Flexible oled displays focus of new research programme

The primary objective of the programme is to develop an economically scalable route to high volume manufacturing of flexible active matrix oled displays. According to both research organisations, it will bring together partners to tackle challenges such as high resolution, low power consumption, large area, outdoor readability and light weight. The programme will tackle the challenges of next generation of oled displays such as mechanically flexible encapsulation films and TFT backplanes; and printed, high efficiency oleds. New materials and processes that allow for cheaper production, better quality, lower power, more robustness and more flexibility will be developed. The design of the drivers, pixel circuits and TFT backplane matrix will be reconsidered as increasing display area influences the amount of pixels per inch or the refresh rates. The programme scope also includes the development of new manufacturing equipment such as fine patterning equipment for backplanes and tools for integrated roll to roll manufacturing. Gerwin Gelinck (Holst Centre), Program Manager of the OLED Display Program, said: "Holst Centre and its partners continuously look for new application domains for the generic flexible electronic technologies that have been developed. This ensures our research stays tangible, application oriented and relevant for industry and society. Flexible displays represent an enormous economic and technical opportunity for flat panel manufacturers and its supply chain. As such they are seen as an attractive landing place for many new technologies. Flexible displays are therefore becoming a top priority research effort for many companies worldwide, including many of our current industrial partners." Paul Heremans (imec), Program Manager of the OLED Display Program, added: "With this programme in mind, we already have been working more and more towards integrating separate building blocks and have realised oled displays using both organic and metal oxide TFT backplanes. Thin, plastic substrates were used, and the displays were fully encapsulated using our state of the art barrier technology. Part of this was done with other research institutes in a European project called FLAME, but we could really pull this off because of intense collaboration with some of our industrial partners. We will demonstrate some of these display prototypes in 2012."