Manufacturing equipment - Page 14

Photonics based solutions provider Coherent announced their financial results for Q3 2015, and the company reported that they shipped their third Linebeam 1500 OLED ELA system in the quarter (this system costs around $20 million). Coherent expects "substantial" new OLED orders in 2016 with deliveries expected in 2017.

Coherent commented that most OLED displays for mobile phones are processed using their equipment - which means that Samsung Display is a Coherent customer. The new system is probably also being supplied to SDC, but it may also go to LGD or other makers. The ELA process is used to process the LTPS backplane. LG Display does not use such equipment to make OLED TVs as they are based on Oxide-TFT backplanes. Coherent expects to see a broader adoption of OLED display in mobile phones in the near future.

Applied Materials announced two new PECVD based deposition systems aimed towards the flexible OLED thin-film encapsulation market.

The two new systems are the AKT-20K (925x1500 mm substrates) and the AKT-40K (1250x2200 mm substrates). Both systems offer the ability to deposit diffusion barrier films with very low water and oxygen penetration. These high-performance films are deposited at low temperatures of

3M announced that they entered into a licensing agreement with Lotus Applied Technology, which gives 3M access to Lotus' TransFlexALD spatial Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and barrier materials patent portfolio.

The TransFlexALD is a roll-to-roll ALD deposition that can be used to make single-layer encapsulation layers suitable for OLED panels (and other devices).

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.

China's display maker BOE Display aimed to start mass producing AMOLED displays at 5.5-Gen LTPS OLED fab in Ordos in the second half of 2015, but according to a new report from Digitimes it is still struggling with low yields, preventing it to actually starting to ship any panels.

BOE is also constructing a Gen-6 LTPS LCD/AMOLED production line in Chengdu, China - with a projected investment of about $3.5 billion. The fab is scheduled for production in the first half of 2017, with a capacity of 45,000 monthly substrates (both OLEDs and LCDs). Digitimes says that BOE aims to produce flexible OLEDs at that new fab, and will purchase flexible OLED production equipment from Korea and Japan.

In September 2013, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron (TEL) announced that the two companies will merge into a new company to be called Eteris.

Today, more than 18 months after the announcement, it was reported that the merger was cancelled due to regulatory concerns. It turns out that the US Department of Justice told the companies that their proposals for a combined business were not good enough to replace the competition lost from a merger.

Aixtron has acquired US-based thin-film encapsulation (TFE) developer PlasmaSi for $16 million. Aixtron will combine the encapsulation technology with its OVPD OLED deposition equipment. Aixtron will also integrate PlasmaSi’s thin-film encapsulation process into its existing OLED cluster for customer demonstration purposes.

Aixtron OVPD R&D Demo Cluster

PlasmaSi developed organic thin-film deposition technology based on very low temperature silicon nitride Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD). The technology can also be used to deposit large-area OLED lighting panels and flexible Integrated Circuits.

Manz AG has been developing Gen-8 OLED OVPD deposition equipment since early 2014, in collaboration with Aixtron, and the company also offers wet-chemical processing equipment for OLED display production (and already won some contract, including a large 9 million Euro order from a Chinese OLED maker in August 2014).

In a recent press release, the company's CFO commented that OLED technology has a "very big potential for the future", but he does not see any mass production breakthroughs in the next two years. Small-sized OLEDs are of course being mass produced already, which means he likely refers to OLED TV production.

According to ETNews, AP Systems won a contract to supply two Excimer Laser Annealing (ELA) systems to China's Truly Semiconductors for its OLED fab. While ETNews does not mention it, this is likely to be used in Truly's upcoming 4.5-Gen AMOLED fab in Huizhou, China.

The contact is worth 18 billion Korean Won (about $16.6 million). AP Systems already provided similar systems to China's CSOT, GVO and EverDisplay. AP Systems hopes to also supply encapsulation systems to Truly in April 2015. The company is concentrating all of its efforts to develop OLED production equipment.

Colnatec announced a new thin-film controller which they say is an exceptional and affordable alternative to existing models. The Eon-ID (a rackmount unit with an integrated display and intuitive UI) offers a versatile design that incorporates hardware, display and software.

Colnatec says that the Eon-ID is ideal for OLED applications where the crystal can experience excess rate noise which leads to inaccurate thickness measurement and premature crystal failure. Combined with a temperature controlled QCM and a specially treated crystal, Eon-ID can reduce crystal noise to insignificant levels.