Technical / Research - Page 46

During a trade show in Japan, Fujifilm unveiled new bendable speakers. The company presented several interesting prototypes, showing how these speakers can be made in all sorts of shapes:

Making a bendable diaphragm is not easy. Soft materials absorb vibrations so it's difficult to make one that's flexible and have good acoustic performance. Fujifilm managed to achieve that by using viscoelastic polymer that hardens in the audible range (20Hz to 20kHz) and softens in the range for bending it by hand (several hertz). This polymer was mixed with piezoelectric ceramics, coated with an unspecified layer for protected and then sandwitched with electrodes. The piezoelectric ceramics vibrates when voltage is applited and the viscoelastic polymer functions as a diaphragm.

The German OLED project So-Light has been successfully completed. This 3.5 years, €14.7 million project (funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) addressed the complete value chain, from primary OLED materials through to OLED-lighting applications.

Update: according to some people, Sony's (and Panasonic's) new OLED prototypes actually use white OLEDs with color filters (WOLED-CF) and not RGB sub pixels with color filters. Hopefully I'll get more information on this soon...

During CES 2013, both Sony and Panasonic unveiled 56" 4K OLED TV panel prototypes. Both panels use Sony's Super Top Emission structure. Those panels used color filters, which caused some confusion, so I thought I'd explain Sony's technology.

Super Top Emission utilizes RGB OLED subpixels, a microcavity structure and color filters. Sony says that this simultaneously enhances color purity, attains higher contrast and achieves lower power consumption.

Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company based in Germany, working on high performance OLED materials. Back in April 2012 we posted our (third) interview with Merck's OLED unit VP, Dr. Udo Heider.

It seems that the soluble OLED materials market is heating up with recent announcements on printable OLED advances. So we asked Dr. Heider to give us a short updates on the happenings at Merck. As always, Merck are quite discreet...

Fluxim launched a new all-in-one measurement system called paios for the characterization of organic devices (OLEDs and OPVs). Paios is used for extracting material and device parameters such as the charge carrier mobility by performing a range of dynamic electrical measurement techniques including CELIV, impedance spectroscopy and transient space-charge-limited currents.

Paios complements the company's setfos device simulation software. Fluxim says that by using paios and comparing measurement and simulation results, crucial parameters may be extracted and physical models can be validated - and this leads to more predictive simulation results.

There are some new conflicting reports regarding AUO's OLED program. According to Digitimes, AUO is still struggling with technology issues (mostly low yields and costs) - and has only managed to produce 126 PPI displays. It's possible that all through 2013 AUO will only be able to make these low density panels, and so only target the entry-level and mid-range mobile phone markets. According to digitimes high-resolution OLED panel orders will go to Samsung instead. Yields at the AUO line is still low at 30%-40%.

According to Chinese site OLEDW, however, AUO managed to overcome the yield issues (reached 60% yield), and HTC will use AUO's 4.65" OLED panels in their upcoming M7 flagship phone (Digitimes says that HTC decided to use Sharp-made LCD panels instead). These 720p panels will sport a high 317 PPI (this panel was unveiled by AUO back in October 2012). OLEDW claims that HTC requires a monthly supply of 2 million panels, and have reserved the entire line output of AUO's 3.5-Gen Linkou, New Taipei City fab (7,000 substrates a month, which is not enough for 2 million panels actually, so some of OLEDW numbers aren't correct). This was already reported several times in the past.

Innovative Technology (IT) are developing a range of large-capacity Gas Purifiers specifically for the OLED market. IT are working closely with OLED companies to make sure the new purifiers will be better integrated with OLED production lines.

The new systems will be scaled up to accommodate the larger volume enclosures of OLED manufacturing facilities. IT says that the next-gen systems will be able to handle about 7 times the volume of current purifiers. The company plans to finalize the optimization of the new purifiers by the beginning of Q2 2013.

BOE Display developed a 17" Oxide-TFT AMOLED prototype that was produced in an ink-jet printing process. They say that this is the first time these an Oxide-TFT OLED panel was ink-jet printed successfully, but I'm not sure if that's actually true because I think Panasonic's printed 56" OLED TV shown at CES also sports an Oxide-TFT. Still this is a great achievement by BOE.

BOE Ordos 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab

A few months ago we reported that BOE started construction of their 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab in Ordos (Inner Mongolia) which will produce 54K substrates a month. According to earlier reports, the fab cost is estimated at $3.44 billion. BOE's plan is apparently to first start with LTPS LCD and only in 2014 start producing AMOLED panels as well. It's probable that the ink-jet based process is even further away...

LG has unveiled a new 55" curved OLED TV, called the EA9800. While I don't think LG is actually close to start producing such a TV with a flexible OLED panel (they didn't discuss the release date or price), it's a good sign that they gave a model number.

The EA9800 features an Oxide-TFT WRGB Full-HD OLED panel (like LG's 55EM9700 OLED TV). The TV features "infinite" contrast ratio, passive 3D, Smart Touch Controls and a "paper-slim" design. It is made from Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (CFRP). The curved screen "removes any hint of visual distraction to maximize the viewing experience".

The European MOMA project (eMbedded Organic Memory Arrays) has developed the largest re-programmable non-volatile memory arrays yet produced on flexible substrates. The project developed two prototypes - a 256-bit transistor-based one and 1-kbit diode-based arrays.

MOMA is now drawing to a successful close, and the partners hope that it will lead towards commercialization of flexible electronics applications with embedded memory. In the remaining months of the project, the partners will combine all these building blocks into a 96-bit array with the related read/write circuitry, creating a complete embedded flexible memory suitable for applications such as Electronic Product Code (EPC) tags.