Ignis innovation announced a new all-electrical inspection system for AMOLED manufacturing lines called MaxLife Inspection. This system provides information on each individual pixel and detects defects which can be repaired using a laser system. This system will increase yields by 2-5 times according to Ignis.
The MaxLife Inspection system uses a probe card, custom electronics and the MaxLife Viewer software to measure the brightness of every pixel in an OLED display with a 14-bit resolution. The system can be used before OLED deposition on the TFT backplane to find defective pixels and explain why they failed (this can be fixed by laser or new a deposition pass). The system can also be used after the OLED deposition to detect OLED defects (shorted pixels, etc.). It can also detect uniformity problems (such as speckles, "Mura" issues, etc.) after the final assembly of the panel.
The MaxLife Inspection supports all backplanes options (Oxide-TFT, a-Si and LTPS) and can be used on any AMOLED panel, it does not need Ignis' MaxLfie pixel circuit technology.
Ignis says that currently manufacturers use optical-based systems to inspect flat panel displays - which does not identify all problems and has limited precision. The new electrical system is interesting and can only be used for OLEDs as each pixel is controlled individually and thus can be tested using a probe-based system.
