UK's SmartKem, a developer of high-performance organic backplanes for flexible displays, opened a new OTFT fabrication facility in Manchester. The company expands to support "significant customer product development agreements". SmartKem will also increase the size of its team by 30%.
SmartKem's new facility will enable its partners to co-develop flexible TDT-based products - in the display and sensor industries. The centre offers complete turn-key support for SmartKem's tru-FLEXTM technology platform, in addition to device modelling, device stack design and a complete TFT fabrication suite.
SmartKem recently completed a 3 million Euro series A funding round from BASF Venture Capital, Octopus Investments, Entrepreneurs Fund and Finance Wales. In November 2013, SmartKem announced that they signed a joint-development agreement with a major Asian display OEM. Under the agreement, SmartKem and the display maker will customize Smartkem's p-FLEX organic semiconductor inks for solution-based flexible TFT backplane technology.
