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Universal Display (FDC) and the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University announced that they have strengthened their collaboration to extend to the joint fabrication of prototype active-matrix PHOLEDs on flexible plastic substrates for the U.S. Department of Army. In addition, Universal Display announced that the company has been awarded a $650,000 U.S. Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II Enhancement contract to support this work.

UDC and the FDC believe that the enhanced relationship will accelerate the demonstration of the flexible AMOLEDs. Earlier in 2009, they have already demonstrated a 4.1" monochrome QVGA PHOLED display.

As part of this strategic relationship, Universal Display and the FDC will work to demonstrate flexible OLED display prototypes with enhanced performance for the U.S. Army. The FDC will fabricate a-Si:H thin-film transistor (TFT) arrays on flexible plastic substrates using their low-temperature backplane and proprietary bond-debond manufacturing technologies. Universal Display will then use its UniversalPHOLED materials and technology to build full-color AMOLED displays

For prototypes to be delivered under the U.S. Army SBIR Phase II Enhancement Program, Universal Display will also use its proprietary encapsulation film technology to create permeation barriers on the substrate and on top of the OLED to prevent harmful moisture and oxygen from reaching the OLED device.

Universal Display Corporation has been awarded a $334,000 extension to a US army Small-Business-Innovation-Research (SBIR) phase III contract. UDC will continue to work on their flexible OLED display technology, and will deliver new prototype flexible displays built on metal foil (using amorphhous-silicon backplanes). The new displays will also be encased in new and thinner housing (the old ones were pretty bulky, as can be seen in the photo below).

UDC is working on this together with LG Display and L-3 display systems. They will focus on the design and performance of the OLED displays. The technology is being evaluation by the US Department of Defense for military applications such as a wrist-mounted display for soldiers.

In June 2008, I interviewed Corey Hewitt and Dr. James Buntaine from Kodak OLED Systems.

Mr. Corey Hewitt is the co-general manager, operations manager and VP of Kodak OLED Systems. Dr. James Buntaine is the second co-general manager, and also the CTO and VP.

They were kind enough to send us an update on Kodak's OLED program and market outlook:

Kodak OLED Technology Update & Advancements

Kodak expertise and experience lies in material discovery, organic layer design, mechanistic understanding, image science, panel/module design, and manufacturing technology. These key value drivers associated with the Kodak technology, know-how and patents, maintain Kodak as an industry leader in enabling both the OLED flat-panel display and OLED solid-state lighting industries. Provided below are selected key areas technology and Kodak accomplishments:

Researchers from China, Singapore and the US has created new inorganic-LED based displays, that are brighter and more versatile than OLEDs, and can also be made flexible and transparent.

The team first created what they call a "sacrificial layer" in the manufacturing process. It's a weak adhesive that holds the LEDs in place while they form, but then it's partially dissolved away by an etching liquid. Next, a rubber stamping device presses down on and grabs hold of a bunch of the crystals. The stamping device picks up the LEDs and deposits them onto flexible sheets of glass, plastic, or rubber, where they are integrated with the conductors and insulators that will allow the lighting array to function. The result is a thin, flexible array that's much brighter than conventional OLED arrays.

Rogers says the material for the inorganic LED arrays, square centimeter by square centimeter, is still more expensive than its organic LED counterparts. But because the inorganic diodes are so much brighter, far fewer are needed to create a display of equivalent brightness--and therefore the cost of the inorganic LED arrays is comparable.

EEtimes says that GE will start volume production of flexible OLED light panels in 2010. GE will print the OLEDs on polymer substrate, and use their ultra-high barrier coating. GE says that they managed to lower production cost by using roll-to-roll printing, and inexpensive substrates (the polymer ones).

GE are also thinking about possible new designs, and have released this video a month ago, which includes several flexible OLED light designs by art students, including wearable OLEDs for emergency safety gear, illuminated stairs, walls and signs in stores and a nice "wall peel" OLED lamp.

Corning is showing their latest Silicon-On-Glass (SiOG) technology. SiOG is used to transfer a thin-film of silicon into a display substrate. SiOG is scalable, and currently Corning can make it on a Gen2 substrate, Gen4 by the end of the year.

Corning SiOG prototype

The SiOG process would permit the fabrication of stable OLED pixel switches with higher yield and much greater performance than LTPS, and on larger substrates. Corning claims that costs will be lower, because this enables manufacturers to integrate the circuitry on the display substrate easily. 

Some panel makers are already trying this out, and hopefully we'll see prototype OLED displays based on SiOG by the end of 2009.

Universal Display and the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University has announced a significant milestone towards a manufacturable flexible OLEDs. The new display is the first a-Si:H AMOLED display to be manufactured directly on DuPont Teijin’s polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate.

The companies will be showing a 4.1" monochrome QVGA flexible OLED at SID. This display has the same brightness as normal displays with extremely low power consumption. The flexible backplane display was manufactured at the Flexible Display Center utilizing a 180°C thin film transistor process. The FDC’s facility implements traditional flat panel and semiconductor tools and processes to achieve flexible displays, enabled by its proprietary bond-debond technology to secure the plastic substrate to a rigid carrier during manufacture.

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is showing several new flexible display prototypes - AMOLEDs, roll-to-roll cholesterol liquid crystal displays and electrowetting displays.

ITRI 4.1" Fleixble AMOLED prototype

ITRI's AMOLED is a 4.1" panel, made on plastic substrate. The prototype is monochrome, but it can be made with color materials.

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) will develop a new technology to make OLED backplanes, together with Semprius. The new tech will be integrated into CDT's 14-inch development line at Godmanchester campus, near Cambridge, UK.

Semprius has a technology for semiconductor printing, and the two companies will use the technology in the manufacturing of OLED backplanes.

The new Center for Organic Materials and Electronic Devices Dresden (COMEDD) facility is now open in Dresden, Germany. COMEDD is owned and operated by the Fraunhofer IPMS and it will be used to make OLED displays and lighting products, and also OPV panels.

Fraunhofer hopes that COMEDD will become a production center for OLEDs and not just a research center with pilot lines. The researchers at COMEDD will focus on OLED displays on glass, Microdisplays on silicon (in partnership with MED) and flexible displays on plastic. They will also make OLED lighting on glass or flexible substrates.