July 24, 2008 — The FlexTech Alliance (formerly known as the U.S. Display Consortium, or USDC), the only organization headquartered in North America devoted to developing the electronic display and the flexible, printed electronics supply chain, announced a contract with Lehigh University’s Display Research Laboratory, which will investigate the suitability of a number of different metal foils for use in the manufacture of flexible display backplanes. The $270,000 cost-shared award will be the first-ever systematic study of metal foils with the goal of yielding alternative substrates to today’s commonly used stainless steel.
Specifically, Lehigh University will work cooperatively with Hamilton Precision Metals (HPM), a business unit of the Specialty Metal Products Division of AMETEK, Inc. to identify promising material candidates with parameters for improving yields on metal backplanes for flexible displays. Important factors in creating displays include good thermal coefficient matching and smooth substrate surfaces for minimal display defects, both of which are current issues with using stainless steel as a substrate. In addition, this study will assess the costs associated with each foil in a high-volume manufacturing environment enabling selection of more cost-effective approaches to producing displays. The year long project will be led by Dr. Miltiadis Hatalis, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Lehigh.
Commenting on the overall project, Dr. Mark Robinson, vice president of technology at Hamilton Precision Metals, noted, “We are looking forward to working with such a highly esteemed university that has both the expertise and fabrication facility to make this critical project possible. One of great advantages HPM brings to the partnership is that the metal foils being characterized by Lehigh will have all been prepared by the same cold rolling process, using the same equipment.”
Once the film characterization has been completed and the most promising materials identified, additional samples of the selected foils will be made available to the U.S. Army-sponsored Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University to further test its capabilities. “One of the areas of interest to the FDC is determining bonding and de-bonding ability and behavior to a rigid carrier substrate for flexible display manufacture, so their involvement will add valuable manufacturing information,” stated Dr. Mark Hartney, the FlexTech Alliance’s chief technical officer. He added that samples of each metal foil will be made available to FlexTech Alliance member companies upon request.
“I am pleased that Lehigh and HPM will be working on an R&D program that has the potential to benefit future Army requirements,” stated U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA). “Academic-industry partnerships foster innovation and provide a platform for economic growth in our state.”
The FlexTech Alliance program is a collaborative effort of private industry and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, located in Adelphi, Md.