Oxide TFT - Page 13

There are reports that Chinese panel producers BOE Display and China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) are both gearing up AMOLED development.

BOE is apparently focusing on Oxide-TFT backplanes for AMOLED displays, and have produced a 4" WQVGA AMOLED prototype. Back in August 2011 there were reports that BOE Display are planning a $3.5 billion 5.5-Gen fab in Monogola, but we're not sure if this is for real.

Taiwan's government is forming an AMOLED alliance - to compete against Korean makers - mostly Samsung. The alliance will include seven partners: two AMOLED produces (AUO and Chimei Innolux) and ITRI, Acer, Asustek, HTC and MediaTek. It is reported that HTC and Asustek will secure all of AUO's upcoming AMOLED capacity.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), who is coordinating the alliance will invest around NT$10 billion (about $333 million US) in AMOLED R&D (mostly though ITRI). CMI will come up with an AMOLED production plan which will get subsidized by the government. Officials from the MOEA say that AMOLED is "rising as a must for next-gen smart phones", and is also likely to enter into the tablet and TV markets.

AU Optronics announced their financial results for 4Q 2011, with a record loss of $21 NT billion (almost $700 million USD). AUO is hoping to return to profitability - mostly because of growth in demand for LCD TVs in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Brazil. Regarding AUO's OLED program, the company re-iterated plans to mass produce AMOLED panels for mobile phone in this quarter (a little sooner then expected, actually), and more interestingly they said they plan to unveil OLED TV panel samples by the end of 2012.

AUO already unveiled a 32" OLED TV prototype back in November 2011, but they probably want to unveil larger panels towards the end of the year - and ones that are closer to mass production. The 32" prototype AUO shows had a Oxide-TFT (IGZO) backplane and was fabricated using vapor deposition using a metal mask. The panel featured Full-HD (1920x1080) resolution, 100,000:1 contrast ration, 0.01ms response time and brightness of 200cd/m².

The Holst Centre and imec announced a new high-resolution flexible OLED displays research program. This new program builds on the existing research fields such Organic and Oxide Transistors and Flexible OLED lighting. The new program aims to develop an economically scalable route to flexible AMOLED mass production, facing challenges such as high resolution, low power consumption, large area, outdoor readability, flexibility and light weight.

The partners will develop a mechanically flexible encapsulation film and TFT backplane, a printed high-efficiency OLED, new materials and processes that will allow cheaper production at better quality and driver design. They will also develop a new manufacturing equipment such as fine patterning equipment for backplanes and tools for integrated roll-to-roll manufacturing. This new program follows up on the FLAME project. Above you can see a prototype Polymer-Vision made flexible OLED made together with imec and the Holst Center.

Update: LG Electronics revealed the model number (55EL9600) and posted some new photos and more details on the OLED TV...

LG Display announced that they will unveil a new 55" OLED TV panel at CES 2012, and offered some more details and a couple of photos. Last month LG said that their OLED TVs will be available in the middle of 2012. The panel is only 5mm thick, and is also lighter than LCD panels. It features a 100,000:1 contrast ratio, fast refresh rates and a wide color gamut (wider than LCD, according to LG). They also say that the TV is more power efficient than an LCD TV, but they wouldn't give any details yet.

LG Display's panel uses an Oxide-TFT backplane (this was announced before). According to LG this backplane offers an identical image to LTPS panels, while being significantly cheaper. The TV uses a white-OLED with color filter design (this was the technology LGD acquired from Kodak back in 2009).

Aneeve Nanotechnologies, a startup company at UCLA's on-campus technology incubator, managed to fabricate a new fully ink-jet printed carbon nanotube (CNT) circuit that is used to drive OLED displays. The company says that this is the first practical demonstration of carbon nanotubebased printed circuits for display backplane applications, and it shows significant performance advantages over traditional organic-based printed electronics.

Aneeve says that this shows that CNT is a viable technology to compete with a-Si and metal-oxide semiconductor for low-cost and scalable backplanes.

Jusung Engineering reports that they managed to developed a a new metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technology to apply IGZO for use on flat panels. Jusung says they are the only company to develop an 8-Gen MOCVD IGZO tool, and that this technology will be compatible with future OLED display processes. We talked to Jusung and they say that they are already in talks with several potential clients (in Japan, China and Korea) and they hope to get purchase orders and start shipping equipment in the middle of 2012.

There are other methods (such as sputtering) for IGZO production. Sharp will soon start to produce IGZO displays in their upcoming production line, and over the past year we've seen IGZO OLED prototypes by Sony, Toshiba, AUO and other companies. Most (or all) of these prototypes have been developed using sputtering. Jusung claims that MOCVD will enable higher resolution than sputtering - indeed 4 or even 5 times higher! They also say that scaling sputtering to 8-Gen will be difficult, while their own MOCVD tool will be scalable up to these sizes easily.

Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies says that he believes that Apple decided to buy iPad 3, iPhone 5 and TV display panels from Sharp. At first these will be IGZO based LCDs - which will be brighter, clearer, thinner and more efficient than existing LCDs. But Misek also believes that Sharp and Apple will jointly develop OLED displays (probably IGZO based as well) within 1-2 years which will be used in future iPhone and iPad generations. OLED TV panels aren't expected until 2015.

Misek says that the two companies are working towards a new printing technology for producing these small/medium OLED panels - and that a pilot line will be in place by middle 2012 for testing purposes. Full production will be possible in 2013. The new technology, according to Misek, is a combination of inkjet printing and a daisy wheel. The daisy wheel is an impact printing technology and I'm not sure how it relates to OLEDs.

During LG Display's conference call discussing their Q3 2011 financial results, the company reiterated plans to release a 55" OLED TV product in the middle of 2012. LG's OLED TV will be Oxide-TFT based. This will not be mass production, but the company hopes that towards the end of 2012 they will announce their plans for mass production. LG Display is aiming towards 80%-90% yield in their pilot plant, and will announce the yield in the middle of 2Q 2012.

LG OLED TV prototype

We already know that LG isn't developing small OLED panels for mobiles any more, but LG are developing plastic based OLEDs (using their existing 4.5-Gen fab) as they consider these to have the real value for the mobile solution. They say that as they have experience with plastic based e-paper prototypes they hope that this is will not take long to develop.

Last week we reported that AUO is showing a new Oxide-TFT based 32" OLED TV, and today we have some new details. Unsurprisingly, the Oxide-TFT is IGZO based and the TV uses a bottom-emission type OLED. AUO is using vapor deposition using a metal mask.

The OLED TV features Full-HD (1920x1080) resolution, 100,000:1 contrast ration, 0.01ms response time and brightness of 200cd/m².