Manufacturing equipment - Page 16

In October 2013, Encapsulix announced that a "leading OLED lighting supplier in Europe" placed an order for the M500 ALD deposition system. The deposition system shipped in February 2014 and today Encapsulix updated us that the system was installed successfully - and that the customer is Blackbody (Astron Fiamm Safety).

Blackbody will use the new system to deposit OLED encapsulation for panels used in the residential, commercial, automotive and avionics markets. Encapulix's system can process substrates up to 400x500 mm in size and is well suited for Blackbody's Gen-2 production line. Blackbody will also use this system to develop other coating (not just encapsulation layers).

Picodeon developed its its ultra-short pulsed laser deposition (USPLD) surface coating technology to be able to coat OLED encapsulation layers on plastic substrates at low temperatures. The company's systems can be used to create either porous or dense aluminium oxide (Al2O3) coatings (also other metallic and oxide coatings).

Picodeon's Al2O3 coatings can be applied on polyethylene (PE) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) polymer film substrates. Picodeon’s recently released ColdAb Series4 equipment (shown above) is currently being installed in commercial applications.

Tokyo Electron announced that it is now accepting orders for the Elius 2500 OLED inkjet printing system. This system can produce OLEDs on 8th gen glass substrates.

TEL started collaborating with Seiko Epson on OLED manufacturing technology in 2010. The companies signed an agreement to jointly-develop OLED display manufacturing technology that will integrate Epson's inkjet printing method and TEL's production equipment. So after about 3.5 years, we finally see the first product that resulted from this collaboration.

Aixtron installed an R&D "cluster" at their clean-room that demonstrates the core processes used to produce organic semiconductors (deposition of OLEDs and flexible electronics). This new system offers industrial customers (and research partners) an integrated environment that shows off the company's core technologies.

The cluster includes several process modules and supports Gen-1 substrates (200x200 mm). The cluster is built around three OVPD systems embedded in an automated cluster environment and supplemented by various process modules and relevant infrastructure.

In October 2013, Encapsulix announced that a "leading OLED lighting supplier in Europe" placed an order for the M500 ALD deposition system. Today Encapsulix announced that the Gen-2.5 deposition system was shipped.

Encapsulix's system will be used to deposit the encapsulation layer for OLED lighting devices, in applications such as residential, commercial, automotive, and avionics markets. Encapsulix says that their system will feature better barrier properties, device lifetime and cost of ownership than the technology currently in use.

In September 2013, Veeco acquired Synos Technology for $185 million. Synos' FAST-ALD encapsulation technology is aimed towards flexible OLED displays. Back then Veeco said that the company's first FAST-ALD pilot production system has already been installed, and they expect a manufacturing ramp to begin in 2014.

Yesterday Veeco reported their financial results for Q4 2013 (which was a challenging year for Veeco). The company said that they "received a purchase order from the world leader in mobile OLED displays for a first-generation FAST-ALD prototype system". The world's leader in mobile OLEDs is certainly Samsung Display (as they currently hold a market share of over 95%).

Germany's tesa, one of the world's leading manufacturers of self-adhesive tapes, launched a new barrier adhesive tape for OLED encapsulation bonding, suitable for flexible panel production.

The new barrier adhesive tapes are transparent transfer barrier tapes that feature the company's DrySeal liner technology (which enables extreme drying of barrier adhesive). This realizes an immediate and direct encapsulation of OLED materials over the full surface without initial degradations caused by water-vapor.

Aixtron and Manz signed a strategic cooperation agreement for OLED manufacturing. The two companies will co-develop solutions for efficient OLED production, based on Aixtron's OVPD technology.

Aixtron says that together with Manz, they plan to develop a Gen-8 (2300x2500 mm) system that can deposit OLED materials efficiently. Aixtron's part in this collaboration is the further development of OVPD process technology, while Manz will contribute its experience in purifying and handling large-scale glass substrates and the development and manufacturing of large vacuum systems. Aixtron and Manz will assemble a demonstration Gen-8 system in the coming months at one of Aixtrons's clean rooms.

The EU-funded project PlastronicsSpec, which developed an automated digital radiography system for the inspection of plastic electronics, recently concluded successfully, and Romania-based Accent Pro 2000 (AP2K) is showing off the new digital X-Ray system for NDT inspection of OLED displays.

AP2K is hosting a demonstration day which will be held in Bucharest, Romania on the 4th of December 2013 (9:00 to 15:00), at AP2K premises in the National Physics Library-Magurele. If you want to attend, contact AP2K directly.

Kateeva is a US based startup that was established in 2009 to develop OLED ink-jet deposition technology originally developed at MIT. The company has been been in stealth-mode for years, and now finally they have unveiled their technology and system, branded YIELDJet.

So YIELDJET is an inkjet printing system that can be used to produce OLEDs in high volume. Kateeva claims that their system, the first one engineered from the ground up for OLED mass production, will dramatically improve yields and drive production costs lower. Kateeva says that this was achieved by three major technical breakthroughs: is features a production-worthy pure nitrogen process chamber, which doubles the lifetime in certain applications, it reduces particles by as much as 10X thanks to a specialized mechanical design and it offers exceptional film coating uniformity with a process window that’s 5X wider than standard technologies.