Glass - Page 2

Last week at CES, OLEDWorks demonstrated some of its latest automotive OLED Lighting solutions. Developed together with Corning, Valeo and STMicroelectronics, OLEDWorks’ newest demonstrator contained the highest density of individually addressable segments of any flexible OLED panel.

You can see the new flexible OLED demonstrator in the video above on the left (the device on the right uses rigid OLED panels). OLEDWorks says that individually segmented OLED lighting panels increase safety on the road by allowing for improved communication through dynamic animation sequences and symbols. Manufacturing these OLED panels on flexible glass further expands lighting design opportunities with the ability to conform with curved surfaces in the car, integrating lighting directly into the vehicle’s architecture.

This is a sponsored post by Coherent

Lasers are utilized for numerous processes in flexible OLED production, just as they are in the manufacture of other display technologies. In fact, it can be reasonably claimed that lasers are a key enabling technology in the fabrication of modern, flat panel displays. And it’s likely that they will continue to perform essential fabrication steps as flexible and foldable displays become more commonplace.

There is a variety of processes within the flexible display production line where lasers have an essential contribution to enable high throughput, high yield mass production. Nowadays, the complexity of the displays is getting larger and the number and tasks of lasers within flexible OLED production is increasing.

For this reason, choosing the right laser really means choosing the right laser supplier. Manufacturers need a partner who has the specific technical and applications development resources to identify the best and most cost-effective solution. Coherent is that partner

According to reports in Korean media, Samsung is developing a new process which will allow it to reduce the thickness of its QD-OLED panels.

The current QD-OLED design uses two glass substrates, one for the TFT backplen (and the OLED frontplane materials), and one for the QD conversion layer. The new plan is to remove the QD glass substrate, and inkjet print the QDs directly on the OLED TFE encapsulation layer.

DSCC posted an interesting article, comparing the production costs of OLED vs mini-LED panels for IT. DSCC estimates that for tablets and notebooks, a tandem structure will be used, and the panels will be based on rigid substrates.

In the chart above you see a production cost comparison, between 2021 and 2025, for 12.9" panels. DSCC looks at two OLED production options: a tandem OLED panel with an LTPO backplane produced in a 6-Gen fab, and a similar panel that uses an Oxide-TFT backplane and produced in a larger 8.5-Gen fab. As you can see, OLED panels are more cost effective, and will remain so throughout the forecast period.

This is a sponsored post by 3D-MicroMac

Laser cutting processes of glass materials based on filament technology have been increasingly adopted in industrial applications. Besides standard glass thicknesses ultra-thin glass offers exciting opportunities for further improvements of new devices.

The main reason for this is the perfect match of material properties like mechanical resistance and flexibility as well as optical performance. The required machining processes to perform perimeter cutting as well as structuring and via drilling are confronted with high quality requirements.

As demand for larger mobile OLED displays, for laptops, tablets and monitors is on the rise, there are reports that Samsung Display is considering building a 8.5-Gen AMOLED fab dedicated for laptop and IT displays.

This new fab will be the first 8.5-Gen RGB OLED deposition fab, and Samsung is looking into new technologies to enable OLED deposition on larger substrates. It is reported today that SDC is developing, in collaboration with ULVAC, vertical deposition technology.

LG Chem announced that it has developed a new PET-based foldable OLED cover film. LGC says its new film is thinner and more durable than both polyimide films and Ultra-Thin Glass, currently used in foldable OLEDs.

LG Chem designed new materials, which are coated on both sides of the PET film to strengthen its heat resistance and mechanical properties. The company says the new film withstands over 200,000 folding cycles.

An AILU (Association of Industrial Laser Users) webinar, scheduled for September 15, will introduce the basics of OLED lighting, discuss the choice for the right substrate and encapsulation material as well as the current status of roll-to-roll processing. The webinar is sponsored by 3D Micromac, the industry leader in laser micromachining and roll-to-roll laser systems.

The webinar will also show results from the EU-funded LAOLA project, which is a collaboration between German and Japanese companies and research institutes. The LAOLA project, led by the Fraunhofer FEP, develops the use of ultra-thin flexible glass as a substrate and encapsulation material in roll-to-roll technology for this purpose.

The National Center for Flexible Electronics (FlexE) was established in 2014 as a Centre of Excellence at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur. The vision of the center is to "catalyse the development of domestic industry in the field of large area flexible electronics".

The FlexE center has some interesting OLED projects, and we recently had a discussion with researchers from the center to learn more about the OLED R&D activities.

DSCC posted an interesting blog post in which the company shares its information on Samsung's upcoming foldable smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

First up is the Galaxy Z Flip 3 (which is a bit strange as there's no Galaxy Z Flip 2). This new phone will feature an Ultra Thin Glass cover - which for the first time will not be exclusively produced by SCHOTT. This time Corning will supply some of the UTG for Samsung. According to DSCC, Corning’s UTG will be processed by Korean supplier eCONY. This is interesting - a while back it was reported that Samsung Electronics halted its UTG project with Corning.