Polyimide - Page 5

Samsung is getting ready to release flexible OLEDs soon, and have announced that these displays will be branded as YOUM displays. Today the OLED association released some interesting information regarding Samsung's flexible OLED manufacturing program. According to this report, products that use these displays will be introduced in Q4 2012, while mass production will begin as early as next month.

Back in May 2011 Samsung announced a joint venture with Japan's Ube Kosan to develop and produce polyimide resin - to be used as substrates for their flexible displays in a $18 million investment. Now we hear that the curing equipment for the hardened polyimide will be provided by Korea's Tera Semicon.

There are reports that Samsung will brand its flexible OLEDs as YOUM displays. Samsung plans to release these OLEDs in 2012, so it makes sense that they will prepare a marketing campaign soon.

The first products to use the new flexible OLEDs will probably be mobile phones, followed by tablets and other mobile devices. It may be that the Samsung S3 will be the first phone to sport such a display.

Back in October 2011 Samsung Electronics said that it plans to launch products with flexible OLED panels next year, probably starting with mobile phones, then followed by tablets and other portable devices. Today an assistant president at SMD confirms this, and says that flexible OLED panels will be produced in 2012.

Those OLEDs will be plastic based, but probably not really bendable. SMD's AP says that the flexibility will be determined not by the OLED itself but the underlying substrate. Such a "flexible" but non-bendable plastic based OLED will have the advantage of being thin and shatterproof.

There are reports that LG Display decided to built a pilot 3.5-Gen (730 × 460 mm) flexible OLED production line. They have ordered the equipment, which will arrive by 3Q 2012, and the line will become active by the end of 2012. An official from LGD is quoted saying that it will take 1-2 years to develop and verify the process and produce prototypes. The company hasn't decided on a production schedule yet.

LG Display's flexible OLEDs will use the same technology as Samsung's flexible prototypes - a polyimide coated substrate and direct-emission RGB sub-pixels (as opposed to LG's OLED TV which use WOLED with color filters).

Samsung Electronics says that it plans to launch products with flexible OLED panels next year, probably starting with mobile phones, then followed by tablets and other portable devices. The company is actually hoping to introduce the products in the "earlier part of 2012".

This was reported before, although up until now Samsung said the plan is to launch flexible OLEDs in 2013 or 2014, so it's good to see they are advancing more quickly than they thought before. Samsung's flexible AMOLEDs will be fabricated on a plastic (Polyimide) substrate and will be able to withstand high temperature (up to 350-400 degrees). The displays can be bendable - but we assume that the first products will use them inside rigid glass cases - so it'll actually be "curved" displays and not flexible ones.

HP has developed a new method to produce large AMOLED panels, based on roll-to-roll manufacturing. They say that one of the biggest challenges to make flexible OLEDs is the alignment on large area flexible substrates. The new solution uses self-aligned imprint lithography (SAIL) to laminate a well-defined micro OLED (µOLED) frontplane unto a flexible active matrix amorphous silicon TFT backplane.

SAIL process flow

HP says they already built a proof-of-concept AMOLED device - which contains a flexible µOLED frontplane with OLED sizes of 50 µm on PET and active matrix backplane on polyimide with pixel pitches of 1 mm. The company claims that the new method will enable large area OLEDs at a very low cost.

Toray Industries is showing a Samsung-made 4.6" flexible OLED panel - which uses Toray's "component". We're not sure exactly what component Toray is talking about. We know that Toray is working towards Polyimide-based OLED encapsulation, but the company also develops blue OLED materials (at least the did back in 2008) - so perhaps Samsung are using their emitting materials? After all we know that Samsung are collaborating with Ube Kosan on Polimide development.

In any case, this OLED was showcased in Tokyo in a Toray's latest-technology exhibition. This OLED on show seems to be the same one unveiled back in November 2010 - a 4.6" WVGA panel (you can see this panel on video below).

ETNews posted a couple of articles claiming that Samsung Mobile Display plans to start mass producing flexible AMOLEDs in 2012. This is actually consistent with what we hear from other experts - although Samsung officially said in December 2010 that the plan is to start mass production in 2013-2014. ETNews says that the recent joint-venture with Ube Kosan on Polyimide production means that the development process of the new technology is complete and Samsung now focuses on production technologies.

Samsung's flexible AMOLEDs will be fabricated on a plastic (Polyimide) substrate and will be able to withstand high temperature (up to 350-400 degrees). The displays can be bendable - and rolled down to a two centimeter radius. ETNews says that Samsung will use the new displays in mobile phones, tablets and also watches and glasses. Here's a nice video showing the flexible displays:

Samsung Mobile Display announced a new Joint Venture (50:50) with Japan's Ube Kosan to develop and produce polyimide resin - to be used as substrates for flexible displays (and other applications, too). The initial investment is 19.4 billion won ($18 million USD). The new polyimide material will be heat resistant even at high temperatures. The production facilities will be built in Samsung's industrial complex in Tangjeong, Korea.

Samsung have already demonstrated flexible OLED prototypes built on a polyimide substrate, back in November 2010. According to our information, Samsung plans to start producing flexible OLEDs in 2012 or 2013, and this is one of the first steps they announce towards that goal.

A few days ago we reported about Samsung's new 4.5" WVGA (800x480) flexible AMOLED prototype, and today we have a couple of new photos and some more information.

The panel is made from LTPS TFTs, on a polyimide substrate. The OLED is top-emission, and is made by vapor deposition. The brightness is 250cd/m², and the contrast ratio is 100,000:1.