Slot-die coating

In the past two years, Evonik and the Holst Centre has been developing a new soluble Oxide-TFT material and a slot-die coating deposition process. Evonik is now commercializing the so-called iXsenic S material. In fact Evonik says that a key customer is introducing the product in a mass production display fab (it is unknown if this line produces OLED or LCD displays).

Evonik says that their new material offers a performance good enough for high-resolution OLED and LCD displays, and it can be deposited in a coating process which lowers production costs.

Beneq signed an agreement with the UK's Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) to deliver an ALD roll-to-roll unit for their thin-film barrier development platform. The equipment will be delivered to CPI in England in Q2 2014. CPI have been looking at R2R ALD technology for several years, and their first goal now is to develop full system technologies and processes to the field of clear flexible barrier encapsulation and substrate materials.

CPI OLED production line

CPI's current OLED system supports both small evaporized and soluble OLED materials. Their pilot production line uses slot die technology to allow the coating of substrates (4", 6" or 8" in size) in a highly repeatable and reproducible manner with a uniform film thickness of under 50 nm.

The UK's Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) published a short video with a concept automobile that uses all sorts of printed electronics devices. There's a very nice OLED Lighting strip surrounding the car, and of course also flexible OLED panels on the dashboard:

The CPI's OLED/OPV prototype line was designed to enable materials companies, device designers and end users to develop their technology within a fully automated, controlled environment. The system supports both small evaporized and soluble OLED materials, and 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.

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.

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.

A few weeks ago we posted MBraun movies showing some of their OLED Processing equipment (the UV_03 cleaner, the Vacuum Hotplate and the Convection Oven). Today MBraun released another set of three films. The first film shows their Slot Die Coater - which can be used in fabs from Gen-1 to Gen-4.5:

The second film is about the Edge Bead Remover (EBR):

Back in 2006, we published an interview with Andy Hannah, Plextronics' president, CEO and co-founder. Andy agreed to do a follow-up interview to update us on Plextronics' business and technology.

Plextronics is a US-based company (established in 2002, as a spin-out from Carnegie Mellon University) that is developing technology that enables broad market commercialization of organic electronic devices - including OLEDs, plastic chips, polymer solar cells and organic sensors.

Q: Andy, can you give us a short introduction to your OLED technology?

Q: The benefits of OLEDs include, of course, being printable, low cost and demonstrating enhanced device performance. Plextronics’ technology plays a key part in achieving these benefits by reducing operating voltage in devices and thereby increasing lifetime and power efficiency.