Manufacturing equipment - Page 18

The UK's Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) posted some updates on their OLED program. They have recently produced defect free OLED lighting samples. They managed to produce panels that has large (over 250 cm²) emissive areas (they are producing these panels on 8" substrates and so could exceed 160x160 mm panels).

The CPI developed two kinds of panels - the first uses small molecule materials and the second uses full solution-processable PLED materials. They have also produced samples that use a hybrid structure with a PEDOT layer (deposited using a slot die process) with an evaporative emissive layer (that has better efficiency and performance compared to the PLEDs). The 154x154 mm example shown above is the hybrid structure.

Aixtron announced that the European Smartonics project (which aims to develop smart machines, tools and processes for the precision synthesis of materials for organic electronics) will use the company's OVPD evaporation process and roll-to-roll printing machines. Aixtron is one of the project's partners and they will develop a small R&D OVPD cluster system that will use the company's latest 200 mm R&D platform, which is optimized and qualified for manufacturing of organic photovoltaic devices.

OVPD (Organic Vapor Phase Deposition) organic material deposition technology was developed by Universal Display. Aixtron holds an exclusive license to produce OVPD manufacturing equipment.

Ignis innovation announced a new all-electrical inspection system for AMOLED manufacturing lines called MaxLife Inspection. This system provides information on each individual pixel and detects defects which can be repaired using a laser system. This system will increase yields by 2-5 times according to Ignis.

The MaxLife Inspection system uses a probe card, custom electronics and the MaxLife Viewer software to measure the brightness of every pixel in an OLED display with a 14-bit resolution. The system can be used before OLED deposition on the TFT backplane to find defective pixels and explain why they failed (this can be fixed by laser or new a deposition pass). The system can also be used after the OLED deposition to detect OLED defects (shorted pixels, etc.). It can also detect uniformity problems (such as speckles, "Mura" issues, etc.) after the final assembly of the panel.

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.

Fraunhofer COMEDD installed a new cluster system in their production line for the processing of 8" wafers. This upgrade of the pilot line offers a wide range of processes, including evaporation of organic and inorganic materials, metal evaporation, electron beam evaporation and high quality thin-film encapsulation). COMEDD's new line was made by SNU Precision. This new line will be especially useful for research on OLED microdisplays in interactive data eyeglasses and future integrated OLED-on-Silicon opto-sensors

COMEDD was established in 2009 as a department in at the Fraunhofer IPMS, but it is now an independent institute at Fraunhofer. Two days ago (on April 9) they conducted the official opening ceremony of the new institute. Congratulations guys!

According to Japan Economic Newswire, Sharp decided to launch a three-year project to develop OLED mass production technologies. Sharp's mass production technology will be ready by 2016 and then the company will decide whether they will build their own OLED fab or outsource the production to other makers or even license or sell the technology. It's not clear whether Sharp aims to make OLEDs for mobile displays, flexible OLEDs or OLED TV panels.

According to JEN Sharp will release its 3-year business plan on May 14, and then we'll know whether the OLED project is indeed included in their plan. The report says that Sharp plans to use "unique materials" that will make "clearer OLED images". Perhaps they mean SEL's and Sharp's new crystal structure innovation, used in the company's latest OLED prototypes.

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) is a UK based R&D institute that helps companies develop and scale manufacturing processes. The CPI sent us the following video and update on its OLED/OPV prototype line (built by MBraun) that was designed to enable materials companies, device designers and end users to develop their technology within a fully automated, controlled environment.

CPI's system supports both small evaporized and soluble OLED materials. The line uses slot die technology to allow the coating of substrates in a highly repeatable and reproducible manner with a uniform film thickness of under 50 nm.

MBraun and nTact have announced a new partnership that will allow both companies to offer a complete system solution: a glove-box (from MBraun) with a slot die coater from nTact. The companies will offer both standardized and custom combined system with nTact's nRad or nRad2 coaters, with MBraun's line of glove-boxes and custom enclosures. These can be used for both R&D and full-scale production.

In their press release, MBraun says that they hope to "serve the evolving coating needs of many industries" - particularly the OLED display and lighting and OPVs.

The German OLED project So-Light has been successfully completed. This 3.5 years, €14.7 million project (funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) addressed the complete value chain, from primary OLED materials through to OLED-lighting applications.

Innovative Technology (IT) are developing a range of large-capacity Gas Purifiers specifically for the OLED market. IT are working closely with OLED companies to make sure the new purifiers will be better integrated with OLED production lines.

The new systems will be scaled up to accommodate the larger volume enclosures of OLED manufacturing facilities. IT says that the next-gen systems will be able to handle about 7 times the volume of current purifiers. The company plans to finalize the optimization of the new purifiers by the beginning of Q2 2013.