ALD - Page 4

A couple of days ago we reported that Veeco acquired Synos Technology who designs and manufactures FAST-ALD encapsulation technology for flexible OLED displays. Veeco said that Synos' first pilot production system has been installed and the manufacturing ramp is currently expected to begin in 2014.

Now financial services firm Wedbush released a new report on this deal and they say they believe that Synos has been working with an industry leader - specifically Samsung since 2011. According to Wedbush, Synos expected the product shipment to start in Q4 2013 or Q1 2014. We know that Veeco paid $70 million plus $115 if certain milestons are reached - and it makes sense that if Samsung adopts Synos' technology it will make it much more lucrative for Veeco.

Veeco announced that is it going to acquire privately held Synos Technology who designs and manufactures Fast Array Scanning Atomic Layer Deposition systems (FAST-ALD) for flexible OLED displays. Veeco will pay an initial $70 million, and according to performance milestones, the total deal may grow to $185 million.

Veeco says that they believe Synos' technology will remove the barrier to adoption of flexible OLED displays. Synos' first pilot production system has been installed and the manufacturing ramp is currently expected to begin in 2014. Veeco says that in the future they also see FAST-ALD used in OLED TV, lighting, solar, batteries and other large adjacent markets.

Beneq signed an agreement with the UK's Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) to deliver an ALD roll-to-roll unit for their thin-film barrier development platform. The equipment will be delivered to CPI in England in Q2 2014. CPI have been looking at R2R ALD technology for several years, and their first goal now is to develop full system technologies and processes to the field of clear flexible barrier encapsulation and substrate materials.

CPI OLED production line

CPI's current OLED system supports both small evaporized and soluble OLED materials. Their pilot production line uses slot die technology to allow the coating of substrates (4", 6" or 8" in size) in a highly repeatable and reproducible manner with a uniform film thickness of under 50 nm.

Beneq announced that together with Fraunhofer's COMEDD, they have developed a new R&D thin film ALD encapsulation system for 200×200 mm OLED and OPV substrates. This system is now available - and in a few months they will deliver the first one to COMEDD.

The new encapsulation system is based on a cross-flow reactor, which has been optimized for the shortest possible cycle time, even at low processing temperatures, such as under 100 Celsius. This allows for rapid OLED prototyping and enables process scale-up for large areas and high throughput. Beneq's new system can be used as a stand-alone system, and it can also be integrated with an MBraun glove box.

Update: Nanomarkets released the executive summary of this report, well worth a read...

NanoMarkets released a new report on OLED encapsulation (Markets for OLED Encapsulation Materials 2012-2019) - in which they forecast that the sales of OLED encapsulation materials for OLED TVs and lighting will grow from virtually zero in 2012 to $625 million in 2019 ($150 for OLED TVs and $475 for OLED lighting).

Rigid cover glass sales will grow from $20 million in 2012 to $432 million in 2019. Flexible glass encapsulation will reach $270 million. Nontraditional encapsulation materials (such as ALD conformal coating, multilayer barriers, etc.) will remain quite small for some time.

Beneq announced that a leading Asian customer has ordered a large-area batch atomic layer deposition (ALD) coating system. This system will be used to develop flexible OLED products. Beneq's batch ALD systems offer a unique combination of excellent thin-film quality, high-throughput and large-area processing capabilities, enabling scale-up of demanding thin-film processes.

Asian OLED makers are getting ready to start producing flexible OLEDs. Last month we heard that Aixtron delivered a production-scale PRODOS Gen-3.5 Polymer Vapor Phase Deposition (PVPD) system to a "major prestigious Asian customer" (probably Samsung or LG) that plans to use it to produce novel flexible electronic devices. We know that Samsung plans to release their first plastic-based flexible OLED panels by the end of 2012 while LG plans to start mass production of flexible OLEDs in the second half of 2013.

VG Scienta announced a new OLED deposition system, the OFT EDGE. The OFT (Organic Flexible Transparent) system can be used to deposit and analyse organic and inorganic layers on flexible and solid substrate.

The OFT Edge technology provides low temperature deposition of TCO, metals, small molecule deposition for organics, and an interchangeable modular construction with a wide selection of both deposition and analytical tools that can be attached to the systems to further increase the flexibility of the tool. VG Scienta offers ALD modules, XPS/UPS modules, STM, IR, and AFM modules. Modules within the system can be used as either standalone units when combined with a fast entry load lock or can be fully integrated into the multi-purpose cluster tool in conjunction with a central handler.