Digitimes reports that CMEL got orders for 300,000 monthly units of AMOLED displays for mobile phones, from Sharp. CMEL currently has a capacity of 200K-300K units, and has placed orders for new equipment.
RiTdisplay has also landed a contract with an unspecified japanese handset maker.
read more here (Digitimes)Synova today announced tool orders from a Korean organic light-emitting diode (OLED) manufacturer and a leading U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturer's Korean facility. The first order was placed for Synova's Laser Stenciling System, LSS 1200, for OLED mask manufacturing, and the second for the company's Laser Grinding System, LGS 200A, for thin-wafer edge grinding. Both orders mark Synova's penetration into the Korean market, and ultimately, the increased adoption of its Laser MicroJet® for leading-edge electronics manufacturing.
The order wins replace traditional cutting and grinding methods used in each of the manufacturers' respective processes. For OLED mask manufacturing, the LSS 1200 supplants chemical etching for mask cutting. While chemical etching is the dominant approach, the method faces significant challenges in accuracy, feature size limitations, flexibility and fab footprint. As OLEDs continue to advance in both efficiency and size, a novel approach is required to continue to reach new heights while remaining cost effective, paving the way for Laser MicroJet.
Vitex Systems together with Advanced Neotech Systems (ANS), Pyungtaek, Korea, today unveiled a lower cost version of its proven Guardian⢠thin-film encapsulation system, the G200E. Designed to extend the company’s reach into markets where price may be a gating factor, the G200E will enable institutions, universities and industrial development groups to also explore the myriad benefits associated with Vitex’s proprietary Barix⢠encapsulation process. Based on Vitex’s flagship Guardian System, the G200E can provide basic thin-thin encapsulation capabilities without sacrificing the quality and performance that has become a trademark of the Guardian platform.
Thin-film encapsulation is a fundamental technology that can be used in the production of OLEDs, photovoltaics, thin-film batteries, organic semiconductors, bio sensors, etc. Specifically, Vitex’s Barix technologyâapplied via the Guardian toolâcan eliminate the packaging components used within the manufacture of these devices by delivering the moisture/oxygen protection, or barrier, necessary to ensure integrity. It also offers added flexibility and enables new design opportunities. Since different applications (e.g. cell phone vs. photovoltaics) have different lifetime requirements, they require different barrier properties. Vitex’s unique ability to customize its technology to address various barrier requirements opens up a number of new markets. At the same time, Vitex and ANS recognized early on that the extensive capital required for thin-film encapsulation made it difficult for some organizations, such as universities, to procure the necessary equipment needed for further research in this area. This prompted the development of the low cost G200Eâthereby, expanding the company’s potential customer base.
"The flat panel display industry faces challenges similar to those of the semiconductor industry. Conventional cleaning methods, with their costly issues of toxic chemical storage, handling, consumption and disposal, pose major problems for manufacturers," said Dr. Christiane Gottschalk, Senior Manager of Sales and Customer Service for ozone products with the MKS Power and Reactive Gas Products Group. "By using ozonated water as the cleaning agent, the LIQUOZON Single system offers a clean, safe alternative with no compromise in process performance or reliability, and significant reductions in waste disposal costs. With such cost and process benefits, ozone delivery systems are gaining wide acceptance in semiconductor and flat panel applications including wet wafer cleaning, contaminant removal and surface conditioning.
Vitex Systems today announced that it has signed a license agreement with Advanced Neotech Systems (ANS) Corporation of Korea. The agreement includes a technology transfer package from Vitex to ANS, and gives ANS the non-exclusive rights to make and sell GuardianTM thin-film encapsulation systems, which can be used in the manufacturing of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. While the financial terms of agreement were not disclosed, the license includes an upfront fee and on-going royalty payments based on tool sales.
Thin-film encapsulation is the obvious trend for significant cost reduction and reduced thickness of OLED displays on rigid substrates, and is a must for OLED displays on flexible substrate. Vitex is the leading technology supplier in this field, and we are excited about our ongoing relationship with them, said KB Bae, president of ANS. With the recent investment in our company by SNU Precision coupled with our license agreement with Vitex, we now have the financial strength and technological capability to address the developing OLED display market. Moreover, the addition of Guardian to our deposition equipment portfolio will allow us to be more competitive in the marketplace.
Commenting on its agreement with ANS and licensing successes, Chyi-Shan Suen, director of sales and marketing for Vitex, said, ANS has been one of Vitex's equipment partners for the past two years. Signing this license agreement not only validates ANS’s confidence in Vitex’s BarixTM technology and IP portfolio strength, but also reaffirms the growing adoption and need of our thin-film encapsulation technology to enable future OLED displays. He adds, This announcement follows on the heels of a licensing agreement signed in September with a major optical film manufacturer for our proprietary Flexible Glass technology, which also illustrates the success of our new licensing model."
Ron Mertens from OLED-Info.com recently had the opportunity to interview Chyi-Shan Suen, director of sales & marketing of Vitex systems.
Headquartered in San Jose CA, Vitex is an IP-centric licensing, engineering service and material company in the business of thin-film barrier coatings and flexible substrates for the FPD market. Vitex's development of a thin-film moisture barrier technology continues to gain acceptance within the industry due to its demonstrated ability to meet the rigorous environmental requirements for thin-film encapsulation of bottom- and top-emission OLEDs. In addition, this technology can be applied to a wide range of organic semiconductor applications such as photovoltaics and batteries.
Q: First of all, thank you for accepting to do this interview session with us. Can you describe the Barix system?
The Barix Encapsulation⢠is comprised of alternating layers of organic and inorganic films. The organic layer smooths and planarizes the display surface, while the inorganic is the real barrier. The total thickness of the coating is only about 3 microns or less. It is flexible, transparent and is applied at low temperature. The coating can be applied directly on top of an OLED display, eliminating the mechanical packaging components while providing the moisture and oxygen protection required by an OLED display.
AlkaMax, an advanced alkali metal dispenser for mass production of Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays that eases the manufacture and increases OLED performance in terms of operating voltage and luminosity.
SAES Getters DryFlex proves to be the accomplished technology that boosts OLED display duration to over 30%, as demonstrated by a main OLED manufacturer in its tests.
SAES Getters’ AlkaMax offers the unique opportunity of using a safe and stable source to create a pure alkali metal single layer or an Alkali Metal Doped Organic Layer (AMDOL) instead of LiF or Li2O or any other electron injection stratum. These benefits are acknowledged by research groups of professor Kido at Yamagata University and of professor Adachi at the Chitose Institute of Science & Technology in Hokkaido1, that used AlkaMax in their tests and experiments. The use of pure alkali metal layer can overcome the needs of a strict control of the composition and thickness of the layer: through AlkaMax, a thin layer of metallic Cesium (Cs) or of another alkali metal can be easily and reliably created, exploiting all of the advantages of a low work function metal.
SAES Getters’ DryFlex is the thinnest dryer solution available for OLEDs, delivering the best trade-off between high sorption speed and reduced product thickness and it can be fully customized in shape and size to accommodate any display geometry.
Read more in the attached press releases.
Researchers using an in-line vertical OLED manufacturing process aim to set milestones in terms of cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
A cheaper technique for mass-producing OLED displays and lighting tiles might be a step closer thanks to research being carried out at Fraunhofer IPMS in Germany. The unique vertical in-line tool operates with continuous vertical substrate flow and linear sources for depositing organic and metallic materials. The production line at IPMS is designed for a substrate height of 400 mm and width of 470 mm or larger.
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has announced another important step in the development of polymer light emitting diode (P-OLED) display technology with the production of a number of 14 inch full color displays using ink jet printing.
The displays were produced at CDT's Technology Development Centre in the UK, and feature a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels x RGB, equivalent to almost three million sub-pixels, or over 30 million ink jet drops.The active matrix panels use an amorphous silicon backplane, and were made using a multi-nozzle approach - up to 128 nozzles - with no interlacing, and are believed to be the first of their kind ever produced.
RiTdisplay has signed off the system acceptance of the first Gen2 OVPD(R) system for mass production of OLEDs. The engineering teams of RiTdisplay and AIXTRON could jointly qualify OVPD(R) technology for manufacture of OLED devices for full color display applications. The B-testing co-operation yielded OLED devices with better performance as compared to devices manufactured with conventional technology (VTE).
Dr. Yih Chang, General Manager of RiTdisplay, states: "The impressive performance of our OLEDs made by OVPD(R) has proven our investment into this new technology to be right. Use of this new leading edge technology will foster and strengthen our positioning in the OLED display market."
The qualification of the Gen2 manufacturing tool is the breakthrough for OVPD(R) technology. Based on gas phase transport and AIXTRON's proprietary Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) technology OVPD(R) has significant advantages over conventional deposition equipment (VTE), such as precise control of deposition rates, long term process stability and reproducibility, high throughput due to high deposition rates, high yield due to excellent uniformity, low maintenance and running cost due to highly efficient material utilization etc. The gas phase process further enables realization of advanced device structures including for example graded layers. Organic Vapor Phase Deposition OVPD.
OVPD technology has been exclusively licensed to AIXTRON from Universal Display Corporation (UDC) for equipment manufacture. AIXTRON and UDC have jointly developed and qualified OVPD pre-production equipment.
