Flexible OLEDs: introduction and market status - Page 29

China-based BOE Display had an impressive booth at SID, where it displayed the company's latest displays. The company's flexible and foldable OLED prototypes and panels took center stage, as BOE is ramping up its flexible OLED production and is also developing its next generation technologies.

BOE's foldable prototype was a 6.2" WQHD (1440x3008, 538 PPI) panel that features a fold-radius of 1R and include a touch layer. The display has a super narrow border, and is 0.21 mm thick. BOE says that it can withstand over 100,000 bending cycles.

China-based OLED producer Visionox announced that it started to produce flexible AMOLED displays at its new 6-Gen OLED fab, in Hebei Province. The new line has a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates (although it is likely that it will take some time before the new fab runs at full capacity).

Visionox's first flexible OLED fab total investment is around $4.5 billion. Visionox is already producing rigid AMOLED and PMOLED displays.

Samsung Display had a large booth at SID DisplayWeek, showcasing its latest OLED technologies (and also its QD-enhanced LCD TVs).

A large part of SDC's booth was dedicated to the company's automotive OLED technologies which included a wide range of flexible and rollable OLED displays - including flexible, transparent, rollable and a lightfield display.

LG Display showcased several of its OLED technologies at SID DisplayWeek. The most impressive display was a 77" panel that is both flexible and transparent. The large panel features a 4K (3840x2160) resolution and 40% transmittance. The bending radius of the display is 80 mm. This seems to be the same display announced in June 2017.

LGD also demonstrated, for the first time, its VR OLED display, developed in collaboration with Google. This is a 4.3" 3840x4800 (1443 PPI) glass-based display on an LTPS backplane, that supports a refresh rate of 120Hz.

Visionox showcased it latest flexible OLEDs in a recent tradeshow, and Notebook Italia published this interesting video showing all of Visionox's displays.

Visionox is showing several interesting displays - a 5.99" 1080x2160 (403 PPI) AMOLED edge type flexible OLED, a full-screen 5.99" 2160×1440 flexible AMOLED and a 6.21" notch-type 2160×1440 AMOLED, with a touch sensor under the screen.

FlexEnable announced that Novares, a plastic automotive solutions provider, invested €5 million in the company. This is a strategic investment by Novares that aims to bring FlexEnable's flexible organic LCD (OLCD) to automotive interiors.

Interestingly the press release does not discuss OLEDs at all, only OLCDs which is described as a low-cost, high-reliability, conformable and shapeable display technology. FlexEnable started commercializing its OLCD technology together with Truly Semiconductors in 2017. OLCD production is expected to begin by the end of 2018, and Novares already demonstrated a demo Car that features OLCD displays

Ares Materials launched a new Mechanical Lift-Off (MLO) technology called Easybond that is designed to temporarily bond solution-cast flexible substrates to display mother glass during the OLED display fabrication process.

Ares says that Easybond offers a cost-effective reliable alternative to current last-based lift-off (LLO) processes. Using Easybond, OLED makers can also increase manufacturing throughput. The company says this solution can decrease flexible OLED production yields, resulting from defects caused by the last lift-off process.

Taiwan's ITRI institute says that recent advances in OLED materials and production methods has enabled it to greatly reduce OLED lighting production costs. Recent technical achievements at ITRI include a new flexible substrate transfer, R2R production process integration, and soft light source system design.

In 2016 ITRI constructed a pilot roll-to-roll production line for flexible OLEDs. ITRI now says that these technical achievements will enable it to increase the production line capacity for 50,000 monthly panels. ITRI also developed a new flexible OLED that weighs only 10.7 grams and is less than 0.5 mm thick.

Researchers from Yonsei University managed to use a graphene-like 2D material called Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS₂) to create a transistor that can drive flexible OLED displays.

The researcher created a 6x6 OLED pixel array on a 7 mm plastic substrate that is so bendable (1 mm radius) it can be used as a skin sticker as can be seen in the video above.

OTI Lumionics launched a new technology it calls Aerelight for Print technology, which uses paper-thin flexible OLED panels to light elements in print media.

OTI says that in order to enable low-cost production of flexible OLEDs, it designed its own manufacturing technology and advanced materials. This includes the company's own proprietary FlexTorr encapsulation technology.