OLED Encapsulation: introduction and market status - Page 8

A few months ago Aixtron acquired US-based thin-film encapsulation (TFE) developer PlasmaSi for $16 million, and today Aixtron announced that they have sold the first Optacap-200 encapsulation tool to a major Asian display manufacturer. The R&D system was ordered in Q3 2015 and will be delivered in Q1 2016.

The OptaCap-200 is a standalone R&D system that substrate sizes of 200x200 mm. This is a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technology that can be used to deposit highly flexible and effective barrier films for thin-film encapsulation for OLED and OPV panels.

A few days ago AU Optronics announced that it will unveil a new 5" bendable AMOLED prototype with an integrated touch sensor, and today we have more details and a photo of this interesting AUO prototype.

The new panel is a 5" 720p (295 PPI) AMOLED display on an LTPS backplane. The frontplane is a top-emission AMOLED and the substrate is a plastic film, encapsulated using a thin-film barrier film. The whole panel, including the "film-type" touch sensor, is 0.2 mm thick.

IDTechEx Research says that the flexible encapsulation (barrier) market for flexible devices (such as displays, but not only) will reach over $184 by 2020. IDTechEx sees next-gen single-layer encapsulation solutions to capture a part of the market in the future.

IDTechEx also takes a look at two specific technologies. Flexible glass is not seen to become the solution of choice in the short to medium terms due to the fragility and the fact that it cannot be stressed out of axis - and extreme flexibility can be a problem. Flexible glass is seen to be the best choice for a substrate material, though.

Taiwan's Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) signed an agreement with ITRI for a technology transfer for flexible AMOLED and touch panel integration (specifically ITRI's FlexUP flexible substrate technology - which is owned by FlexUp, encapsulation technology and flexible touch sensor technology).

CPT aims to use these technologies to achieve flexible OLED mass production "as soon as possible". Earlier today we posted that ITRI is set to demonstrate a 7" Full-HD foldable AMOLED prototype soon. ITRI and CPT has been cooperating on flexible OLEDs since 2012.

In 2014, Henkel signed a joint-development agreement with Vitriflex, a US start-up that has developed a patented cost-efficient process for high-volume flexible encapsulation film production. Today Henkel announced that it lead a new financing round in Vitriflex, "reaffirming Henkel's coommitment to next-gen display technologies".

Henkel says that since 2014 the company made "profound progress" toward an integrated barrier film product that delivers good adhesion to multiple substrates. This latest round will enable Vitriflex to continue development and "move towards" high volume manufacturing capability. In fact, Vitriflex hopes to have a commercial product ready to ship by the end of 2015.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is launching a new project called KONFECT that aims to develop flexible OLED glass for OLED applications. BMBF is awarded €5.6 million towards the three-year project that seeks to refine windable glass through lamination with functional adhesive tapes and by applying special functional layers.

The project consortium includes three partners - Schott, tesa and VON ARDENNE. Schott and tesa will develop reliable encapsulation by combining Schott's flexible glass with tesa's barrier tape while Von Ardenne will developing a vacuum coating system specifically for roll-to-roll (R2R) coating of flexible glasses.

A few days ago, the US Energy Department (DoE) announced its tenth round of efficient SSL lighting awards, awarding more than $8.2 million to nine projects. Today the DoE released more details about the projects it awarded in this round. There are four OLED projects, awarded a total of $3.8 million.

Acuity Brands received $455,131 to develop an OLED Luminaire with integrated DC current drivers in each panel and advanced controls. The goal is to demonstrate a luminaire with an efficacy of 65 lm/W and a luminous output of 4,000 lumens.

Henkel says that they conducted an analysis of the lighting market in 2025, and following this research they see OLED lighting as a "specific area of focus extending beyond traditional LEDs" - especially, it seems, flexible OLEDs.

Back in 2014, Henkel signed a joint-development agreement with Vitriflex, a US start-up that has developed a patented cost-efficient process for high-volume flexible encapsulation film production.

One of the major problems with OLED materials is that they are very sensitive to oxygen and moisture. This means that OLEDs need to be protected, and the encapsulation of OLED panels is one of the major obstacles towards efficient mass production of flexible OLED panels.

Interested in OLED encapsulation and want to learn more about the different technologies that aim to enable the next-generation flexible display? Read our new article here.

Beneq announced a new broad range of upgrades and options for its TFS 200 R&D thin film system. These new options allow users to better match current research needs and stay at the forefront of ALD research.

Beneq’s upgrades and options expand the capabilities of existing ALD tools by adding some of the most advanced features of the ALD process itself. The company’s flexible and modular solutions are based on the world’s best ALD know-how.