. Five Star says the ElectroSperse pastes deliver the same uniform
particle size and consistent rheology seen in Five Star dispersions, enabling customers to print fine features
consistently and economically. Initial screen printing trials have demonstrated that line widths as narrow as 3 mils
can be printed consistently with no loss of conductivity or line integrity. The initial ElectroSperse offerings, D-110,
D-112 and D-114, are targeted at display bus bar electrodes. All three products are screen-printable pastes designed
to deliver excellent adhesion when fired onto ITO or F-doped TO (fluorine-doped tin oxide)-coated glass. The
series is entirely lead-free, responding to the European market requirements for RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous
Substances) and REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) compliance. The
three grades differ in metal content, allowing the user to select a conductivity and price range suitable to the
application. ElectroSperse D-114 achieves a sheet resistivity of 1.2-1.8 milli-ohm/sq, while D-112 and D-114 are
targeted at 2-3 and 4-5 milli-ohms/sq, respectively. Applications include touch screen sensor electrodes, heater
circuits and antennae. http://www.fivestartech.com
Ceelite launches new LEC panels with Eastman’s encapsulation technology
CeeLite and Eastman Chemical Company signed an agreement to manufacture CeeLite LEC panels using
Eastman’s patented encapsulation technology and Spectar copolyester. Using electrodes to stimulate light-emitting
natural phosphors embedded between thin plastic sheets, CeeLite LEC panels have provided high-quality, uniform
illumination for electronics and surface lighting projects over the past two years. Growing market demand,
however, has fueled the need for the LEC panels to be more robust, allowing for use as complete lighting systems
for self-installed interior signage applications and outdoor environments with harsh weather conditions. As a result,
CeeLite needed to enhance the traditional flexible films originally used for the LEC panel surface with a system
that would provide optimal barrier properties to withstand outdoor environmental conditions, including moisture,
heat and humidity. After researching various options, CeeLite turned to Eastman for its encapsulation technology.
Eastman’s proprietary encapsulation technology uses Spectar copolyester as the transparent substrate to encapsulate
a variety of images, textiles, botanicals and natural inclusions, along with light emitting capacitor (LEC) panels, for
architectural and surface lighting applications.
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Ceelite used in New York's Grand Central Subway
Blue Ocean Worldwide recently installed a massive 6x20-foot Ceelite Wallscape. At only 1" deep it lights up the
whole subway for Westin Hotels. The installation is feature at New York City's Grand Central Subway. Ceelite
panels incorporate light emitting capacitive technologies and are produced on flexible substrates.
http://www.blueoceanworldwide.com
Nanosys intensifies its collaboration with In-Q-Tel
Nanosys announced that it has entered into an agreement to further expand its collaboration with In-Q-Tel, the
independent strategic investment firm that identifies innovative technologies to support the mission of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the broader intelligence community. Under the collaboration, Nanosys will apply its
novel electronics technology for innovative uses in the area of high-performance communications. The terms of the
agreement include development funding to Nanosys, with specific financial details undisclosed. Nanosys’
proprietary Macroelectronics utilizes a film of nano structures to form arbitrarily large area high-performance
electronic circuits, without the need for many of the complex and costly processing steps common in traditional
thin-film transistor manufacturing. The technology is compatible with flexible or rigid substrates such as plastic or
glass, and enables electronic integration of multiple functions directly onto a single substrate material.
Macroelectronics can be applied to numerous application areas, including flexible or flat panel displays, RFID
(radio frequency identification) tags, and antennas. http://www.nanosysinc.com
Boost Products to launch Philips flexible textiles
Boost Products is introducing a concept based on Philips Lumalive technology, which will enable businesses to
attract the attention of customers, clients and other target groups in a direct and distinctive way. The new concept
relates to clothing for promotions and events. Special Lumalive LED
technology has been integrated into the fabric, turning the clothes into a
“live” display or billboard on which any given text, animation or
(moving) images can be displayed – in every color of the rainbow. With
this product, Boost Products, specialists in brand and sales activation,
are targeting the market for sales and brand promotion (which includes
trade fairs and advertising campaigns) and for events (which include
dance parties) in the Benelux countries. By wearing the Lumalive shirts,
the hosts, the people manning the stands, the dancers, etc., will have no
trouble at all in drawing attention to themselves. The first Lumalive
shirts will be available end of 2007. http://www.boostproducts.nl
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Fidelica Microsystems produces touch fingerprint sensor
Fidelica Microsystems announced a sensor that is not capacitive or optical, but pressure-sensitive, capturing
fingerprints much the same way people have been doing for decades with ink. It is an area-based, touch-type
fingerprint sensor, rather than swipe-type, meaning that a user
need only place a finger on the array, not pull it across that array.
The company couples a fully passive sensing array with a
pressure sensitive membrane that sidesteps sensitive, expensive,
and power hungry active electronics. The approach deciphers
where fingerprint ridges apply pressure, and where fingerprint
valleys do not. Exceeding FBI-standard 500dpi resolution, it
creates an inherently binary 8.0kB fingerprint image. The sensor
is made on a flexible polymer substrate, making possible roll-toroll processing. Even as a touch-type solution, this construction
results in a sensor with a cost comparable to or less than siliconbased swipe sensors. http://www.fidelica.com
InCard wins award for embedded authentication device
Innovative Card Technologies and Emue Technologies announced that Info Security Products Guide has named the
device a winner of the 2007 Tomorrow’s Technology Today Award. The Credit Card Embedded Authentication
Device features a 12-button keypad and embedded alphanumeric display and microprocessor, integrated into
standard payment card form. The card has a number of authentication modes for use in online, phone, or ATM
transactions. For example, a user can enter their secret PIN into the card’s keypad to receive a numeric passcode for
one-time use. To authorize a banking transaction, the passcode is entered into an interface and instantly validated
by an authentication server. This process removes the need to enter a PIN into an unsecure device such as a web
browser. http://www.incardtech.com
PolyIC supports ticketing process at OEC
PolyIC showcased its two product lines shown at the Organic Electronics Conference (OEC) – one in the field of
printed RFID (radio frequency identification) that has the brand name PolyID and a second product line in the field
of smart objects that has the brand name PolyLogo. The first products provide
features ranging from presence control to 4-bit memory capacity in the PolyID
product line and have a display function in the PolyLogo product line.” Within
the PRISMA (Printed Smart Labels) project, which is funded by the German
Federal Ministry of Education and Research and has PolyIC as its consortium
manager, all tickets to the Organic Electronics Conference had a PolyID tag
attached to them. The tickets were evaluated with a radio frequency reader at
13.56 MHz. This ticketing field test was being coordinated by Bartsch GmbH.
http://www.oe-a.org
Jump Lab starts to market the rCard
Jump Lab, a division of CEO IQ, is delivering the first rCards to the market. The rCard is the world’s first
technology device about the size of a business card with an interactive screen that displays text, graphics, photos,
and slide shows for less than $40.00. Photo companies can sell rCards to customers to use as an updateable, digital
portfolio that can be carried in a pocket. Product reps can build relationships by presenting new services on the card
to prospects at trade shows or on sales calls. Individuals can load their personal medical data on the cards to
transport from one doctor’s office to the next. Pharmaceutical firms can educate physicians about new treatments
via the card. The rCard is easily activated by pressing one of the two buttons located on the front, right side of the
device. Interested parties can view the new rCard or get order information by going to http://www.ceoiq.com/rCard
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PolyApply demonstrates 13.56 MHz RFID tag and a 4 bit ROM memory reader
Visitors at OEC were able to see and test two demonstrator devices from PolyApply: a RFID tag with 13.56 MHz
and a 4 bit ROM memory reader. It consists of single devices made by nine partners of the consortium: an antenna,
a resonance capacitor, a rectifier, a ring oscillator and a modulator. All single devices were made on the basis of
organic semiconductors, conductors and dielectrics. For the first time a working RFID system based on devices
made on flexible substrates and with inline compatible processes was demonstrated by an organic electronics
technology consortium - a significant result towards the realization of low-cost
high-volume organic RFID tags. It also demonstrates that various material classes
and processes developed by the consortium, from evaporated molecules to printed
polymers, are suitable for use in the new organic electronics technology.
The memory reader demonstrator showed an organic circuit capable of reading 4bit ROM memory cells. Within PolyApply, Philips developed a ROM memory
consisting of patterned metal conducting lines on polymer substrates. When the
connection between two contacts is done by a conducting line, the memory is in
the “0” state and when the conducting line is broken, e.g. by applying a high
current pulse, the memory is in the “1” state. Fraunhofer IZM-M has then further
developed this technology and realized a roll-to-roll process to produce this type
of memory. These memories were provided to PolyIC, who developed electronic
circuits based on polymer semiconductors in a clean room process to read out the
memories. http://www.polyapply.org
PolyApply shows off roll-toroll printed transistors and
circuits.
Molecular Vision receives more UK funding for microfluidic photo-detectors
Molecular Vision Ltd (MVL) announced that it has received an investment of £500,000 from Imperial Innovations
Group. The company will use the funds to strengthen its management team and to attract further partners to assist in
developing its platform that combines microfluidics (technology) and organic semiconductor assay readers within
single disposable devices. Microfluidic chemistry systems are typically fast and accurate, while organic photodetectors provide accuracy at low cost. These characteristics allow MVL devices to provide laboratory-quality
information at the patient’s bedside, in the doctor’s surgery, in the ambulance or in the home. MVL's device is
based on research by Professors Andrew de Mello and Donal Bradley, and Dr John de Mello, all of Imperial
College London. http://www.molecularvision.co.uk
Cyborg exhibition explores technology implications
“Our Cyborg Future?” looks at the shrinking divide between us and the
technology we use. The word cyborg combines “cybernetics”, which is
about automated control systems, and “organism”. The word cyborg was
first coined in 1960 to describe a human-machine hybrid. During the
event, artists and designers play with “technical textiles”, “intelligent
jewelry” and “smart architecture”. Communities throughout the North
East region of the UK will be involved in discussions and workshops
during the build-up to the exhibition itself. The exhibition takes place in
Newcastle until October 27 at the Victorian Great Hall in the Newcastle’s
Discovery Museum -- the main science museum for the North East of
England. http://www.dott07.com/go/our-cyborg-future
Degussa is now Evonik
As of September 12, 2007, what was Degussa is now the Chemicals Business Area of the new Evonik Industries.
For further information on this new industrial group, please go to http://www.evonik.com
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Konarka Technologies and Toppan Forms sign joint agreement
Konarka Technologies and Toppan Forms announced they have signed a joint agreement to accelerate the
development, manufacturing and commercialization of polymer-based organic photovoltaic (OPV) technologies for
consumer and electronic applications. Under the agreement, the mutual goal is to bring Konarka’a organic
photovoltaic material, Power Plastic, to market. “Konarka’s Power Plastic is flexible, thin, printable and low in
cost, providing our organization with promising new business opportunities,” commented Masanori Akiyama,
president and CEO of Toppan Forms. “With the full-fledged advent of the ubiquitous society under way, we need
an ever-present power technology that can be integrated with pervasive networked devices for information
collection and distribution.” http://www.konarka.com
Konarka Technologies and Air Products selected by NIST for OPV development
Konarka Technologies, the developer of Power Plastic, a material that converts light to energy, announced the
company has been selected, along with Air Products, by the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), Advanced Technology Program (ATP), to conduct research and development on transparent, flexible solar
modules for windows and other building integrated applications. Organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology is unique
among solar energy alternatives in offering the potential for selecting materials for varying levels of transparency,
capable of absorbing narrowly or broadly in one or more regions of the visible and near-infrared spectrum. Konarka
will further develop its patented, transparent, metallic grid electrode technology for the new cell and module
architecture. Air Products will develop high-conductivity polymers with more efficient charge injection capability
in OPV cells, thereby improving overall cell electrical performance. The technology will be suitable for use in
windows capable of controlling transparency for privacy, regulating the wavelength of light passing through for
energy conservation and for aesthetics. Since the materials are capable of harvesting indoor as well as outdoor light,
the solar modules can be integrated into building sensors, battery chargers, lighting and displays, and wireless
security monitoring systems. http://www.konarka.com
VDMA establishes section for solar electricity equipment makers
The German Engineering Federation (VDMA) has founded the “Photovoltaic Equipment Forum”. This new section
is the topic-oriented collaboration of the existing sectors Electronics Production (Productronics), Glass Technology,
Energy, Organic Electronics, Robotics and Automation, Laser and Photonics, as well as Surface Treatment within
the VDMA. German machinery and equipment manufacturers are leading suppliers for all parts of the value chain,
from materials and solar cell-production all the way to module manufacturing. This is also true for innovative thin
film modules and organic photovoltaics – flexible printed solar cells. For a growing number of VDMA members,
photovoltaics have become the main business. Germany is the biggest user market with 51% and the second largest
producer with 20% worldwide. Japan, the US, Europe and China are important export markets for all parts of the
value chain, including machines. For the future, a continuation of the double-digit growth rates is expected for
photovoltaics demand. http://www.vdma.org
Plextronics announces new solar cell efficiency record
Plextronics announced that its organic photovoltaic technology achieved a world record in the conversion of solar
light to power efficiency. The company’s result of 5.4% establishes a new world record for single layer organic
solar cells as certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, Colorado. Troy
Hammond, vice president of products for Plextronics, said that the company began its organic photovoltaic
development program less than two years ago, with the support of the Pennsylvania Energy Development
Authority. Plexcore ink systems for organic photovoltaic enable the low-cost printing of photo-active and charge
carrier layers, which together convert light to power in the organic photovoltaic cell. The ability to print organic
photovoltaic cells on glass or plastic drastically reduces the cost of energy compared to silicon solar cell
technology. Specifically, Plextronics’ technology has the potential to reduce the cost of solar cells below the
commercially important threshold of $1 per watt, which is a reduction of up to five times that of crystalline siliconbased solar energy systems. http://www.plextronics.com
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Innovalight raises $28 million for solar product development
Innovalight announced that the company has raised $28 million in new capital. With new financing in hand, the
company is relocating to a new 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California. This series C
financing was led by Norway-based investor, Convexa Capital and supported by Scatec AS. Existing investors
Apax Partners, ARCH Venture Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Sevin Rosen Funds and Triton Ventures also
participated in this financing. Compared to solar modules in the market today, Innovalight has developed a
proprietary technology that utilizes liquid processing of silicon to produce high-efficiency solar cells that have the
potential to reduce solar costs by more than 50%. http://www.innovalight.com
Plastic Logic buys AIXTRON deposition tool
Plastic Logic purchased an AIXTRON Gen 3.5 deposition tool for thin film deposition of the key organic dielectric
layer used in their manufacturing process for flexible organic TFT backplanes. The newly developed equipment,
based on AIXTRON’s proprietary Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) technology, will be installed and integrated
into Plastic Logic’s new manufacturing line for production of Gen 3.5 substrates in early 2008. In January 2007
Plastic Logic announced that it had raised US$100 million to build the first factory to manufacture plastic
electronics on a commercial scale. The production facility is being built in Dresden, Germany, the heart of “Silicon
Saxony” alongside companies such as AMD and Infineon. The Plastic Logic facility will produce display modules
for portable electronic reader devices. It will have an initial capacity of more than a million display modules per
year with production starting in 2008. http://www.plasticlogic.com
AIXTRON takes over Nanoinstruments
AIXTRON of Germany and Nanoinstruments of the UK have agreed on the acquisition of Nanoinstruments Ltd.
business by AIXTRON. Founded in 2005 as a spin-off from the University of Cambridge, Nanoinstruments is a
manufacturer of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and plasma enhanced CVD research systems for carbon
nanotubes (CNT) and other nanomaterials. CNT is currently being investigated by many research groups as a
promising material to be used in flat panel displays, heat sinks, integrated circuits, sensors or as electron guns. The
addition of Nanoinstruments’ products to AIXTRON’s portfolio of deposition equipment creates new potential
opportunities in the mid and long term within the nanotechnology application space for the company. Key members
of the present Nanoinstruments management team will join the new AIXTRON Nanoinstruments technology unit,
including Nanoinstruments’ founders, Dr. Ken Teo and Dr. Nalin Rupesinghe. http://www.aixtron.com
Rohm and Haas and SKC form joint venture
Rohm and Haas and SKC have announced the formation of a joint venture that will develop, manufacture and
market advanced optical and functional films used in the flat panel display industry. The joint venture combines the
strength of Rohm and Haas and SKC to provide a broad portfolio of films used in today’s most advanced liquid
crystal and plasma displays. As part of the new joint venture arrangement, SKC will spin-off its Display
Technologies business into a separate legal entity. Rohm and Haas will invest to become a 51% owner in the new
company. Closing of this transaction is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2007 pending approval by
regulatory authorities. http://www.rohmhaas.com
Carclo acquires remaining minority interest in Conductive Inkjet Technology
The board of directors of Carclo announced that it has entered into an agreement to increase its equity investment in
Conductive Inkjet Technology Limited (CIT) from 74.4% to 100%. CIT is a patented process to print pure metals
onto plastics. The initial invention was made by Xennia Technology Ltd whilst undertaking an application
development for mobile handsets on a contract funded by Carclo. It was recognized that the invention had
applications well beyond mobile telephony and therefore Carclo and Xennia formed a 50:50 joint venture to
safeguard, develop and exploit the invention. http://www.conductiveinkjet.com
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Organic Electronics Conference and Exhibition 2007
September 24-26, Frankfurt, Germany
Phillip Hill covers this Cintelliq organized event with presentations from ITRI, National Chung Hsing
University, National Tsing-Hua University, SAIT, Binghamton University, and Tosoh Corporation
Novel Polymer-Capped Gold Nanoparticles for a Well-Reproducible Organic Bistable Memory Device
Jun-Rong Chen, Gue-Wuu Hwang, Heng-Tien Lin and Yi-Jen Chan
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan
A well-reproducible organic nonvolatile bistable memory (ONBM) device is demonstrated by using a novel
polymer film sandwiched between two Al electrodes as the active layer. This active polymer film comprises
polymer-capped Au nanoparticles and a host polymer. The capped polymer herein forms a core-shell structure and
stabilizes the Au nanoparticle within. In the mean time, the capped polymer also serves as a host polymer to better
distribute Au nanoparticles within the film due to structural similarity. Cross-sectional tunneling electron
microscope (TEM) images (see photos) show that the polymer-capped Au nanoparticles are well dispersed in the
polymer matrix. Due to the uniform distribution of Au
nanoparticles, a well-reproducible electrical bistability
can be achieved in 144 memory locations of a single
layered polymer device matrix with a high workable
yield about 82%. The device exhibits a good retention
characteristic after a time period of 10 day in air.
“Write-read-erase” cycle tests have been carried out
with the ON/OFF current ratio at around 103-104. The
cyclic switching is also observed reproducibly over
1000 cycles without obvious degradation.
Although the endurance and retention characteristics at present are not comparable with the current Si-based
memory technology, the demonstration in this paper approaches the optimized goal of 10,000 repeated tests and a
lifetime of several months. Therefore, this device can still be considered a strong candidate for the next-generation
nonvolatile memory for flexible electronic applications.
Synthesis of Colorless Polyimide with Bulky Group
Cheng-Chung Chen, Yu-Chiao Chung, Jyh-Ming Hwu, Ren-Kuen Chang and Mao-Feng Hsu
Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan
Wei-Ben Wang and Jing-Jong Shyue, Research Center for Applied Sciences Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Shi-Min Shau, Ru-Jong Jeng and Shenghong A. Dai, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
In this work, aromatic polyimides (PIs) were synthesized from novel and unique dianhydride and diamine with
bulky group. A series of organosoluble PIs were prepared from aromatic dianhydrides with various diamine via a
conventional two-step thermal imidization method. The polymer films showed low moisture absorption (0.1–
0.7 wt%), and was light-colored with a cutoff wavelength below 390 nm and low yellow index b* values of
4.9~7.7. Transparencies of the PI films in the visible region (550 nm) were over 84%. All PIs showed excellent
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solubility in amide polar solvents and even in less polor m-cresol. The PIs showed excellent thermal and thermooxidative stability. No significant weight loss was observed below a temperature of 450°C in nitrogen or in air, and
the glass transition temperatures ranged from 227°C to 293°C. These polyimides were characterized by good filmforming ability, high optical transparency and low moisture absorption. Therefore, characterization of colorless
polyimide may be applied in flexible organic electroluminescent devices.
High Efficiency Phosphorescent White Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Using a Novel Iridium
Jwo-Huei Jou, Zhao-Chin Wong, Mao-Feng Hsu and Wei-Ben Wang
National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan
Chih-Lung Chin and Wan-Chi Chen
Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan
High efficiency phosphorescent white organic light-emitting diodes were fabricated by using a novel green dye
iridium(III) (dibenzo[f,h]quinoline)2(pentane-2,4-ionate) ((Dbzq)2Ir(acac)) in a small-molecule host composing
and solution-processing emission layer. The layer comprised the green dye (Dbzq)2Ir(acac), a blue dye bis(3,5difluoro-2-(2-pyridyl)-phenyl- (2-carboxypyridyl)) iridium (III), and a red dye of bis[2-(2’-benzothienyl)pyridinato-N,C3’] (acetyl-acetonate) iridium (III) doped in a host 4,4’-bis (carba-zol-9-yl) biphenyl. The device
structure comprised a 1250 Å anode layer of indium tin oxide, a 350 Å hole-injection layer of
poly(ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrene sulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS), a 400 Å white emissive layer, a 320 Å
electron-transporting layer of 2, 2', 2"-(1,3,5-benzenetriyl)-tris(1 phenyl-1-H-benzimidazole), a 6 Å electroninjection layer of lithium fluoride and a 1500 Å cathode layer of aluminum. The resultant power efficiency was
9.5 lm/W at 100 cd/m2 with pan white emission of chromaticity coordinates (0.33, 0.40). The high efficiency may
be attributed to the use of the electroluminescence efficient phosphorescent green dye. Furthermore, by
incorporating small polymeric nano-dot (PND) in the hole transporting layer, PEDOT:PSS, marked efficiencyimprovement was obtained. The resultant power efficiency at 100 cd/m2, for example, was increased from 9.5 to
20.0 lm/W, an increase of 210%, when doping 21 wt% PND. The efficiency improvement may be attributed to a
better carrier injection balance resulted from hole trapping on the added PND, which exhibited negative charge on
surface.
Electrochemical and Spectroelectrochemical Studies on Redox Intermediates of Organic ChargeTransporting Materials and Their Relationship with Device Performances
Woo Sung Jeon, Hyouk Soo Han
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Korea
Young Kook Kim and Seok-Hwan Hwang
Samsung SDI, Korea
To uncover the principles governing the relationship between the molecular properties and their effects on device
performance is important not only for fundamental understanding of the organic electronics but also for providing
material design or selection guideline for device fabrication. In this work Samsung reports the relationship between
the redox properties of organic charge-transporting materials and the device performances utilizing the
electrochemical, the spectroelectrochemical methods and DFT calculation. 3,3',5,5-tetrakis (p-tolyldiamino)
biphenyl (TTAB) and 2,2'- dimethyl-3,3',5,5'-tetrakis (p-tolyldiamino) biphenyl (DTTAB), recently reported
tetraminobiphenyl derivatives, have been examined as a hole-transporting material for organic light-emitting
diodes. Samsung fabricated the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) cells with those tetraminobiphenyl derivatives
as the hole-transporting layer for a green device with tris(8-quinolinolato)aluminum (Alq3) doped with 1% of
Coumarin 545T (C545T) as the green emitting layer. The results were compared with the reference device which
had N,N'-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N'-diphenyl benzidine (NPB) as a hole-transporting material. Despite similar
HOMO levels and thermal properties, the devices adopting TTAB or DTTAB as a hole-transporting material
showed the better efficiency and the poorer life time than that of NPB. From the investigation on the
spectroelectrochemical properties and DFT calculation of those redox intermediates, Samsung found that the
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chemical and photochemical properties of redox intermediates of them are closely related with the device
performance, especially in device lifetime.
Figure 1 depicts the calculated HOMO electron
distributions of NPB, TTAB, and DTTAB and those of
oxidized form of each. In the both case of neutral and
oxidized states, the researchers found NPB has the most
delocalized HOMO molecular orbital. On the other hand, in
the oxidized state, DTTAB has more delocalized HOMO
distribution than TTAB though there are very slight
differences between them in the case of neutral state. It has
been well known that molecular charge transporting
property is related to the distribution of HOMO and
LUMO. In general, a more delocalized HOMO would allow
better intermolecular orbitals overlap which would lead to
easier hole-transport by hopping. On the other hand, the
more localized HOMO will not be favorable for holetransport. Considering the HOMO electron distribution,
NPB may be the most efficient material for HTL, which is
controversial to the result of reorganization and dipole
moment calculations.
Judging from the device lifetime and the applied voltage
shift, Samsung concludes that the tetraaminobiphenyl
Figure 1: The calculated HOMO electron distribution of
derivatives are not good alternatives to NPB as holeneutral NPB (a), TTAB (b), DTTAB (c) and 1-electron
transporting material for OLED, even if they showed the
oxidized species of NPB (d), TTAB (e) and DTTAB (f).
better luminance and current efficiency in the early stage of
operation. They presumed that the poorer device lifetime and the rapidly increased applying voltage mainly result
from their poorer electrochemical stability of the second oxidized species and the following chemical reactions.
Therefore, this study clearly showed that, if a material has good thermal properties, charge-transporting properties
and proper HOMO level, but without the good electrochemical and chemical stability, the material will not be a
good candidate for practical use in OLED.
OTFT Digital Circuit Design Based on Dynamic Logic
Jingyi Zhang, Qing Wu and Qinru Qiu
Binghamton University, New York
Organic thin-film transistor (OTFT)-based electronics have been investigated intensely for the past few decades.
However, the low mobility of n-channel organic semiconductors severely limited the performance of
complementary flexible circuits. The researchers propose a new design method called PMOS-only Pre-Discharge
(POPD) logic to overcome the drawbacks of low switching speed and the lack of matching n-type OTFT. HSPICE
is used to simulate a library of combinational logic gates and sequential elements. Two kinds of semi-dynamic
single-phase edge-triggered flip-flops are implemented and compared. Logic functions can be embedded in the flipflop structures. To further study the principles of the new design method, they implement and compare the 4-bit
ripple-carry adder, 8-bit carry-look-ahead adder and a 16-bit carry-look-ahead adder using the POPD method. The
technique presents significant improvements in performance, area and power consumption compared with other
traditional design techniques. It makes the realization of relatively larger digital circuits design possible for OTFT.
Solution processable linear terphenylene semiconductors for TFTs
Makoto Watanabe and Tomokazu Ohashi
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October 2007
Tosoh Corporation, Japan
Linear fused terphenylene compounds were synthesized from tetrabromoterphenyls for the first time. This synthetic
method can provide a wide range of new symmetric and unsymmetric terphenylene compounds with high rigidity.
The devices using dibenzoterphenylene and TC1 exhibited hole mobilities of 0.0058 and 6.0x10-4 cm2/Vs in air,
respectively. The performance of the device using TC2, which is an alkyl substituted TC1, was highly improved
giving a mobility of 0.022 cm2/Vs and a current on/off ratio of 2.4x106 in air. A device from solution-processed
film using TC2 also showed a FET activity. The new highly fused terphenylene compounds were synthesized by
the coupling method with cupric chloride and the organic FET devices using these terphenylenes as an active layer
were fabricated. They found that the devices using these terphenylene compounds exhibited p-type transistor
responses for the first time. Especially, the devices using TC2 gave not only a comparable mobility to that of
pentacene but also a high current on/off ratio even in air. Therefore, fused terphenelene compounds are thought to
have the same potential of electrical properties as pentacene and much higher stability. Although the mobility of
TC2 has not been high enough in solution process yet, TC2 has a high solubility in toluene and gave the device a
FET activity. The researchers will continue to examine the optimization of the structure of terphenylene
compounds that can be utilized for a practical printing process.
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October 2007
Flex–Stretch Electronics Workshop
September 6-7, Leuven, Belgium
In this first report about the fascinating developments related to flexible and stretchable
electronics, Bart Vandevelde, one of the organizers from the IMEC, gives us an overview about
the conference. Mark Fihn follows with summaries of presentations from the event by
Freudenberg/IMEC/TFCG Microsystems, SiliconPipe/Verdant Electronics, Freudenberg NOK
Mechatronics, Nippon Mektron/FFD, Fraunhofer IZM, and Hightec
Conference overview
by Bart Vandevelde
In early September, a workshop about “flexible and stretchable electronics” was
conducted in Leuven, Belgium, at the IMEC micro-electronics research center.
The workshop was a common initiative of three funded projects SHIFT
(EC-IST), STELLA (EC-IST) and BIOFLEX (IWT-Flanders) with the objective
to disseminate the results of these projects to the European research and
industrial community. In addition, the program committee invited seven keynote
speakers who play a pioneering role in the field of flexible and stretchable
electronics. Finally, the workshop was a unique networking event where in total
118 researchers from 14 countries could get acquainted, share their knowledge
and even define new collaborative opportunities.
The workshop dealt with the latest developments in high density flex technologies and applications, including
active and passive component embedding and assembly technologies, RF design and applications, thermomechanical modelling and reliability aspects. Moreover first design considerations, technology developments and
potential applications in the new and very exciting area of stretchable electronics were shown. It is believed that
flexible and stretchable electronics are key enabling technologies for realizing the ambient intelligence vision.
Applications in a vast number of fields are emerging or will do so in the foreseeable future: implantable electronics,
wearable computing, wellness and sports, haptics, robotics, intelligent textiles, wireless sensor networks, flexible
displays and signage.
It was also a unique opportunity to welcome Joe Fjelstadt as keynote speaker. He is a well-known personality in the
world of flexible applications and gave a broad overview about the history, the current status and the bright future
for flexible applications. A second keynote speaker, who got in short time renowned in this field was Stephanie
Lacour from Cambridge University who presented how stretchable thin film devices are designed and fabricated for
skin-like electronics such as prosthetic skin or neural interfaces. Many exciting applications for these flex/stretch
technologies were shown: smart passenger compartment surfaces, intravascular pressure monitoring system
implanted in the femoral artery, miniaturized hearing aids, implanted medical communications systems, bladder
pressure monitoring system, physiological wound healing device, human motion capturing suit, contact-less smart
cards, thin mobile communicators, a meteorological radar and body sensor networks. These applications all yearn
for high-performance, cost-effective and reliable flexible and stretchable technologies.
Several participants, including attendees from the European Commission, suggested organizing a follow-up
workshop. These positive comments encouraged the organization committee to keep this initiative alive, probably
resulting in a second workshop in 2009. Websites of the three projects:
SHIFT: http://www.vdivde-it.de/portale/shift/default.html
STELLA: http://www.stella-project.de/
BIOFLEX: http://trappist.elis.ugent.be/elisgroups/tfcg/projects/bioflex/Welcome.html
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Summary of Presentations
Introduction to SHIFT, STELLA and BioFlex projects
Christopher Klatt, Freudenberg Forschungsdienste, Weinheim, Germany
Jan Vanfleteren, IMEC/TFCG Microsystems, Ghent, Belgium
This discussion provided an overview about the activities of the SHIFT, BioFlex, and STELLA programs.
SHIFT stands for “Smart High Integration Flex
Technologies”, and has the objective to develop
smart, high-integration, mechanically flexible
electronic systems, for a wide variety of applications.
The program is working on both embedded and
assembled components, different flex layers with
different functions (RF, high density, high-current,
etc.), and the use of the third dimension for electronic
component integration (not only on the front and back
sides, but potentially on every conductive layer).
The main innovation expectation in SHIFT is the
assembly and embedding of small area, high value
flex components (passives, RF structures, flexible
chip packages) on/in large area, lower cost flex
substrates.
Highlights of the SHIFT program to date is the lead-free
assembly of standard components and of ultra-thin
(20 µm) foldable chips with very small gap (10 µm) onto
flex laminates with embedded components
BioFlex stands for “Biocompatible Flexible electronic circuits” and is a program aimed at the development and
demonstration of interconnection and assembly technologies for biocompatible flexible and stretchable electronic
circuits for biomedical applications. The participants plan to create four different demonstrators as outputs from the
program:
•
•
•
•
Implantable monitoring device for incontinence treatment (including pressure sensor)
A device for ECG monitoring of fetuses
A respiration sensor for SIDS
EMG measurement system
STELLA stands for “STretchable ELectronics for Large Area
applications” and aims to develop an overall stretchability of about 20%
for PCB, (an SCB = Stretchable Circuit Board). The program is working
to develop a new stretchable substrate with stretchable conductors,
assembling technology adapted for stretchable substrates, manufacturing
methods for stretchable electronic systems, and identifying key drivers
of demand for ambient intelligence.
At the moment the state of the art includes essentially no stretchable
electronics besides EEG electrodes. Impregnated non-woven fabrics and
rubber substrates are known, but only bendable. Woven fabrics have
limited pitch, terminal reliability issues, and questions about mass
production processes. Micro-batteries on ultra-thin film have been
reported, but are not yet available, and no mechanical simulations or
specific reliability testing has yet been reported.
Goals of the STELLA program include
the structuring of conductors on polymer
substrates for non-breathable substrates
and developing stretchable equipment
with semiconductor devices
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October 2007
The Past, Present and Future of Flexible Circuit Technology
Joseph Fjelstad, SiliconPipe & Verdant Electronics, San Jose, California
Fjelstad started off with an interesting history of flex circuitry, which dates back more than 100 years:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1903 Albert Hansen
1904 Thomas Edison
1940s Germany
1956 Sanders & Photocircuits
1959 Pat Brian, Lockheed
1965 John Marley, ITT
1974 Michael Warner, IBM
1975 Rogers Corporation
Present
Conductors on paraffin coated paper
Filled polymer conductors on linen paper
Flat wire conductors in polymer (used in V2)
Etched copper patterns on flexible base film
Flex in spacecraft and automobiles
Flex for IC packaging, First MCM
Flex replaces round wire disk drive
Flex manufacturing technology transferred to Japan
Flex circuits are everywhere!
He went on to discuss many of the current applications
that utilize flexible circuits and some of the technological
innovations in those various applications. One of the
areas of current innovation is related to roll-to-roll printed
electronics. Fjelstad pointed out that roll-to-roll flex
circuit production is no longer just about printed
conductors, but now includes printed transistors and
passive devices, with visions for full circuits to be
produced additively onto polymer films. The range of
potential products is very wide, including intelligent
tickets, paper toys, ID tags, electronic postage stamps,
speakers and smart bandages. The Fraunhofer Institute
for Reliability and Micro-integration has demonstrated
the production of an all-polymer ring oscillator on a
200mm wide roll of PET film.
Thin phone cards such as this illustrate the level of
ubiquity currently enjoyed by flexible circuitry
Among other things in the future, Fjelstad highlighted the development of 3D interconnection possibilities and the
potential for variable topographic structures – ultimately both on flexible substrates
Large area interconnect and outlook on stretchable applications in automotive
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Ansgar Blessing, Freudenberg NOK Mechatronics, Weinheim, Germany
The automotive industry is continuously finding demand for flexible circuitry to help manage the ever-expanding
swathe of electronics in today’s automobiles.
This image represents the “conventional wire harness” used in automotive applications. Although perhaps a bit
exaggerated, such assemblies offer a relatively low price, even with many manual process steps, minimal
opportunity for integration, and regarded as the “state of the art” in large area interconnection systems.
In consideration of the “state of the art”, Blessing suggested that flexible circuits have a huge opportunity to help
reduce space and weight, while increasing functionality. MacroFPC are being developed as cost effective – with
reel-to-reel production, and electronic integration. MacroFPC, however, has limiting factors, most particularly
although bendable/foldable they are not stretchable. Blessing advised that future systems for the interior and
exterior in automotive applications will require stretchable substrates, enabling system accuracy improvement,
freedom of design, and sensors for interactivity.
Next Generation Flex Technology – Fine line processing
technology and special materials
Hirofumi Matsumoto, Nippon Mektron, Tokyo, Japan
Jürgen Günther, Freudenberg Forschungsdienste,
Weinheim, Germany
Matsumoto and Günther provided a summary and review of
the FPC industry, pointing out that the FPC market is steadily
increasing as a result of the growth of new applications,
particularly for portable electronic devices. Flexible and flexrigid substrates are key technologies in future-generation
electronic system designs and high performance aspects of
FPC will become increasingly important. Therefore it is vital
to develop better and special materials and new process
technologies to adapt to user needs – including stretchable
substrates. To this end, Nippon Mektron recently developed an
LCD-based multilayer-FPC that can serve as a mono-material
multilayer with promising stretchability characteristics.
Nippon Mektron has developed a liquid crystal
polymer in a thermoplastic film that is heatsealable, and can be used as a mono-material
multilayer for high-speed signal transmission.
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October 2007
Reel to Reel Processes for Flexible Electronic Systems
Michael Feil, Fraunhofer IZM, Munich, Germany
This presentation first identified the advantages of flexible electronics, highlighting the opportunity for design
freedom, inexpensive foil substrates, reduced weight, compact portable products, cost-effective assembly with reelto-reel processing, environment-friendliness, and a multitude of large-volume applications with pent-up demand.
The roll-to-roll process used in SHIFT is a two-layer screen printing method that prints a dielectric layer with a
minimum size of printed via openings at 200 µm. The via openings are made by laser at 50–150 µm. A second
conductive layer is then screen printed. Integration of resistors by screen printing is currently being investigated. A
process is available but currently suffers from insufficient material stability. Quality is expected to be similar to that
from the Hightec process.
Feil also discussed roll-to-roll integration of active components, whereby ultra-thin silicon becomes bendable. The
base material is mono-crystalline silicon. Fraunhofer has developed a technology demonstrator of an integrated flex
system that demonstrates roll-to-roll principles, combining an ultra-thin IC, printed resistors, a printed display, and
a flat battery. The thin-chip assembly is done by flip chip bonding.
On the left is a simple roll-to-roll printing example utilizing electroluminescent pastes. On the right is a rollto-roll machine developed by Fraunhofer IZM that does assembly of thin chips.
Thin Film Multilayers for Integration into Flex-Boards
Hans Burkard, Hightec, Lenzburg, Switzerland
Hightec is developing thin film technologies for flexible multilayer structures with integrated or embedded
components. These structures are very thin, highly flexible multilayer foils, with a total thickness of 10-50 µm.
These thin foils can be laminated into conventional printed flex boards as local high-resolution parts and connected
to the wiring of the print.
HiCoFlex is an industrial process of Hightec. (Burkhard’s presentation notes that IMEC’s technology is similar.)
The technology is built on a rigid substrate with a release layer. The actual substrate format is either 4x4 inches or
6x6 inches. Larger panels are currently under study at Acreo – measuring 12x12 inches and 24x24 inches.
Hightec’s process is repeated for each layer and consists of a polyimide layer: spin-on, drying and curing; then a
metal layer: sputtering, photolithographic patterning and galvanic processes; followed by laser via opening; then
release from the rigid carrier after processing; with final assembly and testing.
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The result is a highly flexible circuit, with up to four metal
layers. Very fine pitches have been demonstrated with a
minimum bending radius measuring <0.5 mm.
Burkard summarized that thin flexible, high-resolution foils are
already available with:
•
•
•
•
Integrated resistors
Integrated capacitors
Integrated RF structures
Embedded chips
These foil elements can be integrated into conventional printed
flex-board and connected to the wiring of the commercial print.
High-resolution features such as high frequency circuits can be
limited to the areas where they are needed
Hightec’s HiCoFlex technology
Flexible Displays 2007 Conference
June 19-21, Oakland, California
In this second of two reports from the Intertech/Pira-organized conference, Phillip Hill covers
presentations from ipCapital Group, Honeywell, Arizona State University, Palo Alto
Research Center, and Innos
Douglas Roth of ipCapital Group gave a presentation entitled “Leveraging Innovation: New Business
Opportunities Supported by IP”. He proposed a model for return on investment (ROI), innovation and IP tools with
case studies achieving ROI from innovation. In his 30-minute discussion, he considered two different IP
management scenarios:
1. My company has some inventions, how should they be protected?
2. My company is considering a move into a new area of flexible displays, what should we do to inform that
move?
One tactic is to partner down the value chain for innovation. Companies may look downstream to other companies
in their value chain as valuable sources of innovation. Since they are closer to the customer, they often have
excellent insights into how their products are used. This tactic provides an excellent base for improving competitive
advantage, especially when you can partner with downstream companies with significant market share, Roth said.
Examples are Universal Displays and E Ink.
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He went on to describe the spin-out
company tactic. New initiatives can
often be killed early within large
organizations without being given time
and room to grow. By spinning out the
most promising new technologies,
large companies that sponsor the initial
research give the new ventures
freedom to grow and frequently
maintain some ownership position in
the
company.
Examples
are
Philips/Polymer Vision.
A third way is the consortium tactic. It
allows for collaboration where each
company maintains their own IP, but
creating a common design platform
There has been a big increase in overall flexible display patent activity since
allows for greater and easier business.
the late 1990s
It allows companies to spread risk
across consortium companies. An example is the Flexible Display Center at the Arizona State University.
Roth went on to describe invention “capture” and invention documentation and how to maintain trade secrets. He
asked does it make sense to patent all inventions. He pointed out that the average cost for worldwide patent
protection is $250,000 per patent over the life of the patent and that typical legal fees for patent litigation are $2.5
million. He went on to discuss the best practices for working with patent counsel before turning to technical
publications, which can prevent issuance of patents by defeating the novelty or non-obvious requirements. A
technical publication is comprised of a description of innovation and may be used either offensively or defensively.
An enabled publication must describe an invention in sufficient detail to allow one with ordinary skill in the art to
make or use the invention, without excessive experimentation. When placed into the public domain in the
appropriate manner, it can be used as prior art for: discouraging competitors from pursuing a patent; search by
worldwide patent offices to prevent overly broad patents from issuing; and used during a patent infringement trial
to support an invalidity defense.
Roth went on to illustrate this point through a case study using real patent data relevant to flexible displays,
specifically a new circuit that can enable flexible displays with substantially less power consumption.
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Kalluri Sarma, a principal research fellow with Honeywell, gave a talk entitled “Active Matrix Backplane
Technology for Flexible Displays” and how flexible displays can enable new applications. He gave an overview of
flexible display media and candidate TFT technologies: low temperature a-Si TFT technology, and organic TFT
(O-TFT) technology. He then covered flexible active matrix display demonstrators: flexible 150 deg.C a-Si TFT
AMOLED and recent flexible display demonstrations.
He said that flexible substrate requirements were high transmission (for bottom emission OLEDs, and transmissive
and transflective LCDs); smooth surface; dimensional stability; low shrinkage; low moisture absorption; good CTE
match with TFT thin films; commercial availability; and low cost.
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Sarma further detailed the flexible substrate alternatives.
Metal foil substrates have a higher process temperature
capability, good dimensional stability, they are a good
barrier for moisture and oxygen, they require top emission
or reflective display architecture, but surface smoothness
needs to be improved and there are CTE differences with
TFT films.
Plastic substrates are compatible with both top and bottom
emission devices, but have limited process temperature
capability. Dimensional stability requires further
improvement and there are CTE differences with TFT
films. He went on to look at the E Ink-based Sony e-book
Reader, the Sony 27-inch AMOLED on glass demonstrator,
the SUFTLA process from Seiko Epson, and the EPLaR
process, before detailing Honeywell’s work on flexible
plastic substrates.
OTFT- AMOLED on PES plastic substrate from Sony
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Shawn O’Rourke of the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University presented on “Flexible
Active Matrix Electrophoretic Ink Display Technology Development: Rugged PDA Application”. The outline of
his talk was the FDC vision, technology focus and partnership model, and the critical path in flexible backplane
technology development: baseline a-Si:H process development, transition to flexible substrates, and rugged PDA
system-level integration.
He described a first product-level technology demonstrator: an ultra-rugged soldier’s digital assistant with an E Ink
frontplane and an FDC backplane on rugged stainless steel. It is ultra-rugged, lightweight, ultra-low power, with no
light signature, and sunlight-to-starlight readable. FDC is attacking key manufacturing technology challenges (for
details see the figure). He went on to describe manufacturing protocols including bond-debonding, and managing
plastic substrate distortion. The FDC
has
created
the
partnership
framework, innovation capability
and physical infrastructure to enable
rapid development and integration of
flexible
display
technology,
O’Rourke said. The critical path in
flexible
electronics
technology
development is based on a baseline
low temperature a-Si:H process
developed on a 6-inch pilot line
producing quality transistor arrays
with reasonable yields; TD form
factor scaled-up to 4-inch 320x240
resolution; process transitioned to
flexible plastic and SS substrates.
FDC is on track for R-PDA
prototype delivery this year.
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Ana Arias gave a presentation on “All additive printing of flexible polymer TFT backplanes”. Dr. Arias is currently
a member of research staff at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC Inc), former Xerox-PARC, in Palo Alto,
California. At PARC she uses inkjet printing techniques to fabricate organic active matrix display backplanes. She
came to PARC from Plastic Logic in Cambridge, UK where she led the semiconductor group, working in
collaboration with chemical companies to develop polymeric
semiconductors for thin film transistors. She did her PhD on
semiconducting polymer blends for photovoltaic devices at the
University of Cambridge, UK. She first gave the background to the
formation of PARC and its business model.
She then went on to give some detail on new processing technologies to
fabricate TFT backplanes for prototype displays. Some of the current
projects include LTPS OLED backplanes on steel foil, low-temperature
a-Si TFT on plastic, all-additive jet-printed polymer TFTs, and a-Si:H
TFTs by jet-printing. After describing the structure of PARC’s active
matrix TFT backplanes, she discussed the materials requirements for an
all additive printing process. She described the ink formulation including
surface tension modification. PARC has developed a 50x50 array of 680
µm pixels at 600 dpi. Metals are printed with a multi-nozzle print head,
semiconductor printed with a single nozzle print head and the dielectric
is spin coated.
All additive jet-printed polymer TFTs
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Alec Reader of Innos gave a talk about his company’s role in
Polymer Vision’s first production facility for rollable displays. Innos
started trading in April 2004 – it was a UK Centre of Excellence in
Nanofabrication, at the University of Southampton. It has 30 staff,
mostly PhD engineers and scientists. It has an R&D facility in
Eindhoven, the Netherlands, with Class100 – 10000 cleanrooms
handling up to 200 mm substrates. Pilot production is at a new
facility in Southampton in the UK. He went on to describe the
company’s model of R&D to pilot production.
Innos’s support for Polymer Vision’s strategy is based on low
technical risk based on proven manufacturing techniques,
transferring Polymer Vision’s in-house proven technology using a
silicon substrate as the carrier, standard silicon processing
equipment, standard silicon processing litho techniques, and
lamination and delamination of the PE product. Reader went on to
describe the Innos organic electronics patents.
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Society for Information Display 2007 Symposium
May 20-25, Long Beach, California
Flexible displays were high on the agenda at SID this year, with around 50 papers, spread across
a dozen sessions. In this third report, Phillip Hill covers presentations from Kent Displays,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology/Dainippon Ink and Chemicals,
Corning, DuPont, and ITRI/ Cheng Kung University
6.4: Single Substrate Coatable Multicolor Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Displays
Irina Shiyanovskaya, Sankar Barua, Seth Green, Asad Khan, Greg Magyar, Duane Marhefka, Nick Miller, Oleg
Pishnyak, and J. William Doane
Kent Displays, Ohio, US
This paper describes new ultra-thin multicolor cholesteric liquid
crystal displays with all functional layers coated sequentially on a
single flexible substrate. Shared electrode driving is implemented for
the first time to drive a passive matrix multicolor emulsion based
displays comprising of three stacked layers of cholesteric droplets
embedded in a polymer matrix.
Cholesteric liquid crystal displays (ChLCDs) have earned growing
popularity due to their pure reflective nature, bistability, low power
consumption, high brightness and contrast. The application of glass
ChLCDs currently ranges from small displays for electronic books,
map readers, instrumentation displays, and handheld devices to large
area signage displays.
Typical glass full color ChLCDs have a triple stack of primary
colors and each color layer is addressed by its own pair of indium tin
oxide (ITO) electrodes. This brings the total number of conducting
electrodes up to six and the number of substrates to four or six
depending on the approach. Reducing the number of conducting
electrodes and increasing their transmission are critical for achieving
high reflectivity. This is especially true for the bottom and middle
display layers.
Kent presents, for the first time, emulsion-based multicolor
cholesteric displays using sequential coating for color stacking of
liquid crystal layers of different pitch length. Implementation of
shared electrode concept to reduce the number of driving electrodes
Figure 1: Schematic illustration of the
conventional color stacking for ChLCDs. To
drive the color stack six substrates and
transparent electrodes are employed. Each
display layer is addressed independently by its
own pair of electrodes.
Figure 2: Schematic illustration of the proposed
color stacking for coated ChLCDs with four
transparent electrodes. All display layers are
coated on a single substrate.
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October 2007
is used for the first time to drive the color display layer stack. The paper describes display fabrication, display
performance, and shared electrode driving for direct drive and multiplexed addressing.
Figure 1 shows the conventional implementation of cholesteric color
displays with stacking three individual displays each driven
independently by its own pair of electrodes. Due to some index
mismatch and light absorption in the electrode material each
electrode contributes to the display reflectivity losses especially due
to the fact that light reflected from display passes twice through each
electrode. This makes the transmission of electrode material and the
number of electrodes critical for the display reflectance. Figure 2
illustrates the concept of coatable multicolor stack. Each display
layer can be addressed individually
with shared electrodes, which reduces
Figure 3: Polarizing optical microscope image
number of electrodes to four. For
of the cholesteric droplets in the display layer
shared electrode design each color
layer has one or two common electrodes. A common electrode provides driving
voltage to two display layers at one time.
The coatable material for display layers consists of a water-based cholesteric
emulsion prepared using a membrane emulsification technique, which allows for
forming uniformly sized liquid crystal droplets. The droplet size can be controlled by
the membrane pore size and pressure of nitrogen gas carrier pushing liquid crystal
through the porous glass membrane. This method allows Kent to achieve a narrow
droplet size distribution with a desirable mean droplet size. Figure 3 shows a
polarizing microscope image for the single droplet layer coated from typical emulsion
with the mean droplet size of 18 µm. Size uniformity is beneficial for dense droplet
packing during coating and drying processes and results in higher display reflectivity.
Figure 4 shows a photograph of the multiplexed triple color stacked ChLCD
fabricated on a PET substrate with coated RGB layers and four electrodes, where two
are shared. The shared electrode design increases the display brightness by reducing
the number of driving electrodes. In the future, multicolor ChLCDs can be coated on
highly flexible single substrates on roll-to-roll lines at low cost facilitating new
applications for rollable, foldable and conformable displays.
Figure 4: Triple color stack
cholesteric display coated on
a 5 mm PET substrate with
the passive matrix
multiplexing scheme using
four electrodes where two
are shared
45.4: Azo-Dye Alignment for Displays and Photonics
Vladimir Chigrinov and Hoi Sing Kwok
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Hirokazu Takada, Haruyoshi Takatsu, and Hiroshi Hasebe
Dainippon Ink and Chemicals Incorporated, Japan
Liquid crystal photo-alignment using azo-dyes for display and photonics
applications are discussed in this paper. Various types of glass and plastic
substrates are used. Special types of 3D LC alignment, LC alignment inside
thin micro tubes, and LC cladding layers in Si based waveguides and grating
surface are concerned. The azo-dye photoalignment of polymerized LC films
used as optical elements, such as polarizers and phase retarders is also
considered. Optically rewritable liquid crystal display for plastic cards
applications is shown.
The researchers investigated the properties of azo-dye alignment on plastic
Figure 1: Azo-dye photoaligning for
plastic displays in smart cards
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October 2007
substrates using azo-dye layers. Excellent alignment with a high anchoring energy was achieved with the exposure
energy less than 1.0 J/cm2, which corresponds to the azimuthal anchoring energy > 10-4 J/m2. The LC pretilt angle
of about 5 degrees on the plastic substrate was made by a double exposure method. The electrooptical performance
of the photo-aligned plastic display was very similar to common TN-LCD fabricated for comparison by the usual
rubbing method on glass substrate. The prototype of the plastic display for a smart card application using
photoaligning material has been made (Figure 1).
48.1: Behavior of LCD Panel during Bending
Suresh T. Gulati, John D. Helfinstine, Toshihiko Ono, and Josef C. Lapp
Corning, US
When an LCD panel is subjected to pure bending, for example during strength measurement or proof testing, the
question arises: “Does it behave as a monolith of twice the substrate thickness? Or does it behave as two
independent substrates?” Both theory and experiment suggest that the panel behavior depends on how its edges are
held together, i.e. well bonded or loosely held together. Indeed, the former renders the panel nearly twice as strong
and four fold as stiff as the latter. The paper provides the analysis of the bending behavior of a two-layer laminate
using St Venant flexure theory. Experimental data, using strain gages, demonstrate that an LCD panel can behave
either as a monolith of twice the substrate thickness or two independent substrates depending on how its four edges
are held together in the support structure including the bezel. The paper derives appropriate equations for
computing panel strength when it is bent to constant curvature or when its specimens are flexed in 4-point bending
for both i) well bonded edges and ii) loosely held edges.
Panel specimens, 35 mm wide x 48.5 mm long and
1.0 mm thick (glass substrate = 0.5 mm thick),
scored with a Penet score wheel, were flexed in 4point bending using a support span of 20 mm and
load span of 10 mm. Their edges were assumed to
be well bonded, i.e. specimens were treated as a
monolith. The fracture origins of test specimens
were also examined and the mirror radius measured
for each specimen. Figure 1 illustrates a typical
origin with the mirror marked.
The analysis of bending stresses in LCD panels,
whether tested in a cylindrical bend fixture or
Figure 1: Fracture origin and mirror radius
horizontal 4-point bend fixture, shows that the
for edge flaw
equation for strength computation depends on edge
fixity. If the edges are loosely bonded, then each substrate bends independently of the other thereby permitting
relative slip at the interface. In such a case the stress is considerably higher for a given applied load. If, on the other
hand, the edges are well-bonded – then the panel bends as a monolith of double thickness and does not permit
relative slip at the interface; the stress generated is approximately 50% lower than that for loosely bonded edges.
Experimental data for a given set of panel specimens show that these behave as two separate substrates bending
independently of each other. However, one should not generalize from this one example that all panels behave as if
their edges were loosely bonded. The paper provides appropriate equations for computing panel strength for both
the loosely bonded and well bonded edges.
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48.3: New Maskless, Completely Dry Color Filter Manufacturing System Based on Breakthrough Direct
Laser Writing Technology: DuPont Thermal Color Filters (DuPont TCF)
Hyun-Joong Kim, Daniel Chung, and Brian S. Eyre: DuPont, Dover, Delaware
In response to the strong industry need for cost reduction DuPont has been developing a new breakthrough
technology including materials, equipment and process, which comprise a system for manufacturing LCD color
filters. This new technology significantly reduces process steps and clean room space required by conventional
photolithography, thereby providing significant capital and operational savings. Since the system is based on digital
technology, the direct writing precision patterning process eliminates photomasks for RGB, is highly scalable and
greatly simplifies pattern change over.
The TCF System utilizes direct laser writing to selectively transfer a red, green or blue pigmented layer from a
donor film in a pattern shape to the glass substrate. The proprietary DuPont donor films are made via a large scale
roll-to-roll mass production coating process in the company’s newly completed state-of-the-art donor film
manufacturing plant. These dry films can be used for glass substrates up to 2.6 m in width. This direct writing
technique is a digital process that eliminates the use of photomasks. This results in significant cost savings, greater
flexibility in pattern change over, reduced turn
around time and the elimination of most of the
process steps required by the traditional method of
photolithography (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Comparison of conventional photolithography
process and DuPont thermal color filter system
During the direct writing process a variable pitch
laser head, tuned to the donor film, utilizes laser
energy to selectively release the color layer of the
donor film in a pattern shape onto the glass via
digital instruction preloaded into the system. A
multi channel light valve enables fine resolution
imaging to meet the requirements of a variety of
types of color filter patterns. The donor film
includes three layers: a polyester base, a proprietary
DuPont thermal release layer and a pigmented layer
specially formulated to meet color gamut
requirements for a range of LCD applications. The
system has high reliability potential as it leverages
the advantages of using light for imaging compared
to, for example, trying to pass liquid materials
through an ink nozzle.
48.4: Flexible Liquid Crystal Display Film by Plasma Alignment Method
Kang-Hung Liu, Chi-Chang Liao, Chin-Yang Lee and Huang-Chin Tang
Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Wei-Yang Chou, Horng-Long Cheng, Cheng-Ta Ho and Shih-Ting Lin
Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
This paper covers a plasma-beam-irradiated PI film used in flexible liquid crystal display manufacturing. The beam
had energy of 450 eV and incident angle of 70 degrees with respect to a normal flexible indium-zinc-oxide coated
substrate. The pretilt angle and anchoring energy of LCs on the plasma aligned PI surface were almost identical to
those on rubbing aligned PI surfaces. However, the optical performance of plasma aligned cell was superior to the
rubbing cell under various bending conditions.
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Figure 1: Cross-sectional view of flexible micro-cell
LCD film
October 2007
Furthermore, such non-contact alignment technology is
suitable for large area and roll-to-roll fabrication of flexible
LC films. In this study, the researchers propose a simple LC
alignment technique that uses a plasma beam. The beam is
used to treat a polyimide surface and then to align the LC on
a flexible substrate. They have demonstrated that the
technique is very effective to align most LCs, including
bendable substrates. The technique is also suitable for roll-toroll fabrication of flexible LCDs.
The schematic structure of the flexible LCD film is shown in
Figure 1. The substrates in the flexible microcell LCD films
were made from 120-µm-thick films of indium zinc oxide
(IZO) coated PC and were cleaned using alcohol. The LC
layer with microcell structure was inserted between two
plastic film-like substrates. To keep the cell gap constant
under bending conditions, a photolithography/etching
process with good repetition ratio was used to produce highquality spacers of the microstructure. The schematic diagram
of the plasma-aligned equipment is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Schematic of the paper-like Ar plasma
beam alignment system
Dell, p71
In terms of optical performance under bending conditions,
the flexible LCD film aligned by plasma method was
superior to the rubbed LCD film. Furthermore, the
researchers found that the plasma is suitable for larger area
panel and roll-to-roll production. A study on the atmospheric
pressure plasma is in progress in order to address the vacuum
issues.
Alexandre Orion, p77
Earth Day, p84
OLPC, p57
97 pages of insights from industry expert Keith Baker about e-waste. Learn about regulations, activities, and
products related to the environmental impact of displays. http://www.veritasetvisus.com
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Smart Fabrics 2007
May 7-9, Washington, DC
In this third and final report from the Intertech/Pira organized event, Mark Fihn covers presentations from
JFMagic/Exmovere, Philips, Textronics, Milliken, Interactive Wear, Future Shape and Foster-Miller
Visible and “Stealth Mode Mode” Bio Bio-Feedback Fiber Optic Displays
Lee Wainwright, JFMagic, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
David Bychkov, Exmovere, New York, New York
Fiber-optic fabric displays work as both visual devices (in such things as sleeve displays) and invisible devices
(such as FBI fabric panels used in stealth mode). Most body sensors today are not wireless and some require
implantation. Few methodologies for bio-sensing offer a sense of value-added to the operator. No on wants to work
while attached to a hospital-style apparatus. The public is wary of technologies associated with “lie detection” and
“brain finger-printing”.
Bio-sensory feedback technologies are one of the goals of fiber-optic
displays and might include such things as a wristwatch with sensors
and Bluetooth data transfer. The military is investigating “biotag”
measures to measure soldier stress and fatigue in real-time. Other
applications include athletes and working dogs. Integrating biofeedback with fiber-optic displays enables visual recognition of biosensory output. Displays on the surface of a jacket, for example, might
display various physiological states.
The development of non-obtrusive bio-feedback sensors have a ready
market in numerous categories, including: military operatives (body
armor covering), Navy SEALS (wetsuits), working dogs (vest
attachment), athletes training (real-time monitoring), mining
employees, mountain climbers, tunnel workers, HAZMAT handlers,
and firefighters.
Operator acceptance is the crucial
barrier to psycho-physical monitoring
MyHeart: Fighting Cardio-vascular Diseases by Prevention/Diagnosis
Harald Reiter, Philips, Eindhoven, Netherlands
As part of an EU-funded program, Philips is helping to develop Smartex
Textiles (specifically called MyHeart) as a technology carrier for monitoring
vital body signs integrated into daily life. The program aims to develop
innovative textile sensors, integrate textile sensors and electronics into
garments, and then design, fabricate, and industrialize the resulting functional
garments so they are ready for high-volume production.
Intermediate prototype tested
position and size, textile structure,
and materials of the electrodes
Major technical challenges for textile solutions included the creation of textile
electrodes, understanding of skin-electrode contacts, size/position/structure of
the electrodes, washable connectors, and the functionality of on-body
electronics. MyHeart is one of the biggest public research projects in the area
of personal healthcare and is focused on applications and commercialization.
The program has achieved high media visibility and is expected to have a
large impact on public health systems in Europe.
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Commercializing the NuMetrex Consumer Health Monitoring Garment
Stacey Burr, Textronics, Wilmington, Delaware
Burr discussed the development of the NuMetrex health bra as a case study. They started out with the premise that
wearing a heart rate monitor, particularly while exercising, resulted in discomfort from tightness, chafing, a
sweaty/wet feeling, slippage and a poor appearance. The solution was to replace the strap with a sports bra that has
textile sensors knit right into the fabric for a comfortable fit and breathable, quick dry feel. Burr related many of the
trials and tribulations associated with both the technology and commercial aspects of the NuMetrex development.
She concluded with a “Top 10 List”, identifying what was learned during the process:
1. Get a product line. It’s hard to sell one style, in one color.
2. Brands want innovation but make sure they will move volume, not just
use you for PR. A brand deal may not be as good as it seems.
3. Retailers are good partners – they can merchandise.
4. On-line and catalog retailers can help “educate”; room to tell a story
5. Companies you may view as competitors can be great collaborators
6. Textile factories “sneeze” at <10K units
7. You will be amazed at the amount of feedback you get from your
customers. People love to have a conversation with their supplier.
8. Budget in a lot of product sampling!
9. You will cry when you must destroy obsolete or faulty inventory
10. If you launch a bra, you need a lot of women on your team!
Electromagnetic Absorption in Fabrics: An Introduction to Radar Camouflage Systems
Fred DeAngelis, Milliken & Company, Spartanburg, South Carolina
DeAngelis provided a detailed overview about the nature of EMI and microwaves and how to create images with
electro-magnetic interactions that enable optimal camouflage. Conductive fabrics can be used to interact with
microwave radiation. Current fabric-based radar camouflage is effective but can be improved. Conducting
polymers offer a method of improving these fabrics and systems. There are other potential applications for fabrics
of moderate resistance, but none currently enjoy extensive markets. Milliken recently developed a new conductive
coating product: “polypyrrole coated textile” (Contex). The material can achieve surface resistance values as low as
100 ohms/square, a minimal weight add-on (2%), and it degrades in oxygen.
New conductive coatings from Milliken satisfy needs for both visible and electro-magnetic camouflage
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Wearable Electronics in Winter Sports – a heated Ski Glove
Markus Strecker, Interactive Wear, Starnberg, Germany
Strecker’s presentation discussed the mission of Interactive Wear, which is to develop and market “wearable
electronics” solutions, provides “ready to integrate” kits for garments, accessories or industry, and to focus on highquality “wearable electronics” products and solutions. These solutions are network-based. The current focus of
Interactive Wear’s work is on heating elements built into clothing. The company’s iThermX solution features
heating power up to 10 W, a single button user interface with optical feedback. The weight per system is
approximately 70 g (for the glove system). Li-ion cells
serve as the power source, typically heating for 2-4
hours. Future products are in development for
healthcare and sports and include biofeedback
integrated pedometers, heart rate monitors or
temperature sensors that provide physiological
information to the athlete, intelligent trainers (systems
that communicate to the athlete by audio feedback or
displays information, music pacing (continuous
adaptation of music speed to the average steps per
minute thereby enhancing the training effect, and
personal health monitoring (sensing and pre-processing
of heart beat, breath, temperature, motion, etc).
SensFloor: A Large-area Sensor System for Ambient Assisted Living
Christl Lauterbach, Future-Shape, Hohenbrunn, Germany
SensFloor is a smart underlay for all kinds of flooring designed with sensitivity and resolution sufficient for
detecting footsteps. The panels can be mass-produced in a roll-to-roll fabrication process and are easy to install.
SensFloor is comprised of a regular grid of capacitive proximity sensors beneath the flooring. The sensors detect
footsteps of people walking on the floor and an external receiver collects the sensor data and calculates the
movement trajectories, providing a variety of possible applications. Applications include: improved functionality
for automatic doors, calculating the trajectories of moving persons, saving energy and reducing door opening
cycles, intelligent room surveillance, safety and rescue scenarios, safety for elderly or handicapped people, pattern
recognition, and a variety of new functionality in commercial buildings.
On the left/center is a SensFloor application whereby pattern recognition can help identify healthcare problems.
Failure to detect someone walking in a room might also signal a call for help. Another SensFloor application is
to provide guidance or lighting via integrated LEDs
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Development of a Garment-based Physiological Monitoring System
Dave McDonald, Foster-Miller, Waltham, Massachusetts
The US Army wanted a wearable physiological monitor for soldiers – the
“Warfighter Physiological Status Monitor” that could measure heart rate,
respiration rate, activity level and body orientation, skin temperature, and that
could incorporate health status algorithms. The collected information would
then be broadcast to show the wearer’s status to a medic/command center.
FMI partnered with Malden Mills and secured separate funding to develop a
T-shirt based system. A Plartec body-mapped fabric was combined to create a
“CryePrecision” combat shirt. The focus of the development was to make the
solution comfortable, (Comfort = Compliance), so a flexible sensor platform
had to be created. Issues included comfort vs. robustness, comfort vs.
functionality, robustness vs. functionality, launderability, waterproofing, and
cost. After evaluation, a third party evaluation concluded that there is a “very
high correlation, indicating high consistency and agreement between lab and
garment based measures”, suggesting that the design works effectively in
measuring body status in real-world conditions.
Polartec body-mapped fabric +
CryePrecision combat shirt
Industry Forum on Printed Electronics
April 24, 2007, Chicago, Illinois
Phillip Hill’s third of three reports on this conference covers presentations from GSI Technologies, AddVision, Optomec, Honeywell, Novalia, and Polyera
Adam Laubach of GSI Technologies gave a presentation entitled “Functional Printing: Applications and
Requirements to Participate”. The agenda for his talk covered definition of functional printing; the functional print
value proposition; the functional printing industry; printable materials that deliver function; the evolution of
functional printed devices; profile of a real function printer; mass production needs and challenges; and GSI
Technologies’ capabilities.
The definition of functional printing is the deposition of a printable material that delivers a desired active or passive
function. The resulting product may have conductive, electro-active or even electronic utility. The functional
printing value proposition is based on scale and cost of printing (volume); function of electrical/electronics
(functional value); unique form factors possible –thin, laminar, bendable; addresses the macro trend: distributive
electronics require low cost and high function. Printable materials that deliver function involve passive functional
inks (conductive and resistive, carbon based inks, silver loaded inks, silver/silver chloride inks, copper loaded inks).
Dielectrics involved are barium titanate filled and titanium dioxide filled. Adhesives and spacers involve UV cured
tie layers, hot melt, and two-stage ambient/humidity cure.
GSI Technologies is a functional printing company and has been in the printing business for 21+ years. It produces
biosensors, electroluminescent (EL) lamps, displays, batteries, antennas, and proprietary products. GSI
Technologies’ business model is develop and produce: development partner/licensee of key technology; partner in
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the “scale-up” process (lab to production support); produce intermediate and finished products with global scale
capabilities.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Devin MacKenzie of Add-Vision (AVI) presented on “A Flexible P-OLED Display Technology Leveraging
Existing Print”. He began be giving an outline of a flexible P-OLED display technology leveraging existing print
technologies to enable rapid commercialization. He went on to explain why flexible printed OLED. OLEDS are
thin, light, low voltage, bright, colorful displays. Silicon is not an efficient light emitter, but with OLEDS, efficient
organic luminescence is possible across the spectrum. LCD, PDP, and others are inherently inefficient and/or
difficult to integrate. LCD and plasma technology are based on rigid glass and dimensional stability is important to
optical properties.
Compared with conventional OLED (see the illustration), the AVI solution uses a stable cathode so manufacturing
is in air and there is reduced encapsulation. It uses existing print tools so capital outlay is low. It is less sensitive to
non-uniformities and thickness variations giving improved yield in the print environment. OLED displays can be
produced on plastic - high volume, web printing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
David Ramahi, CEO of Optomec gave a talk on “Clean Technology Solutions for Producing High Density
Printable Electronics”. The company is concerned with next-generation additive manufacturing solutions to
produce high density printable electronics systems (<5 micron). It also produces metal deposition systems for
manufacturing and repair. It has been funded to >$25M in development with R&D contracts. 12 patents have been
issued with 30+ pending. More than 50 systems have been installed in 10 countries. Its customers included GE,
3M, Micronics, Samsung, Rolls-Royce, NASA, Siemens, Fraunhofer, Lockheed, US Army and Navy.
The M3D printed electronics system uses a patented material deposition process that supports many materials and
substrates. Processing is at room temperature producing feature sizes from <5 µm to millimeters and thin films
from 10 nm to micrometers. The system uses 3-5 axes of motion, multi-nozzle and multi-material. Initial target
applications are for conductive traces and circuitry, and embedded passive components. Compared to ink jet, M3D
produces a continuous flow of high density material droplets. M3D uses a sheath gas to prevent contact with the
nozzle to reduce clogging. The sheath gas then confines the material into a tightly focused stream for greater
accuracy. Compared to screen-printing, M3D has >10x finer features, >5x higher volumetric tolerances, i.e.
embedded resistors without laser-trim. There is less breakage, i.e. pressure of screenprint breaks thinner solar
wafers. Uptimes are better: M3D multi-nozzle has uninterrupted runtimes of more than 24 hours. Against inkjet,
features are >5x finer, 20-30x higher yield per nozzle; higher volumetric rates and metal loading; supports more
materials, including high viscosity commercial pastes; and has better edge definition.
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Peter Smith of Honeywell gave a presentation about RFID and printed electronics. He said that there is a huge
potential market for objects that need to be linked to IT systems. RFID is the means to make these connections. A
market in RFID is already developing today in high unit value, low volume segments. Printed electronics (a lower
cost RFID option) will displace the incumbent in high unit value segments, Smith said, and open up low unit value
segments with much greater volumes. Materials, specifically, organic semiconductors enable printed electronics.
The industry size will be 250 billion tags in 2016, he said.
Today, pallets, cases and certain high ASP items are
connected to the IT infrastructure. Over time, items
of lower value and smaller footprint have been
connected. In the future, more and more items will
be connected to the IT infrastructure. Radio
frequency identification is a means to achieve these
connections, he said. He went on to detail how
printed RFID can be achieved with organic
semiconductors. He the itemized where RFID
printed electronics would have an impact: value
creation in the retail trade to reduce out of stock;
finding missing items in a store; theft prevention;
savings on checkout labor.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Nick Stone of Novalia told the meeting about the activities of his company. Novalia develops printed electronic
applications based on high volume printing, patterning and deposition processes. It was founded in October 2004
and is based on Cambridge Science Park. Initial funding was from an 18 month UK DTI grant and has had recent
VC investment of £400,000. The company
identifies processes to print organic thin film
transistors by building partnerships with
universities, packaging manufacturers, materials
producers (inks, substrates, etc.), equipment
manufacturers, and printers/converters.
Stone said that there were two roles for printed
electronics: processes to create/manufacture
electronic devices (transistors (TFTs), solar cells,
sensors, displays; and adding value to existing
printed products (anti counterfeit for packaging,
toys/games, user interaction, board games, trading
Low-cost, high-resolution circuits
cards and greeting cards. He turned to applications
for electronic devices, which could be thin film transistors, sensors, display electrodes, or interconnects.
Applications are for flexible robust displays, medical/environmental/disposable sensors, logic circuits
(comparators, integrators, timers, non linear response, etc.), and RFID. There is potential for high volume and low
cost, extended range of form factor, robustness and flexibility, he said.
He concluded by saying that “end game” entailed convergence of printed devices and packaging; direct printing of
electronic devices on packaging; lamination or integration of printed devices onto product; truly smart packaging opportunities to add significant value.
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Henry Yan of Polyera gave a presentation entitled “Breaking through the materials bottleneck”. The mission
statement of the company is to develop and supply enabling materials technology for the flexible/printed/organic
electronics industry. Its core competencies are in polymer/small molecule design, functional ink formulation,
materials compatibility and interface, materials processing. It was spun-out of Professor Tobin Marks’ research at
Northwestern University in August of 2005. There is a materials bottleneck for OFET, Yan said. The most talkedabout property is mobility. Circuit designers say that mobility of 1 cm2/Vs is enough to open up large markets for
many products. Mobility of 1 cm2/Vs is very common in the literature. Where is the problem, the, he asked.
Published results do not transfer to commercial manufacturing processes and device architectures. Most OFET
materials development efforts are still conducted with a “sand-box” mentality. And there is a lack of CMOS
material set (no n-type semiconductors). The right way, he said, was to develop materials platforms, understand
commercial manufacturing processes and optimize materials for them, and understand and optimize for the device
architecture. Polyera’s development strategy is to develop optimized materials platforms for commercial processes
and device architectures; develop a CMOS platform in collaboration with BASF (ability to rapidly scale-up); and
for CMOS to have better performance, be more reliable, easier to design (the best n-type with mobility of about 0.1
cm2/Vs from solution).
He concluded by saying that there was lots of promise for printed circuitry but there were major needs on the
materials side. Polyera is focused on enabling the commercialization of the printable electronics industry by
supplying next generation materials platforms. “We are always looking for new partners on the
printing/manufacturing/circuit design side and are currently sampling our dielectric and semiconductor materials.
We strive to supply truth (Veritas) and vision
(Visus) to the display industry. We do this by
providing readers with pertinent, timely and
exceptionally affordable information about the
technologies, standards, products, companies and
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October 2007
Printed Electronics Europe 2007
April 17-18, Cambridge, UK
In this second of three reports on the IDTechEx-organized event, Phillip Hill covers
presentations from Arizona State University, Aveso, Enfucell, Kodak, and Leeds Lithium Power Limited
In one of two parallel tracks on the second day, a presentation by Hanna Haverinen of the Flexible Display Center
at Arizona State University was on “Inkjet Printed Quantum Dots for Light Emitting Devices”. He explained the
main reasons for using quantum dots: they have a narrow emission due to quantum confinement and emission is
controlled by the size of the dots using the same material such as CdSe.
He pointed out that even with the broadening of QD emission (e.g,
inhomogeneous broadening), the overall emission is still narrower than that
of OLED materials. Quantum dots are potentially more stable than organic
emitters and possess relatively easier chemistry than organic based emitters.
Photostability and electrochemical stability is better with quantum dots
(core-shell protection).
He went on to describe some of the ways to make quantum dots. Current
disadvantages are that they are expensive – 50 mg costs $1500 – uniform
size distribution is needed, they must be purified, and device fabrication is
challenging – an ultra-thin monolayer is required.
ASU uses CdSe/ZnS dots in an octadecylamine ligand. The core-shell
quantum dot is about 5 nm in diameter and in soluble in organic solvents
such as toluene and chlorobenzene. Printing was done by using a Dimatix
Materials Printer (DMP 2800) with a 10 picoliter head.
Core shell quantum dot
He concluded by saying that inkjet printing can be used in the fabrication of QD LEDs. It shows an excellent
mitigating to the cost problem of the quantum dots, but ink formulation is critical. Ink jet printing can be used for
obtaining almost single layer of dots. More work will be carried on ink chemistry and optimization of printing.
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Emily Selene de Rotstein of Aveso presented on “Low Cost, High Volume Flexible Displays For a New Generation
of Microelectronics”. She gave an introduction to the company before detailing leading consumer trends during
2007. She went on to describe the key display requirements for active packaging, smart labels and credit cards. She
said that the current market for active packaging was $100 million, that for smart labels $250 million and that for
display cards $500 million.
She said that the adoption of new card technology hinges on the ability to deliver volume, pricing and process, with
the capacity to deliver against potential demand for hundreds of millions of cards. The roadmap is towards a <$5
card - the industry “tipping point” for global adoption, leveraging the installed global infrastructure of
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October 2007
Visa/MasterCard approved secure card facilities. 95% of the world’s card manufacturing capacity is based on hot
lamination which the presenter said is the key to producing a low cost, high volume electronic display card with
perfect finish quality.
Aveso has partnered with SMARTRAC, one of the world’s
leading suppliers of high security RFID inlays for ePassports and
contactless credit cards, to industrialize electronic display inlays.
The inlay is delivered in sheet format, analogous to contactless
inlays and is easily processed in secure card manufacturing
facilities using existing hot lamination processes. Giesecke &
Devrient, a smart card industry leader, has produced display
cards by laminating SMARTRAC inlays between outer graphics
(see photograph).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Jaako Happonen of Enfucell gave a talk on the company’s “SoftBattery”. It is an
envelope or stamp-like thin power source, made by a roll-to-roll production technique
of environmentally friendly materials to provide stable 1.5 –3 V electricity for
disposable microelectronic devices. Happonen said that the estimated active RFID
market in 2016 will be $6 billion. The Enfucell (SoftBattery) sales will be about 1/6 of
these figures, he said. The key competitive advantage of SoftBattery is the 20-claim
patent (pending) for low cost production technology, he said. It beats the competitors’
technologies and gives Enfucell a licensing opportunity in production process. It is
traceable and cannot be by-passed.
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Christopher Winscom of Kodak in the UK presented on “An Alternative Color Architecture for Electroluminescent
Displays”. He pointed out that EL devices can have quite different compositions, dimensions and properties of their
active layers and can be current-driven (e.g. OLED, PLED, inorganic LED) or voltage-driven (e.g. powder ACEL
or thin film ACEL).
He went on to describe the various color architectures for EL displays. In color-by-RGB, individual R,G,B pixels
have different driving requirements and suffer differential performance loss with time. Uniform color performance
over display size and lifetime is difficult. With color-by-white (S.Tanakaet al, SID 88 Digest), there is a uniform
“true white” pixel behind a color filter array (CFA). It has an advantageous uniform driving requirement, but 67%
of the light is unused. Increased intensity levels cause shorter lifetimes and deterioration of white point. Color-byRGBW is essentially color-by-white, with an additional unfiltered white pixel. It helps preserve lifetime and whitepoint deficiencies but needs additional image management.
Winscom asked: “Why is full color difficult for EL displays?” With OLED displays, consistent manufacture of
“true white” OLED pixels is difficult and is hampered by lifetime issues & wavelength stability of the blue
emitters. But, he said, green-blue phosphorescent emitters of adequate lifetime would seem to be achievable. He
described color-by-blue from iFire. Blue ACEL (thin film) emission is down-converted to green and red, by
suitable inorganic phosphors or organic dyes, in a color conversion array. The advantage is drive requirements are
the same for each pixel record. The disadvantage is that with the blue and green pixels ~50% is wasted, and red
pixel an estimated >50% is wasted. Efficient red inorganic phosphor is lacking, and red-fluorescent organic dyes
offer poor conversion efficiency from blue (needs a large Stokes’ shift).
He then described color-by-green-blue (Kodak). Green-blue emission (e.g. from ACEL-optimized ZnS phosphors,
or from green-blue PHOLED devices) is filtered to provide individual blue and green records. To provide the red
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record, the green portion of the emission is down-converted by suitable efficient luminescent organic dyes. The
advantage is uniform drive requirements for each color record; R, G, and B efficiencies are more balanced, only
~50% wasted in each record. The disadvantage is that nevertheless, light is wasted in each record (US patent
application, 2006).
Kodak made a practical demonstration (see
figure) based around screen-printed EL lamps
(donated by Pelikon using Sylvania phosphors).
Red conversion strategy is by a separate
underlayer (vs. dye incorporation in dielectric
binder, or shelling phosphor). The RGB color
filter array is constructed using Kodak DuraClear,
a product designed for backlit displays using a stable photographic dye set. Manipulating overall color positions is
possible with the help of a proprietary modeling tool.
Winscom concluded by saying that this work was not mainstream to Kodak, but the (lifetime x brightness) vs. cost
trade-off might be of interest to other potential partners.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Alison Voice of Leeds Lithium Power Limited in the UK, a spin-out of Leeds University, gave a talk on “Polymer
Gel Electrolyte and Roll-to-Roll production of Thin Film Batteries”. The company is working on thin film batteries
that are completely flexible. Applications are smart cards; RFID tracking, monitoring, identification; medical
electronics – implants, TENS, monitoring, diagnostic; semiconductors; military. The structure is a robust, semiflexible laminate which can be cut and
packaged (see diagram). A wide range
of geometries are achievable –flat
sheets, wide sheets. Typical width is
40 mm, typical overall thickness is
250 µm. No separator is required and
capacity is 2.4 mAh/cm2 with specific
energy of 150 Wh/kg.
Extrusion lamination of rechargeable lithium batteries using polymer gel electrolytes based on PVDF produces a
speed of 10 m/min, thickness < 250µm and ionic conductivity of 10-3 S/cm. A robust flexible lightweight gel
electrolyte replaces costly separator, holds the cell together internally, and compatible with many electrode
materials.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Veritas et Visus (Truth and Vision) publishes a family of specialty newsletters about the displays industry:
Flexible Substrate
Display Standard
High Resolution
Touch Panel
3rd Dimension
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October 2007
Twenty Interviews
Volume 2 just released!
Interviews from Veritas et Visus newsletters – Volume 2
+ 21st Century 3D, Jason Goodman, Founder and CEO
+ Add-Vision, Matt Wilkinson, President and CEO
+ Alienware, Darek Kaminski, Product Manager
+ CDT, David Fyfe, Founder and CTO
+ DisplayMasters, David Rodley, Academic Coordinator
+ HDMI Licensing, Les Chard, President
+ JazzMutant, Guillaume Largillier, CEO
+ Lumicure, Ifor Samuel, Founder and CTO
+ Luxtera, Eileen Robarge, Director of Marketing
+ QFT, Merv Rose, Founder and CTO
+ RPO, Ian Maxwell, Founder and Executive Director
+ SMART Technologies, David Martin, Executive Chairman
+ Sony, Kevin Kuroiwa, Product Planning Manager
+ STRIKE Technologies, David Tulbert, Founder
+ TelAztec, Jim Nole, Vice President – Business Development
+ TYZX, Ron Buck, President and CEO
+ UniPixel Display, Reed Killion, President
+ xRez, Greg Downing, Co-founder
+ Zebra Imaging, Mark Lucente, Program Manager
+ Zoomify, David Urbanic, Founder, President, and CEO
78 pages, only $12.99
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October 2007
Interview with Craig Cruickshank from cintelliq
Craig Cruickshank founded cintelliq in 2002 in recognition that as basic research
in organic semiconductors moves from the research laboratories towards early
commercialization it is imperative that organizations with a vested interest in the
technology have access to sufficient industry information. cintelliq focuses on
providing publications on the commercial and technology developments of the
industry such as — the OSA Direct newsletter and the Organic Semiconductor
Patent Analyst. cintelliq is also responsible for establishing the annual Organic
Semiconductor Conference in 2003 and which was recently renamed the Organic
Electronics Conference and held in Frankfurt, Germany. Prior to cintelliq, Craig
gained first-hand industry knowledge and experience while working for
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Cambridge Consultants, one of the
world’s leading technology management consultants. Craig holds a BSc. Physics,
MSc. Digital Systems, and an MBA from the Manchester Business School.
Please give us a bit of background information about cintelliq. cintelliq was founded in 2002 to monitor and
analyze the technical and commercial activities in the “organic semiconductor” industry. Our emphasis is on
collecting facts that we then analysis and turn into information for a wide audience. At the present time, cintelliq
focuses on industry developments rather than market forecasts. Our skills are biased towards technology, and this is
reflected in the products and services we offer. The tangible things cintelliq does is to provide consultancy,
newsletters, journals, reports and conferences.
Is there a meaning behind the name? Yes there is a meaning behind the name cintelliq. It reflects what we do.
cintelliq collects information or intelligence, then analyses it and puts it into various outputs – newsletters, reports,
and consultancy. Our processes are aimed at making all this technical and commercial information and analysis
easier for others to understand – we have essentially codified the intelligence – and so cintelliq is derived from
these two words – codifying and intelligence.
There are many phrases used to describe the industry you cover; you’ve chosen “organic semiconductors”.
Please elaborate. cintelliq is often asked why do you use the term “organic semiconductors” rather than say
organic electronics, plastic electronics, printed electronics, etc. This is an interesting question. If we think about the
traditional electronics based on silicon then we can clearly see that there are companies that design and build
“chips” these are the semiconductor companies, it also includes the equipment and material suppliers. Then there
are all the electronics companies that make use of these “chips” to make products based on “chips”. So we believe
that there are parallels in the “organic” world – and we have organic semiconductor companies and organic
electronics companies. At the moment they are one and the same. Over time this will change.
You recently completed the 5th rendition of your Organic Electronics Conference. Tell us about attendance
trends over the years. Are you seeing any changes in the types of companies attending the event today as
compared to when the conference first started? The first conference was held in Cambridge, UK in 2003 and
was called the Organic Semiconductor Conference (OSC-03). At our first conference we had 66 attendees. In 2006
we partnered with the Organic Electronics Association, renamed the conference to the Organic Electronics
Conference (OEC) and moved it to Frankfurt. This year at OEC-07 we had more than 400 attendees – a 33%
increase over OEC-06. The companies who spoke at OEC-07 were fairly similar to those that spoke at the first
conference, and in fact many of the delegates at the first conference have attended all five conferences. The main
difference now is that we are seeing more companies who are starting to deploy the technology, or who intend to be
active in some way, but who may not necessarily build devices themselves such as materials suppliers, equipment
suppliers, and application developers.
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Do you foresee a day when organic devices will displace inorganic electronic devices? It depends on which
organic devices are included in the discussion. OLEDs for displays and lighting applications have the possibility to
replace most of the incumbent technologies. For transistor circuits, the potential to replace silicon is far into the
future, if ever. At the present moment in time there is a real need for simple electronics, operating at low
frequencies and capable of being fabricated using printing techniques. Organic devices offer this whereas it is not
possible with silicon. The opportunity for organic devices is to fill the space that cannot be achieved with silicon
and not to replace silicon.
What do you think are the biggest barriers associated with the rapid commercialization of organic
electronics? The industry has spent much time and effort in developing the technology, however, much of the
communication to interested parties, those that could make use of the technology, is still about technology
performance. There is still a real need to educate end-users about the potential of this technology and how it can be
used to develop new products. The market will grow much faster when there is sufficient market pull.
Several companies have been working for quite some time now on active-matrix polymer-based displays.
What’s taking so long for these efforts to achieve commercial success? Active matrix OLED displays in
general have been slow to enter the marketplace. Polymer OLED materials have been cited as having insufficient
lifetimes for commercial products, but this is rapidly changing as there are now polymer materials available with
lifetimes acceptable for commercial use. By far the biggest factors affecting the commercialization of AMOLEDs
have been due to scale-up and backplane yield issues.
Do you see a time when OLEDs will simply displace LCDs? There is something magical about watching
television on an OLED-based display; the viewing experience is so much warmer than a LCD. Once OLED
displays have achieved something close to cost parity and larger diagonal displays, then they have a very good
opportunity to replace LCD as the incumbent technology for displays. If this threat was not real, then why are all
the major LCD manufacturers actively engaged in OLED development and production?
You’ve suggested that the number of companies who are likely to make the transition from R&D to mass
production over the next three years is unlikely to be significant. Please explain. My initial comments were
that the market forecasts will not be
met. This is for several reasons.
Looking at the market forecasters they
have all been indicating very
aggressive growth between 2006 and
2010. However, to fulfill this market
demand requires the necessary
production capacity to be in place. At
present there is virtually no significant
production capacity available. There
are only a few companies that have
declared their intentions to go into
production. Most of this capacity will
only go on stream toward the end of
2008, and given the size of the
forecasts then there is insufficient
capacity. A consequence of this is a
delay in market take-up. The forecasts
The number of companies who are most likely to make the transition to
are about 2 to 3 years earlier than is
production over the next 3 years is not significant
most likely.
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Tell us about your research in the area of patents in the area of organic electronics. cintelliq focuses on
technology and facts. Patents are an important indicator of technical activity, and of course based on actual filings.
Since 2004 cintelliq has collected patent information. This allows cintelliq to have a very clear picture of the level
of technical inventions in the organic semiconductor industry. Each quarter a new report is produced detailing the
activities of all companies filing related patents. These patents are then classified in terms of whether they are
related to OLEDs, transistors, photovoltaics, memory, sensors or lasers. We then also classify them in terms of
whether they are related to materials, deposition, fabrication, device architecture, patterning, encapsulation, or
substrates. This allows a solid foundation on which to undertake further analysis.
Do you see regional trends related to patent applications or do all regions seem to be focused on similar areas
of development? OLED patents dominate, accounting for nearly 70% of all patents filed. In 2006 more than 7000
patents were included in the patent database. Many of the OLED patents are focused on process related inventions,
which is to be expected as they have commercialized first. European and US based companies are very active in
filing transistor, sensor, memory and photovoltaic patents. From a country perspective the largest percentage of
patents in our database are filed in Japan. However, different countries and different companies have their own
patent filing strategies. It is not appropriate to judge one country or another simply in the number of patents filed. It
is important to understand the content. Some patents have very broad claims while others are narrow. The Japan
patent office encourages the filing of patents with narrow claims and this encourages more patents, whereas in the
US and Europe patent offices patents with broad claims are acceptable and so fewer patents may be filed.
Are most patents related to organic electronics coming from small, start-up companies, or from large, wellestablished companies? OLED patents tend to be dominated by the manufacturing companies, which are
generally the large and well-established companies from Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Outside of displays, the
companies filing patents are evenly spread among large mature companies and young start-ups.
Do you see any areas related to intellectual property that may destabilize growth of the industry because of
IP battles or monopolistic royalty positions? I am sure that as OLED technologies start becoming successful in
the market place, then it is likely that companies will get sued over IP. It happens in most technologies, including
LCD, so why should organic semiconductor technologies be any different?
In your opinion, in the field of organic electronics, can companies survive based solely on a patent licensing
business model? The only companies adopting a technology licensing model have been those that own
fundamental OLED IP. Non-display based companies such as PolyIC, Polymer Vision, Plastic Logic, Nanoident,
etc., are all choosing to adopt a direct manufacturing business model. This is the way forward that the new entrants
have chosen to commercialize their technologies. Product licensing strategies may surface in the future.
What do you think is the single most exciting thing that was newly presented at your recent conference?
This is not an easy question. Picking a single thing means that I have to ignore many fascinating developments and
possibly offend many people. So, I’ll side step the question and say that the most exciting thing to be seen at the
conference was the growing number of companies who have reached a stage where products entering the
marketplace are now a reality.
Likewise, what is the most disappointing development (or lack of development) that seems to be looming on
the horizon? There are simply not enough companies developing technologies and products.
Do you foresee a day when the mass production of organic electronic devices in Europe will be on a scale that
is competitive with Asian manufacturing? This is an interesting question but it is too simplistic. At present much
of the display industry is based in the Far East, however, there is a growing semiconductor industry based in
Dresden. Organic electronics is also beginning to be established in Dresden, Plastic Logic is building its first fab
there. Novaled and others are also based in Dresden. There is every possibly that a manufacturing cluster for
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organic electronics could be established in Dresden. As always economics will play a major role in deciding where
production capacity will eventually be established.
Between January 2000 and September 2007 more than $1.3 billion in VC and government investment has been
committed to organic semiconductor technologies in the US and Europe.
In the next three years, what do you think will be the single area in the organic electronics industry that is
most likely to achieve major strides into more traditional device manufacturing? OLED displays have the
potential to erode the market share of LCD based displays. However, other devices such as transistors, sensors,
photovoltaics, etc., will expend the market, and open new opportunities that are not possible with conventional
electronics.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Twenty Interviews
Interviews from Veritas et Visus newsletters
Volume 1
+ Actuality Systems, Gregg Favalora, Founder and CTO
+ Cambrios, Hash Pakbaz, VP Business Development
+ DisplaySearch, Barry Young, Senior Vice President
+ EBL-WG, Kamal Shah, Chairman
+ E Ink, Russ Wilcox, President and CEO
+ Elo TouchSystems, Mark Mendenhall, President
+ Gunze, John Stetson, Sales Manager
+ Optronic Systems, Alexandre Fong, VP Sales and Marketing
+ NeurOK Optics, Tom Striegler, CEO
+ Polar Sensor Technologies, David Chenault, President
+ Rolltronics, Glenn Sanders, Chief Operating Officer
+ SeeReal Technologies, Erik Nielsen, Director of Sales
+ Silicon Image, Brett Gaines, VP Strategic Business
+ Steridian, Guido Voltolina, Chief Marketing Officer
+ TouchKO, Ted Cox, Chief Marketing Officer
+ UniPixel Displays, Jim Tassone, Chief Finance Officer
+ University of Cincinnati, Jason Heikenfeld, Professor
+ USDC, Brett Bryars, Director of Technical Programs
+ Vitex Systems, Robert Jan Visser, Chief Technical Officer
+ Wacom, Steve Sedaker, Sales Manager
65 pages, only $12.99
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October 2007
Interview with Adam Laubach from GSI
The Functional Printing Division GSI Technologies is a leading producer of medical
electrodes, smart card inlays, electroluminescent lamps and antennae. The division is led
by company CTO and functional printing general manager, Adam Laubach, who joined
the company in early 2006. Laubach brings 15 years of material science-based product
development, commercialization and B2B business management to GSI. He is a
recognized leader in the field of “printed electronics”, and was co-founder and CTO of the
Dow Chemical spin-off, Aveso Displays. Prior to leaving Dow, Adam served as the
commercial development manager for a NIST funded JV between Motorola and Xerox
focused on polymer semiconductor materials and devices.
Please give us some background about GSI, and especially your functional printing
group. Graphic Solutions was founded by Bob and Suzanne Zaccone (a brother and
sister team) in 1985. GSI started distributing, then producing products that are now part
of the GSI industrial graphics side of the business (primarily labels and nameplates). Around 1995, GSI entered
conductive printing development and has been commercially producing “functional printing” products since 2000.
At the start of 2007, we renamed the company to GSI Technologies to indicate our future direction and created
specialized divisions to give better focus to our target markets. The functional printing division now represents
more than 75% of all GSI revenues.
What exactly is “functional printing”? Functional printing involves the deposition of functional components
using additive printing processes. Conductive traces, resistors, electrodes, electrolytes and spacers are all examples
of printed functional discrete devices, which when assembled in multiple layers, create fully functional electrical
products like antennae, switches, displays, batteries, sensors, etc… Another way to think about functional printing
is as the assembly of electrical or electronic devices utilizing printing processes.
Give us an overview of your printing technology. Today GSI practices flat-bed and cylinder deposition with
manual, automated sheet-fed and web (reel-to-reel) material handling, using thermal and UV curing. GSI also has
access to rotary screen, flexographic and gravure presses for development work.
Please describe the advantages that are associated with your functional printing processes. The primary
advantage of screen printing is its low tooling cost and relative ease of use for development and manufacturing.
We can rapidly develop and scale using the process, as the material sets and processes are relatively consistent from
our development through world-scale asset base, thus supporting GSI’s “lab to fab” business model.
Is GSI’s focus on just the printing processes or are you also involved in ink formulation and substrate
development? While GSI does not directly engage in material science-related development, we work closely with
most existing and emerging functional printing and printed electronic material set providers to meet our joint
customer needs. In many cases, material suppliers will use GSI presses as a “test bed” for new material evaluations.
What is your preferred substrate? What alternative substrates can you also use? GSI focuses primarily on
plastic substrates like PET and PETG, but we have processed on PI, PEI, coated materials and paper. In general, if
it is flexible, >75 micron thick, and softens at >80 degC, we can handle it. In fact our long driers (up to 96 feet) and
vacuum belts/boxes are nicely set-up for “difficult-to-handle” materials.
Tell us about the sort of things that new ink formulations are enabling with regard to printable electronics.
• Functionality – including opto-electric, emissive, photo-voltaic and electronic.
• Resolution – <75 micron line & spacing for macro structures (like antennae) using analog deposition and
<10 micron line & spacing for micro structures (like OFET electrodes) using digital deposition techniques.
• Economics – thinner deposition of more densely packed materials = lower cost.
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There are numerous printable materials that can deliver a functional response when processed correctly.
Solutions include such things as sensors, batteries, solar cells, displays, etc. Where is GSI focused? GSI’s
strategic market focus is targeted at the following applications:
•
•
•
Medical - therapeutic and diagnostic electrodes
Smart cards - payment and security smart card inlays, including display elements and antennae
Solar - photovoltaic current collectors and electrodes
To date, the printing of active RFID tags seems to have been your mainstay. Do you expect that to continue?
In fact our largest business is medical electrodes. Due to alternative material (Cu and Al) availability and
economics, GSI has de-emphasized the focus on RFID.
How “smart” can you make a smart card? Through GSI capabilities and key partners, systems-on-card may
include one or more of the following: uP, antennae, display element, battery and a button.
Do you plan to ramp your functional printing capabilities to mass production levels, or do you intend to
license your technology to others? GSI is already in “mass production” on a number of our product lines, and we
are confident that by using web processing, we can remain globally competitive. In fact our customer base is
comprised of North American and European customers that use our intermediates in globally distributed products.
If a customer requires supply-chain diversification or compression, we will engage in locating a production unit
that meets our customer’s needs or locating an appropriate sub-contractor in the appropriate geography.
Describe what you envision to
be GSI’s “perfect customer”.
GSI works with both small startups and large multi-national
companies that are engaged in
either emerging applications or
material technologies. Our perfect
customer is one with a unique or
advantaged product made at least
partially using functional printing
that requires the migration from
“lab to fab” as well as globalscale production. Our current
strategic target markets also have
substantial value chain elements
in North America and Europe,
making GSI’s capability to
directly service the next step in
the value chain possible, as we
have both US and Germany-based
engineering capability.
Examples of GSI’s functional printing products
Approximately how much do
you think a factory using your technology would cost to install? While the cost of GSI capital and operating
expenses is proprietary, it is safe to assume that the equipment and facilities side of the cost equation is similar to
most small to medium sized print operations. The real expense (or rather investment) is on the people side.
Collectively GSI has more than 100 years of engineering and production management expertise specific to
functional printing, and ~33% of all personnel in direct support of the functional printing division either have
engineering degrees or are capable of serving in an engineering capacity.
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Is all of the production equipment readily available, or is there still equipment that needs to be developed to
move into mass production? All screen printing production equipment (both sheet and web) is production ready.
Our SMT and web based assembly capabilities are still in development.
What do you see as the biggest material limiters today that are still needed before your technology can take
off? Primarily functionality including opto-electric, emissive, photo-voltaic and electronic. Another large need is
power, both fully printed battery constructs as well as automated discrete battery attach.
In terms of display devices that elicit an electrical function, (EL, electrochromic, electrophoretic, OLED,
etc.), is there one that is best suited for your processes? We practice EL and electrochromic in full and
development production today, and we are actively investigating printed OLED. All three are very well suited for
the screen printing production approach.
When can we expect to see displays from you in mass production? Today – EL in automotive backlights and
nightlights. You’ll see smart card display elements in 2008.
Do you plan to produce in a roll-to-roll process or a sheet fed process? Both. We plan to produce in sheet-fed
primarily for development and low volume production and then roll-to-roll for large scale production.
Tell us about some of the companies you are partnering with to bring your technology to production. Most
partner companies are confidential, but some examples across the supply chain include:
•
•
•
•
OEMs in the medical and smart card space such as G&D
Component technology suppliers such as Solicore
Material suppliers like DuPont
Consulting groups like IDTechEx
Are you partnering with any of the industry initiatives focused on printable electronics? Yes, primarily the
Organic Electronics Association.
Tell us what you think GSI will look like as a company three years from now. Much the same, still practicing
“lab to fab”, but the “fab” part will be bigger and our functional printing capabilities will be much more expansive.
On the left is an image of GSI’s functional printing web line; on the right is their SMT line for functional printing
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Interview with Mike Thwaites from Plasma Quest
Professor Mike Thwaites, (BSc, PhD, CSci, CPhys, MIEEE,
FinstP) is CEO of Plasma Quest Limited, an R&D company
located in Hook, England. PQL specializes in the development
of novel thin film deposition processes/systems, including those
associated with the development of advanced amorphous
silicon, polycrystalline silicon, and CIGS based photovoltaic
devices. Thwaites spent over nine years developing thin film
based solar cells at the BP Research Centre, followed by a
further eight years leading the development of novel thin film
devices and process systems for BOC. Overall, he has over 25
years experience in the development of thin film devices and
deposition processes.
Please give us some background information about Plasma Quest. PQL is an R&D company specializing in
the development of complex thin film deposition and plasma enhanced processes, mainly for external customers
(this includes work for universities). Most of the processes are based on PQL’s proprietary sputtering technology.
We do sell equipment, which is designed by PQL but built externally. We also, in conjunction with some of the
UK’s leading universities, teach students up to doctoral level. In fact we have been called the “University of Hook”.
Traditional magnetron-based sputtering has some deficiencies with regard to utilization and target stability.
Can you elaborate? Due to the requirement of placing magnets behind the target to enhance the ion density in a
magnetron sputtering process, this leads to the development of the well-known racetrack in the target surface. The
combination of racetrack and reliance on the magnetic field propagating through the target leads to:
•
•
•
•
Low target utilization.
Poisoning of the target during reactive sputtering, requiring pulsed DC or optical feedback control.
The necessity to use thin targets and strong local magnets when sputtering from a ferromagnetic target.
Problems with process stability whilst sputtering from a compound target. Once conditioned there are
still changes in the thin film composition as a function of the development of the racetrack.
Tell us about your HiTUS sputtering process and how it overcomes the problems faced by magnetron
systems. In our HiTUS (“High Target Utilization Sputtering”) based systems, the plasma is generated remotely in
a quartz tube adjacent to the main deposition chamber. With
suitable magnetic coupling, a high density of low energy Ar
ions (not energetic enough to sputter directly) is delivered to
the target surface. Biasing the target negatively (as in
conventional magnetron sputtering) accelerates the Ar ions
across the sheath were they collide with the target and sputter
the target. Because the plasma is generated remotely there is
no need for local magnets behind the target, as required in
magnetron sputtering. Therefore there is no racetrack and
sputtering is now not reliant on magnetic field penetration
through the target. The advantages are:
•
•
High target utilization.
Reduction in target poisoning during reactive
sputtering. Pulse DC optical feedback control not
required. Deposition rate can be ten times faster than
magnetron sputtering for a reactive sputtering process.
One of the advantages of the HiTUS system is the
elimination of racetrack effects typical of
magnetron-based sputtering processes, thereby
substantially improving target utilization.
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•
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October 2007
One can sputter from thick targets even when using a ferromagnetic target.
Stable process, even when sputtering from a compound target.
Does HiTUS enable any other advantages with regard to cost or performance when compared to magnetron
systems? Yes. Advantages include:
•
•
•
•
High deposition rates (particularly with reactive sputtering or when using ferromagnetic targets), which
lead to high yield rates.
Opto-electronics properties very close to bulk properties.
Good stress control.
Good adhesion.
Do you also claim advantages over other
coating systems such as ion-beam, thermal
evaporation, and CVD?
Yes. We note
improvements in overall physical properties and
deposition rates.
You recently deposited ITO onto PI and PEN
at room temperatures. Explain why this is
important. PQL was able to deposit ITO with
good electro-optic properties on to flexible PET
and PEN without destroying the PET or PEN.
This is useful for the development of flexible
displays.
ITO layers have historically been problematic,
particularly for flexible substrates, due to
cracking issues when flexed. Does your
solution reduce these ITO cracking issues?
Not sure. Need more investigations.
In Plasma Quests’ HiTUS based systems, the plasma is generated
remotely in a quartz tube adjacent to the main deposition
chamber. HiTUS delivers very high quality thin film materials
with near ideal physical properties, very low stress and excellent
adhesion – whether on metal, glass or plastic substrates.
Typical ITO sputtering solutions tend to waste a substantial amount of the target. Can you quantify the level
of efficiency of your process versus the incumbent processes? Clearly the target utilization is better for our
technology, but this needs to be judged alongside the material transfer factor, which we have not yet optimized.
In addition to your recent work related to ITO, have you witnessed success with regard to any other
transparent conductors? Yes, we’ve seen promising results with ZnO, InO2, and SnO2.
Please give us any additional observations about why you think HiTUS is well-suited for flexible display
solutions. We can deposit high quality material, with low stress at low temperatures and a high deposition rate.
Plasma Quest recently deposited gold on a plastic substrate. Why is this significant? Gold is difficult,
primarily due to its poor adhesion to most substrates. The gold that we deposited had a specific resistivity close to
bulk with very good adhesion, again all at ambient temperatures and without an adhesion promoting layer.
You have the ability to simultaneously sputter multiple target materials. Can this be done in other sputtering
processes, and what advantages do you offer in this area? Yes, other sputtering processes can simultaneously
sputter, it is called co-sputtering. With our co-sputtering technology we analyze the chromaticity of the plasma and
use this information to control the power to the individual targets, this gives us real time control of the sputtering
process.
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Plasma Quest recently announced a new plasma launch system. Tell us about some of the new features have
been introduced. This is our linear sputtering process. Here the plasma is generated remotely as before, but
instead of being steered through 90o towards a circular target, the plasma is directed along the long axis of a
cylindrical target. The entire cylindrical target can now be sputtered. Currently, we are able to sputter from a target
50 cm long by 7.5 cm in diameter. All the advantages of our HiTUS apply to the new linear technology.
Plasma Quest recently redesigned their plasma launch system (PLS) for use in sputter deposition production
environments. One of the primary advantages of the new design is that the plasma can be directed along the axis of a
cylindrical target that enables web processing.
You currently operate primarily as an R&D center. Are there any plans to expand your scope into a system
manufacturer and/or a deposition service yourself? No.
Tell us more about how you enable web processing. Clearly
using a target in the form of a cylinder is an enabling web
processing technology, with the web width a function of the
target length.
What are the biggest challenges that still demand
improvement – either with regard to quality, performance,
or cost? The development of a pre-production system to
demonstrate the potential of our linear deposition technology.
Tell us a little about what you are doing with regard to
flexible solar cells. We will be using our linear technology to
deposit thin film amorphous silicon solar cells at low
temperatures onto flexible substrates such as PEN/PET.
This is a 50 cm linear target, which enables
Tell us one of your favorite customer satisfaction stories. A
concept related to in-line linear source coating
large US-based company wanted to deposit a ferromagnetic
systems that could support continuous feed,
material onto a flexible substrate with low stress. They had been
web, or carrier plate processes.
trying for about a year with little success. They found it difficult
to sputter the material for reasons mentioned earlier, but even when they did it just rolled up like a cigar due to the
inherent stress. Representatives from this company came to PQL for a week. We sputtered the ferromagnetic
material easily and deliberately produced the thin film with compressive stress and then with tensile stress, finally
controlling the process parameters between the two types of stress condition, we managed to fabricate the film with
virtually zero stress, which is what they wanted!
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The huge impact of printed transistors
by Peter Harrop
Dr Peter Harrop PhD, FIEE is chairman of IDTechEx Ltd. He was previously chief
executive of Mars Electronics, the $260 million electronics company, and chairman of
Pinacl plc, the $100m fiber optic company. He has been chairman of over 15 high tech
companies. He has written 14 books on technical subjects, these being published by the
Financial Times, John Wiley and others. He lectures and consults internationally on
RFID, smart labels, printed/organic electronics and smart packaging.
What new electronic product is being researched by organizations in over 30 countries
but none have sold anything yet? It is of huge significance to everyone in the electronic,
printing, merchandising and healthcare industries, to name just a few. It is the printed
transistor. To be more precise, it is thin film transistor circuits (TFTCs) that do not
employ traditional crystalline or amorphous silicon, germanium or gallium arsenide and
that can therefore be deposited at high speeds onto low cost flexible substrates.
Flexible transistor circuits using new compounds: Traditionally, semiconductors are made as crystalline as
possible to optimize their performance but even that is no longer the case. The new transistors variously use thin
films of organic or inorganic compounds as the semiconductors and gate dielectrics, enabling flexible transistor
circuits. One printable inorganic semiconductor favored by Toppan Printing and Tokyo Institute of Technology is
an amorphous combination of InGaZnO, for example, and it can be cured at low temperature. Electrodes in the new
transistors are sometimes metal but sometimes they consist of conductive organic compounds.
Similarities with old types of transistor: There are similarities with the old silicon chip and the amorphous silicon
transistor array on the back of an LCD display today. The new transistors are field effect transistors (FETs). Most
use the forty-year-old geometry where the controlled current passes horizontally but some (e.g. ORFID Inc in the
USA) use vertical geometry to reduce feature size, increase frequency and current carrying capacity and/or reduce
cost. Almost all potential markets for these new transistors are for arrays of large numbers of transistors, not
individual transistors. Putting p type and n type back to back in a complementary metal oxide semiconductor
(CMOS) configuration is favored with the new as with the old technology, for example, to save power. Although
very high power versions for electrical use are also in prospect, they are not the largest potential market. Some of
these circuits of hundreds to millions of transistors will involve other devices such as sensors, diodes and fuses
deposited at the same time. All this is very similar to the old technologies. But there the similarities stop.
Remarkable capabilities: The new transistors can be deposited on low cost flexible substrates such as PET and
PEN film, aluminum or stainless steel foil. As yet, they are much larger than today's silicon transistors but they can
be one hundredth of the cost, thinner and lighter in weight. Every one can be made differently if required. In other
words hard-wired programming for a batch size of one is viable. Small runs and redesigns are still very low cost, in
stark contrast to the situation with traditional transistors. Some are totally transparent. For example, proponent 3T
Technologies in the UK calls itself the “transparent electronics company”. Some are much more stable than
amorphous silicon, even working for years without protection from the elements. Some will be stretchable and even
biodegradable and made on paper thanks to Abo Akademi and Helsinki University in Finland, ACREO and
Linkoping University in Sweden and others. Those new transistors that are printed, such as the Hewlett Packard
ones using zinc oxide based transistors in thermal inkjet printers, can be made at very high speed, reel to reel over
large areas. Such area is needed for driving the pixels of huge billboards and signage for example. Currently most
of the new transistors are limited to frequencies around tens of megahertz, but this still embraces the most popular
frequency for RFID permitting sales of trillions to be contemplated rather than the limit of no more than tens of
billions yearly imposed by the cost of the silicon chip in today's RFID label.
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The higher the mobility of the charge carrier in the semiconductor, the higher the frequency of the transistor, all
other things being the same. Improving printable and thin film semiconductors is therefore a hot area of research
and some examples are given below, though the situation is rapidly changing. However, Plastic E Print in the UK
has a version made in a single layer that can achieve terahertz frequency. Some printed transistors are fault tolerant
and therefore of interest to NASA and the healthcare community. Eastman Kodak in the USA has recently patented
edible printed RFID.
The chart on the left shows typical carrier mobility in different potential TFTC semiconductors (actual and envisaged).
On the right is a regional distribution of 150 organizations developing printed transistors. )
Source IDTechEx report “Printed and Thin Film Transistors and Memory”
Huge new markets: The new transistors are the key to huge new markets that the silicon chip will never reach.
They will transform medicine, for example, making sophisticated diagnostic and drug delivery skin patches viable
and a multitude of disposable testers of bodily fluids. They will herald the smart package for merchandising, with
moving color images, sound and storage of books, videos etc as incentives. They will lead to safer dispensing of
medicines, recording what was taken when, prompting and much, much more.
The largest segment of the total printed electronics industry (encompassing displays, sensors, photovoltaics, etc.)
will be printed transistors and memory. They will drive lighting, displays, signage, electronic products, medical
disposables, smart packaging, smart labels and much more besides. The chemical, plastics, printing, electronics and
other industries are cooperating to make it happen. Already, over 150 organizations are developing printed
transistors and memory, with first products being used in 2007. The market will take off slowly initially, reaching
$40 million in 2009 then grow rapidly as technical challenges are overcome, reaching $8 billion by 2017.
IDTechEx has a new report “Printed and Thin Film Transistors and Memory”. It explains the many chemical and
construction technologies of the new transistors and memory, profiles a large number of the developers and their
plans, and forecasts the market size for 2007 to 2017, as the first production products burst on the scene and a
multi-billion dollar business is created. 150 organizations developing the new transistors are compared. They are
distributed as follows.
These transistors are the engine of the emerging printed and potentially printed electronics market. That will
become a $300 billion business and many billion-dollar companies will be created on the back of it, transforming
many sectors of society and industry. No one can ignore that. http://www.IDTechEx.com/tftc
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Silicon inks for electronics
by Lawrence Gasman
Lawrence Gasman is principal analyst and founder of NanoMarkets LC, in Glen
Allen, Virginia. He has over 25 years of experience as a high-tech consultant for
companies including Analog Devices, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Fujitsu,
NEC, Nortel and NTT, and is also the author of three books on telecommunications
topics. He is also on the editorial board of the Foresight Nanotech Institute and is a
regular speaker at various nanotechnology and display related conferences. This
article first appeared in the NanoMarkets TOP Blog on September 16, 2007.
NanoMarkets recently released a new report on silicon inks: “Opportunities for
Nanocrystalline Silicon and Silicon Inks in Electronics”. http://www.nanomarkets.net
Recently, the joys of nanoparticles have come to prominence in thin film electronics with the appearance - and
increasing use - of silver nanoparticulate inks. These nano-inks are intended to replace the silver pastes and inks
that have been used for years in thick-film (i.e., screen-printed) electronics. The advantages of silver nano-inks lie
in the fact that they have inherently higher performance characteristics than conventional inks. Nanoparticles
therefore pack tightly and so inks made with them have better thermal and electrical conductivity. So silver nanoinks need less silver and lower temperature processing to create an electrode.
These silver inks have begun to be followed to the market by nano-inks made from copper, nickel and gold. All that
is being hoped for here is that the transition from conventional ink to nano-ink will occur with (say) copper in the
same way it did for silver. Since the applications are very similar for both silver and copper inks, this is a fairly safe
strategy.
Printed silicon and nanosilicon: But it also immediately raises a couple of interesting questions. The first one is:
“What other electronic materials, could be useful in nanoparticulate form?” In answering this question, silicon
immediately suggests itself for consideration. It is after all the single most important material in electronics
applications ranging from high-speed processors to photovoltaics.
The second question is what other common electronic materials - apart from silver, gold, nickel and copper - could
be made into inks? The motivation for asking such a question is that it may be possible to capitalize on the
economics of printing vs. vapor deposition or photolithography. Researchers and product development teams are
taking a look at new ink types that use ZnO, ITO and carbon nanotubes... and there is also a growing interest in
printing silicon.
It is important to recognize that the two questions set out above are separate but linked. Silicon inks need not be
made with nanoparticles. Indeed, in important cases, now being researched, they are not. Yet, using nanoparticles in
inks can give these inks improved performance, as in the case of the silver nano-inks mentioned above. It is also
true that nanoparticulate silicon need not be deposited with a printing technology and in some applications - nextgeneration computer memory being one example - clearly will not be. Yet, if there is some way to use printing to
deposit nanoparticles it will surely be attractive to take this route.
What really links the two questions though is that silicon is arguably the best understood and most used electronic
material. The depth of understanding of silicon physics and chemistry means that there is a wealth of understanding
about silicon; decades of research than can be brought to bear on making silicon-based materials in new forms,
whether these new forms are inks or nanoparticles. The extent of silicon’s current use means that initiating new
research and product strategies in silicon may be worth it. With so many established applications for silicon
already, new forms of silicon with improved performance characteristics might see quick market acceptance.
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Applications for the “New Silicon”: There is now a ground swell of interest in this new kind of silicon materials
platform. At least three start-up firms – Innovalight, Kovio, and Semprius - have placed printed silicon at the core
of their business. Seiko Epson has done a lot of work on printed silicon too. Meanwhile, Freescale has made
nanocrystalline silicon a key part of its next-generation memory strategy and this is an interest that is shared to
some degree by Micron, Infineon and even Intel.
Freescale’s memory uses nanocrystalline silicon for the floating gates. In conventional memories, floating gates
require a thick oxide layer, which limits scalability. If the oxide layer is simply thinned down, voltage leaks tend to
result. Freescale’s solution is to make the floating gates out of 5-nm silicon nanocrystals, which allows thinner
layers of oxide to be used without much of leakage problem.
Innovalight is turning nanoparticulate silicon into inks with the plan to print photovoltaic (PV) arrays. (It had
previously examined using this kind of nano-ink to print lighting.) In theory, this approach, which is expected to be
commercialized by 2009, could bring to market PV arrays with disruptively low price points but at energy
conversion ratios and material stability that are not so far from those promised by conventional PV. The
competition here is organic PV, which can get to those price points, but is unlikely ever to reach the same level of
performance.
Meanwhile, Semprius is focusing its printed technology on backplanes (an area of interest to Seiko Epson too) for
LCD and OLED displays as well as for large area sensors. Here the story is somewhat similar to PV. But the
competition will come from both organic electronics (OE) and more conventional silicon approaches. To counter
the competitive threat from OE, printed silicon can once again look to superior performance including higher
switching speeds. Switching speeds are one important reason that backplanes using organic thin film transistors
(OTFTs) have never found their way into the mainstream LCD display business, despite some high hopes a few
years back. To counter competition from more conventional silicon TFT approaches, printed silicon can be much
more easily addressed to need for printing transistors on large area/flexible substrates.
It should be clear from all of this that the potential applications that can ultimately be addressed by all these efforts
are very diverse. In addition to the areas mentioned above, printed RFID is another area that would seem likely to
attract interest from firms touting printed silicon. It promise better economics than the current approach of
manufacturing RFID in depreciated fabs and better materials than OE can yet offer. This middle-of-the-road
thinking is also of some relevance to the use of nanocrystalline silicon in the mainstream semiconductor industry.
Faced with watching Moore’s Law finally run out of steam completely as a scaling rule or adopting strange - and
entirely novel - approaches to electronics (spintronics, nanotube transistors, and so on), nanocrystalline silicon
offers a way forward for chipmakers while retaining much that is familiar.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
For additional information about NanoMarkets new report, “Opportunities for Nanocrystalline Silicon and
Silicon Inks in Electronics”, please visit the firm’s website at www.nanomarkets.net or contact them at
(804) 270-7070. Subscribers to this newsletter can receive 10% off their purchase.
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ILEDs: Placeholders for OLED lamps?
by David Lieberman
David Lieberman has been a regular contributor to the electronics trade press since 1980,
holding editorial positions at High Technology, Electronic Products and Computer Design
magazines, as well as serving as managing editor for OEM Magazine during his 11-year stint
with its sister-publication E.E.Times. Lieberman has authored market research reports for
NanoMarkets, IDC, First Technology Inc. and Intertech on such topics as flexible displays
and electronics, and organic and printable lighting. Lieberman holds a BA degree in
Secondary Education-English from the University of Illinois and an MA/ABD in English from
the State University of New York at Stony Brook. This article was originally posted on July
31, 2007 on the NanoMarkets blog site and is reprinted by permission.
Solid-state lighting (SSL) is making impressive inroads these days in the form of next-gen
inorganic light-emitting diode (ILED) arrays, and some very innovative products are
appearing. In overhead lighting applications, ILEDs are delivering comparable or better brightness than traditional
technologies - at a much higher cost, of course, but also at a significant power saving and a greatly extended
operating life.
As ILEDs blaze the lighting trail, however, it’s hard not to see these point-light sources as placeholders for the next
next-gen technology, which will be flat, printed area-light sources, based on organic LEDs (OLEDs), thick-film
electroluminescent (EL) devices, field-emission devices (FEDs), or some other technology waiting in the wings.
There are several reasons for this. As a small semiconductor device, the ILED requires additional optical elements
to spread its light out for area-lighting applications such as overhead lighting and, further, arrays of multiple ILEDs
are typically required to provide adequate lighting output, with the need for interconnect and mounting hardware to
make the whole thing work. Alternative light sources that inherently provide area lighting seem a much more
straightforward solution.
ILEDs, moreover, generate a fair amount of heat per unit area, although they are far more efficient than
incandescent bulbs, and on a par or marginally better than fluorescent bulbs. Flip over one of the new crop of ILED
fixtures and what do you see? A huge heat sink. That’s required because moving the heat away from the ILED
itself is critical for reliable operation. In a planar light source such as an OLED lamp, in contrast, the light emitting
area and heat dissipating area are essentially the same area, greatly simplifying heat management. The heat sink
required by an ILED fixture not only adds cost but depth and weight as well, increasing the demand on inventory
space and raising shipping costs.
Potential cost reduction is, of course, the prime motivation behind the development of printed lighting or, for that
matter, printed electronics in general. Semiconductor fabrication techniques have come a long way in making
thermal vacuum deposition, photolithographic patterning and other manufacturing techniques very cost effective,
and they provide the ultimate in performance. But for applications with only modest performance requirements,
printing promises an order of magnitude improvement in cost reduction, with its forgiving tolerances and loose
environmental requirements. What’s more, future light sources will remove many of the constraints on the creative
freedom of product designers. So many places a flat lamp would easily fit! How simplified integration could
become! And what a great degree of differentiation will be possible when oval lights, contoured lights, tunablecolor lights and the rest all become possible.
Look around the room you’re in and consider where light could be creatively deployed, either for fun or function.
How about down or up-lighting on the shelves of your bookcase? A multi-level lamp integrated into your picture
frames? A bit of drawer lighting in your desk? Or a little glow in the logo on your coffee mug? Can you shed some
light on what the future holds?
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Smart Technology – Smart OLED – Smart Content?
by Jutta E. Rasp
Jutta E. Rasp, founder of FPExperts and FPDisplays, has worked in the flat panel displays
market for nearly two decades. FPExperts and its companies offer technology services as
well as market analysis on various technologies and solutions. Jutta´s experience in R&D,
production, sales, and the marketing of various flat panel display technologies allows her
to understand the importance of the activities, findings and news releases in this diverse
industry.
In September the concert and theater season started again. One of the first events I went
to was a political cabaret show; not knowing that flat panel display technology would be
high on the agenda of the performing artist. To cut the story of a long evening short: the
message the guests were left with is that the quality of broadcasted information
decreased in correlation with the thickness of the thickness of TVs. Interesting…
To a considerable number of people, the displayed content is still more important than the technology that is used
within and around the screen. Especially for mobile communication one would think that it is far more important to
receive messages rather than having the right color co-ordinates for yellow. Hence I had been amazed how slowly
Clairvoyante’s subpixel-rendering technology has found acceptance in the market. Targeting various applications in
the TFT-LCD world, Clairvoyante had been unable to land even one commercial win in the mobile market – even
with specifications that either reduce power consumption by 50% (compared to stripe-RGB TFT-LCD), or double
the brightness at the same power consumption.
Well, in early October, Clairvoyante released information indicating that Samsung SDI is likely to be the first
company to commercialize a high-resolution AM-OLED – specifically, a 3.08-inch display at 480x800 pixels,
(although mind you the 480 x RGB x 800 no longer works with subpixel-rendered displays) using PenTile. The
display also boasts a contrast ratio of 1000:1, brightness of 200 nits, and a power consumption of 400 mW. By
using Clairvoyante’s proprietary PenTile technology, SDI is able to reduce the total number of subpixels by one
third while keeping the apparent resolution of the display at 480x800 – allowing them to overcome the multiple
problems of the current-driven OLEDs and to increase the production yield due to reduced matrix-complexity.
Samsung SDI, with its investments of nearly $500 million since 2005 into AMOLED development and its latest
announcement to double production capacity for their “dream displays” (AM-OLED) by first quarter of 2008, plans
to serve the portable communication and multimedia market with 3 to 7-inch AM-OLEDs and, eventually, moving
towards display diagonals of 10 to 30-inches to address the notebook and TV markets. Arguably, this makes SDI
the most serious player in the OLED field.
Perhaps SDI’s choice of Clairvoyante’s technology will send a strong signal to other AM-OLED and LCD
manufacturers to start thinking of wise manufacturing and wise display-power-management practices. Subpixel
rendering is a smart option to help move OLED displays into high-resolution and into more competitive technical
characteristics.
During times when concerns about global warming result in Oscars and a Nobel prizes, and when multimedia and
portable communication devices are sold in millions and billions of units, any move toward energy-saving (starting
from yield-enhancement during production and moving to daily recharging of the device) should be seriously
considered. When we then look into the materials one can eventually come up with displays that have been
produced in the best ecological way, operate at the lowest possible power consumption, and eventually, will
biodegrade without a waste issue that might impact the environment. Whether smart content will be displayed on
such a smart device is then up to the user.
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Last Word: Bring on November!
by Chris Williams
Frankly, for many of us in the UK, October has turned out to be a “less than
perfect” month. For those of you who have been on an extended vacation, or living
in a cave somewhere, I should point out that the UK, and England in particular, has
suffered two mighty sporting disappointments on successive days. The UK’s Lewis
Hamilton lost his chance to be Formula 1 World Champion in his “rookie” first year
in the sport in Brazil today, and England lost to South Africa in the Rugby World
Cup Final held in France yesterday – note the dignified silence by the author on this
subject and his refusal to join in gutter-like protests about how “we wuz robbed.”
Forty eight hours is all the time it took to go from a nation full of sporting hope and
expectation, to one that is miserable and looking for maximum sympathy from their
partners and friends. So what has any of this to do with flexible substrates? Well,
possibly, quite a lot!
At major international rugby events such as the England–South Africa game, the
referee on the pitch has the ability to refer any controversial try-scoring situation to
Chris Williams is the
an off-field fourth official (rugby has one referee and two referee’s assistants on the
director of the UK Displays
field) who assesses the situation by referring to multiple video feeds to determine
and Lighting Knowledge
whether a try has been scored or not. The “video referee” therefore has the power to
Transfer Network
take a decision that will always have a major effect on the progress of the game. On
closer consideration this “splitting” of responsibility between the “on field” official who is responsible for all
decisions taken except for any try-scoring referral to the “video referee” is peculiar. Much better if the on-field
official was given the necessary support to adjudicate all of the decisions himself. There are usually many
occasions during the playing of the game when the live feed video shown on the large screens at the ground identify
clear examples of foul or illegal play that simply were not picked up by the on-field officials, yet the “video
referee” has no power to intervene and call the referees attention to the action.
Step forward flexible displays please! Make some small TV resolution displays that are flexible, lightweight,
rugged, and can be attached to the arm of the on-field referee, and he will suddenly be empowered to receive
multiple views of any incident that takes place at a major game. He can then take the decision (be it right or
wrong!) to punish or reward accordingly. With the referee able to see every ruck, maul, scrum, forward pass, try or
non-try himself with a rapid replay of different camera angles, then the teams themselves will become less likely to
commit offences, since there will now be much more chance of being caught by the ref!
Crazy thinking? Am I guilty of exhibiting hopeless optimism in wanting to see a scene that may never occur?
Possibly – but then that is the fate of every fan of every team in the world isn’t it – when your heart wants one
result but your brain tells you another? There is also the undeniable fact that any company who successfully got a
flexible display onto a referees arm for an application like this would have the branding exposure of a lifetime!
Everyone would want to buy one – regardless of cost – to see the referee’s decisions played out fully.
One other topic worthy of airing here is the need to try and help encourage, facilitate, build, and deliver – joined up
government thinking. The UK is no better and probably no worse than many other countries in this area. At the
present time, government is trying to push hard on environmental issues, and encourage all of us to move away
from using incandescent bulbs in favor of using more efficient light sources. Entirely laudable! But – here’s the rub
– much of this forward pressure is coming from the environment-centric department of government without linking
in to the technology and business-centric departments to find out if the proposals are realistic, sensible, and offer
manufacturing opportunities for UK plc. So, whilst we are now in a media-supported rush to “Ban the Bulb” and
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get rid of all incandescent bulbs from our homes and offices, no-one has really analyzed what we will be replacing
them with.
The incandescent bulb – old, taken for granted, and only delivering about 12 to 15 lumens per input watt. Poor
lifetime, yes, wasteful of energy – yes, possibly, except that when a bulb is contributing to the total power needed
for heating a room, if that wasted power in the form of heat radiated from the bulb isn’t there any more, then the
power will still need to be supplied from some other source. Do incandescents have an excellent spectral output?
No, but their color temperature of 3k or so Kelvin has been a de facto standard for many of us in our homes, and it
provides a warm and inviting light.
Now we have a headlong rush to implement newer “improved” “higher efficiency” bulbs – yippee! Main contender
in the short term is compact fluorescent lamp technology as that is available now. Hmm – lovely – many more
lumens per watt, but, hang around, these use mercury in the discharge lamp. Is this good news? We have 23 million
homes in the UK, with at least 10 bulbs per house. If all switch to CFL lamps that becomes 230 million bulbs
containing mercury that will become a future nightmare when it comes to safe disposal. Do we really want to see so
much mercury being used around our homes? When bulbs fail, are householders really going to keep them aside
and dispose of them safely at a specialist recycling center? Or are most of the failed devices going to end up in
standard waste disposal methods? What do you think! The same is true of our LCD flat screen TVs and laptops –
with so many CCFL lamps around now, we have a small time-bomb ticking away when it comes to end of life time.
Perhaps a rush to make flexible OLED (and EL) lighting systems and lighting tiles to support the developing solid
state lighting devices using LEDs already underway will be one alternative way forward that can offer us all the
possibility to reclaim part of our manufacturing market. But then, perhaps it is already too late. Government has
opened the commercial door and the flood of low-cost, low-spec lighting devices, from the Far East and beyond, is
already appearing on supermarket shelves around the UK. An excellent example of jumping the gun and promoting
technology change before domestic technology suppliers are fully in a position to satisfy a market need.
And finally, yes, I do believe England scored a try on Saturday – having viewed all camera angles on my HDTV
plasma screen in magnificent detail, so yes, “we wuz robbed!”
Display Industry Calendar
November 2007
November 1-2
Digital Living Room
San Francisco, California
November 5-7
OLEDs World Summit
La Jolla, California
November 5-6
Challenges in Organic Electronics
Manchester, England
November 5-9
Color Imaging Conference 2007
Albuquerque, New Mexico
November 6-8
Crystal Valley Conference
Cheonan, Korea
November 6-9
EHX Fall 2007
Long Beach, California
November 6-11
SIMO 2007
Madrid, Spain
November 7-8
High Def Expo
Burbank, California
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November 8
Taiwan TV Supply Chain Conference
Taipei, Taiwan
November 8-10
Viscom
Milan, Italy
November 8-11
Color Expo 2007
Seoul, Korea
November 9
2007 FPD Market Analysis & 2008 Market Outlook
Seoul, Korea
November 11-15
Photonics Asia 2007
Beijing, China
November 12-14
LatinDisplay 2007
Campinas-SP, Brazil
November 12-15
Printed Electronics USA
San Francisco, California
November 14-15
Nano 2007
Boston, Massachusetts
November 14-15
DisplayForum
Prague, Czech Republic
November 14-16
Quantum Dot Optoelectronic Symposium
Limassol, Cyprus
November 19-20
International Conference on Enactive Interfaces
Grenoble, France
November 25-30
RSNA 2007
Chicago, Illinois
November 27
Symposium on Emerging and Industrial DLP
Applications
Wetzlar, Germany
November 27-29
Stereo-3D
Munich, Germany
November 27-30
Display Metrology Short Course
Boulder, Colorado
November 29
Displaybank Japan Conference
Tokyo, Japan
December 2007
December 4-5
FID 2007
Las Vegas, Nevada
December 4-6
Connections Europe: Strategies for Digital Living
Berlin, Germany
December 4-6
Digital Video Expo West
Los Angeles, California
December 4-6
CineAsia
Macau, China
December 5-6
Thin Semiconductor Devices
Munich, Germany
December 5-6
Smart Fabrics
Prague, Czech Republic
December 5-6
Active RFID & RTLS
Dallas, Texas
December 5-7
SEMICON Japan
Tokyo, Japan
December 5-7
International Display Workshops
Sapporo, Japan
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