OLED ink jet printing: introduction and market status - Page 4

Poland is aiming to become a major innovation and high-tech hub, and the country is already enjoying a growing industry, focusing on IT, bio-technology, robotics and nanotechnology.

Poland has a strong material science and development expertise, and in recent years we have been seeing OLED and display-related ventures out of Poland. It seems Poland is poised to become an interesting location to watch for future innovation in the OLED industry.

Ergis Group noDiffusion OLED encapsulation film

One such company is the Poland-based Ergis Group, a leader in plastic processing active in markets such as food packaging, industrial, automotive, medical and more. In 2020, Ergis launched its first product for the optoelectronic applications (such as the display market and photovoltaics) - the Ergis noDiffusion films for flexible OLED panels (both displays and lighting) and OPVs. Ergis is using a unique ALD-based technology that enables it to offer high performance films on low cost PET films.

Notion Systems, a leading solution provider for industrial inkjet systems, announced that it had successfully installed an n.jet display system at Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). The n.jet display system was developed in collaboration with MBRAUN/Germany and includes a fully integrated inert glove box solution that combines compact design with minimized nitrogen consumption.

ITRI is now using the new n.jet display system to research and develop novel OLED and QLED technologies. ITRI has developed many OLED technologies over the years, and it is now looking to replace vapor deposition and vacuum coating with inkjet printing which could reduce the number of steps, increase material utilization and increase display quality.

In 2020 Samsung decided to use inkjet printers made by Korea's Semes, in its QD-OLED production lines. This created a major problem for Kateeva which hoped to win that account, which resulted in massive layoffs including some of its executives. These inkjet printers are used to deposit the QD layer in Samsung's QD-OLED panels.

According to new reports from Korea, Samsung has decided to change course, and rely on Kateeva's inkjet printers in its 2nd QD-OLED production line (the SDC 98.5-Gen Q-2). The reports suggests that the Semes printers do not perform as well as Samsung hopes, and these also cost more than Kateeva's printers (but Semes is affiliated with Samsung, which helped it to get the orders).

According to reports from Korea, Unijet has supplied China-based Sidtek with inkjet printing systems, used for thin-film encapsulation (TFE) deposition of OLED microdisplays. This is Unijet's first sell of a commercial TFE printing system.

Sidtek, established in 2016, is now producing 0.39" XGA OLED microdisplays, which are available on the OLED marketplace. Sidtek's 0.39" display is available in a color version (1,000 nits) or a monochrome one.

Yesterday we reported that during its DTC 2021 conference, TCL demonstrated a 65" inkjet-printed 8K OLED panel co-developed by TCL's CSoT and JOLED. During the conference, the company also unveiled another panel a rollable OLED.

This is a 14" inkjet printed OLED panel, produced using an inkjet printing process.

According to a report from China, TCL demonstrated 65" 8K OLED panel, produced using an inkjet printing process. This display was co-developed by TCL's CSoT and JOLED.

Last year it was reported that TCL's CSoT is building a $6.8 billion 8.5-Gen inkjet printing line in Guangzhou (the T8 line), with production expected to begin in 2023.

Notion Systems is a leading supplier of industrial ink jet printing systems. The n.jet inkjet platform from Notion Systems is used to produce printed circuit boards, OLED & QLED displays, sensors and high-quality 3D parts.

We present the following interview with the Company's CEO and founder, Dr. Michael Doran.

Q: Hello Michael. Can you detail notion systems' offering for the OLED industry? We understand you offer R&D and production systems, for both RBG printing and TFE printing.

Notion Systems offers a system platform called n.jet display series that prints functional layers at various steps of display production and for a range of display technologies. These include rigid, flexible, OLED, QLED and micro displays. The platform meets the most stringent requirements for process environment and process stability.

The National Center for Flexible Electronics (FlexE) was established in 2014 as a Centre of Excellence at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur. The vision of the center is to "catalyse the development of domestic industry in the field of large area flexible electronics".

The FlexE center has some interesting OLED projects, and we recently had a discussion with researchers from the center to learn more about the OLED R&D activities.

Inkjet system developer Notion Systems announced that investment company RSBG Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (RSBG AMT) has acquired 75.1% of Notion Systems.

RSBG competed against other interested parties, and it says Notion System has attractive growth prospects and a market-leading product range.

OLED inkjet printing developer Kateeva announced that it has established a strategic partnership with high-index material maker Pixelligent Technologies. The collaboration aims to optimize the light output efficiency by inkjet-printing of planarization layers over microlens arrays.

Collaboration Aims to Optimize Light Output Efficiency in Mobile Phones with Inkjet-Printed Planarization Layer over Microlens Arrays. To increase the efficiency, the companies suggest using a patterned structure followed by an inkjet-printed high-refractive index filling and planarization layer which enables more light from the OLED layer below to reach the top surface.