Glass - Page 11

Corning says they developed a new glass for OLED TVs. Corning says that they believe in OLEDs - and the technology "will develop to become important to the display industry in the future and will require new glass compositions to maximize OLED potentials".

Corning estimates that in 2011, the demand for OLED TV glass will be around 10 million square feet. LCD TV Glass will amount to about 3 billion square feet...

LUX Research released a new OLED lighting report (Finding the End of the Tunnel for OLED Lighting) in which they say that OLED lighting will remain a small niche player in the future - in fact in 2020 worldwide revenues will only amount to $58 million.

LUX Research says that while OLEDs will drop from $18 per lumen today to $0.71 per lumen in 2020, this will not be enough as the technology will still lag behind other display technologies, and this will limit adoption. LUX Research also forecasts that flexible OLEDs on plastic substrate will be cheaper than glass - and will cost $0.18 per lumens in 2020. They say that 63% of the OLED market in 2020 will be flexible OLEDs.

Corning developed a new ultra-slim flexible glass that can be used as a barrier film for flexible OLED displays. Corning claims that this new glass has the same barrier performance (for oxygen and moisture) as normal rigid glass. The whole thing is just 100 microns thick (0.1mm) and can withstand heat up to 400 degrees.

Corning is still developing the manufacturing process of this material, we do not know when it will be commercialized. A while back Corning published a nice video (a day made of glass) showing what's possible with flexible glass.

AGC developed the world's thinnest flexible glass sheet - at only 0.1mm. The new glass is made from alkali-free glass and is manufactured using the float process. AGC says that this glass can be used in next-generation OLED displays and lighting panels.

SemiQuartz Wafer announces new glass substrates that are suited for OLED production. The company says that these new substrate are better than what's currently on the market: total thickness variation is less than 2 micrometers and the roughness is less than .3 nanometers. The new substrates are now available.

A low thickness variation is important as any variations can lead to color shifts, non-uniform brightness and even short-circuit of an individual pixel which could hard the OLED lifetime. Studies conducted by SemiQuarz Wafer revealed OLED malfunctions when the substrate’s permeation rate exceeded 1 x 10-6 g/m² per day 25 degrees Celsius. In addition, the substrate must also meet specific requirements in terms of chemical resistance, temperature stability and moisture sensitivity.

Researchers from Samsung Electronics developed the world's first Quantum-Dots emissive full-color display (called QLED). Samsung produced a 4" 320x240 Active-Matrix QD-Emissive display made on both glass and flexible plastic.

QLED display promise to be more efficient than LCDs and OLEDs, and be cheaper to make (Samsung estimates that they will cost less than half of what it costs to make LCDs or OLED panels) - but as of today, QLEDs are less efficient than OLEDs, and also offer about 10,000 lifetime hours at best. It is estimated that it will take at least 3 years to commercialize QLEDs - and obviously by then OLEDs will improve a lot, too.

Here's a really nice video produced by Corning - showing future designs made with durable, transparent and even flexible glass displays. A lot of these displays can be achieved with OLEDs, although it's not specifically mentioned in this video. Still, it's beautifully done:

Corning says that Samsung is using their Gorilla glass in the Galaxy S phone. The glass is used as a protective layer for Samsung's Super-AMOLED display. Gorilla glass is an environmentally friendly alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass that is both scratch resistant and durable.

Samsung Galaxy S

The Galaxy S has a 4" WVGA 800 X 480 Super-AMOLED display. AT&T is selling this phone for $49.99, calling it the Samsung Captivate. You can buy the Galaxy S unlocked for $599.

Micro Technology developed a new glass that is ultra thin (only 20um). It can be used as a substrate for flexible displays. The company made an OLED panel made using this new technology. They plan to offer this technology to FPD makers in the "near future".

The Printable Electronics Technology Centre (PETEC) has announced plans for a new prototyping line to support the lighting and Organic Photovoltaic sectors. The new line is targeted at industries needing large area coating capability alongside the need for reproducible uniform and low defectivity thin film coating onto glass and plastic substrates.

It is designed to be an automated batch tool based on cassette handling of samples to minimise manual intervention. The specification has been aligned with the needs of the SSL and PV industry. It will produce up to 20 samples per day with a panel size from 100mm to 200mm square. The line will have slot-die and spin coating modules, metal and organic evaporation and encapsulation.  It will enable the deposition of solution and small molecule OLED material technologies. It will target fine coating active layers of 10-200nm thinness with uniformity of +-5% across the full panel width.

Last week we reported that PolyPhotonix plans to launch a 8" 60lm/W OLED Lighting panel. They will be using this line at PETEC.