Plastic

Researchers from the Holst Center has applied spatial atomic layer deposition (sALD) to create both the semiconductor and dielectric layer in a thin-film transistor (TFT) Oxide-TFT (IGZO) display backplane - for the first time ever.

The researchers created a 200 PPI QVGA OLED display prototype on a thin PEN foil. This shows how TFTs can be produced in a low temperature process (below 200 degrees Celsius) using sALD on a cheap transparent plastic foil. The TFTs achieved a mobility of 8 cm²/V2 with channel lengths down to 1 um.

Samsung Display announced that its unbreakable smartphone panel has been certified Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the official testing company for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. This display was first demonstrated at SID 2018.

This display is not aimed for just smartphones - SDC sees it being used in the automotive market, the defense market, portable game consoles and tablet PCs. The display is a flexible AMOLED on an "unbreakable" substrate with an overlay plastic window securely adhered to it.

Researchers from Penn State University have demonstrated 3D OLED lighting devices, inspired by the Japanese Kirigami art of paper cutting the folding.

The researchers started with flexible OLED lighting devices produced on thin plastics, which they then cut and folded to create lighting-emitting 3D structures.

In March 2016 the EU launched a new project, called, PI-SCALE, that aims to create a European-wide pilot line which will enable companies of all sizes to quickly and cost effectively test and scale up their flexible OLED lighting concepts and turn them into market ready products.

As one of the core-founders in this project, the Fraunhofer FEP is soon set to present the first demonstrators of flexible OLED out from this project. The OLED prototype you see above was deposited using a roll-to-roll by Nippon Electric Glass, on an ultra-thin glass.

In July 2014 LG Display announced its intention to enter the OLED automotive display market, with flexible and transparent OLED solutions. Now the company demonstrates new 12.3" Full-HD Flexible OLED panels especially for the automotive market:

Back in 2014 LGD said they already signed contracts with several German automobile makers - it'll be interesting to see how soon will such display be adopted in commercial cars.

Motorola is set to unveil new phones on October 27th, and according to leaked brochures, the Droid Turbo 2 phone will have a "shatterproof" screen - Motorola will even accept trade-ins with phones that have cracked screens - just to emphasize this new feature.

It's not clear what does a shatterproof screen actually means - but it may be that the new phone uses a plastic-based flexible OLED. Up until now all phones that adopt a flexible OLED actually use a cover glass which makes them as shatter prone as any other display... it's not likely but perhaps Motorola uses a new flexible OLED that has no glass at all?

LG Chem launched a new flexible OLED lighting panel sized 406x60 mm - more than twice the size of their current flexible panel (which is 200x50 mm). The new plastic-based panel model number is P6BD, and it is only 0.41 mm thick.

The P6BD offers 20,000 hours of lifetime, efficiency of 50 lm/W and a CRI of 85. LG Chem says that the panel's uniformity is 70% and above.

The first-generation Apple Watch uses a flexible OLED display, exclusively produced by LG Display. New reports say that Apple signed up Samsung Display to be the second flexible OLED supplier for the next-generation Watch.

This is actually quite funny - even before the official launch of the Watch in March 2015, we heard the same report. Later on it was said that Apple decided to make LGD the exclusive flexible OLED display supplier for the Watch 2. And now we're back to the first report with SDC as a supplier.

AU Optronics demonstrated a new 1.3" Full-circle plastic-based flexible AMOLED panel. The panel features a resolution of 320x320 (257 PPI) and a brightness of 320 cd/m2. The whole panel is less than 0.25 mm thick.

It's not clear how close is this panel for commercialization. AUO recently shifted its focus to wearable OLEDs, and has launched a circular 1.4" glass-based AMOLED display.

LG Chem started developing "truly flexible" plastic-based OLED panels back in 2013, and they recently finished that development effort with sample production already underway. The company now released this video showing the panels undergoing some flexibility tests (including the hammer test):

Currently LG Chem offers samples for $250 each, and mass production of these panels is expected by July 2015 - which will also mean a lower price. Those panels offer 60 lm/W, 75 lumens, a color temperature of 3,000K and a CRI of over 85. The bending radius is 30 mm.