Category Archives: Flexible Displays

Less than a micrometre thin, bendable and giving all the colours that a regular LED display does, it still needs ten times less energy than a Kindle tablet. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed the basis for a new electronic “paper”. Their results were recently published in the high impact journal Advanced Materials.

Chalmers' e-paper contains gold, silver and PET plastic. The layer that produces the colours is less than a micrometre thin. Credit: Mats Tiborn

Chalmers’ e-paper contains gold, silver and PET plastic. The layer that produces the colours is less than a micrometre thin. Credit: Mats Tiborn

When Chalmers researcher Andreas Dahlin and his PhD student Kunli Xiong were working on placing conductive polymers on nanostructures, they discovered that the combination would be perfectly suited to creating electronic displays as thin as paper. A year later the results were ready for publication. A material that is less than a micrometre thin, flexible and giving all the colours that a standard LED display does.

“The ‘paper’ is similar to the Kindle tablet”, says Andreas Dahlin. “It isn’t lit up like a standard display, but rather reflects the external light which illuminates it. Therefore it works very well where there is bright light, such as out in the sun, in contrast to standard LED displays that work best in darkness. At the same time it needs only a tenth of the energy that a Kindle tablet uses, which itself uses much less energy than a tablet LED display”.

It all depends on the polymers’ ability to control how light is absorbed and reflected. The polymers that cover the whole surface lead the electric signals throughout the full display and create images in high resolution. The material is not yet ready for application, but the basis is there. The team has tested and built a few pixels. These use the same red, green and blue (RGB) colours that together can create all the colours in standard LED displays. The results so far have been positive, what remains now is to build pixels that cover an area as large as a display.

“We are working at a fundamental level but even so, the step to manufacturing a product out of it shouldn’t be too far away. What we need now are engineers”.

One obstacle today is that there is gold and silver in the display, which makes the manufacturing expensive.

“The gold surface is 20 nanometres thick so there is not that much gold in it”, says Andreas Dahlin. “But at present there is a lot of gold wasted in manufacturing it. Either we reduce the waste or we find another way to decrease the manufacturing cost”.

Andreas Dahlin thinks the best application for the displays will be well-lit places such as outside or in public places to display information. This could reduce the energy consumption and at the same time replace signs and information screens that aren’t currently electronic today with more flexible ones.

Due to increasing capacity from China, South Korean LCD panel makers are quickly realizing that LCD displays profitability may eventually erode, due to growing capacity and price competition from China, so they are betting their future on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. Because of lower profit margins and slowing market growth, the IT display category has become the first product line that LCD display manufacturers are quitting, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

Samsung Display was the first company to do so, selling a fifth generation (Gen 5) fabrication plant (fab) to a Chinese touch and module maker last year. In the future, more fab restructuring is expected, especially the facilities dedicated to making IT panels. 

“Brands like HP and Lenovo expected notebook panels to be in a surplus situation, and they were therefore keeping their panel inventories at very low levels,” said Jason Hsu, senior principal analyst, IHS Markit. “This shift from Samsung Display could cause some brands to experience panel shortages in the third quarter of 2016.”

BOE to possibly double its panel shipments this year

Samsung Display delivered 30 million notebook panels in 2015, according to the latest information from the IHS Markit Tablet and Notebook Display Market Tracker. With the company’s latest fab reorganization plan, notebook PC LCD panel shipments could fall to 12 million units in 2016 and to 4 million in 2017. There will be an 18 million-unit gap this year, which means brands might not be able to find other sources to keep up with production needs.

When reviewing the supply chain mix in the first quarter of 2016, it is clear that HP has been affected by these changes more than other companies, with shipments from Samsung Display down from 1.1 million units in first quarter to 350,000 units in the second quarter. However, HP has shifted its orders to other panel makers to secure enough panels for its production needs, for example, Innolux.

BOE is another panel maker benefitting from the exit of Samsung Display from this market. Panel shipments from BOE increased from 4.9 million units in the first quarter to 7.2 million in the second quarter. BOE is expected to grow its notebook business to more than 36 million units in 2017. BOE first began to supply panels for notebooks in 2009, and it has now become one of the largest IT panel suppliers. Furthermore, BOE has a Gen8 fab in Chongqing, China — near the world’s largest notebook production base. In fact, notebook panel shipments from the Chongqing fab are expected to grow quickly next year, thanks to the more efficient logistics.

Chinese and Taiwanese makers to increase unit shipments of premium panels 

LG Display and Samsung Display used to supply Apple with notebook panels; however, the fab re-organization — especially the reallocation of oxide capacity — has increased Apple’s concerns about a potential panel shortage and possible low yields. For this reason, Apple is expected to add another panel supplier for its new MacBook Pro, to diversify the risk from Samsung Display business changes. For its legacy MacBook Air line of notebook PCs, Apple is considering diversifying its supply chain to Chinese makers, which is the first time Apple will use LCD panels from China.

Samsung Display’s exit from the LCD display business has also affected the supply of wide-view-angle in-plane switching (IPS) and plane-to-line switching (PLS) displays. Samsung Display has been one of the major suppliers to offer wide-view-angle panels, and its shipment volume is second only to LG Display.

In order to source IPS and PLS panels, brands must find other sources to replace Samsung Display, after the company begins to reduce production. AUO is one of the qualified candidates, and apparently it is receiving more orders from notebook PC brands. AUO, Innolux and other Taiwanese manufacturers and BOE and other Chinese suppliers are all expanding IPS panels to respond to increasing panel requirements.

Applied Materials, Inc. today introduced the display industry’s first high-resolution inline e-beam review (EBR) system, increasing the speed at which manufacturers of OLED and UHD LCD screens can achieve optimum yields and bring new display concepts to market.

Applied is the semiconductor industry leader in EBR with more than 70 percent market share in 2015. The company has combined its leading-edge SEM capabilities used in semiconductor device review with a large-scale display vacuum platform, resulting in an inline EBR technology that is the fastest, most effective method to discover and address the root causes of killer defects in advanced mobile and TV displays.

Applied’s EBR system has received orders from 6 of the top 10 largest display manufacturers in the world and demand is increasing as manufacturers look to quickly and cost effectively optimize their yields and bring new types of displays to market faster.

“Our new EBR system is the latest in a strong pipeline of display products that enables customers to solve critical OLED and LCD manufacturing challenges,” said Ali Salehpour, senior vice president and general manager, Display and Adjacent Markets and Applied Global Services, Applied Materials. “Applied’s unique ability to combine semiconductor yield techniques and panel-level SEM technology expands our addressable market and avoids costly yield excursions for our customers. Emerging applications such as augmented and virtual reality and smart vehicles require better displays with new form factors. These applications are driving demand for solutions like our EBR tool that give customers significant time-to-market advantages.”

“As a worldwide leader in display, Tianma values the strong relationship with Applied Materials to help us develop new technologies required to produce the high-quality, high-performance mobile displays that consumers have come to expect,” said Dr. Jun Ma, vice president, Tianma Micro-electronics Co., Ltd. “Applied’s EBR system will enable us to reduce the start-up time at our Wuhan fab and accelerate our ability to bring more advanced display technologies to market. In addition to EBR, we look forward to working with Applied to introduce other semiconductor yield techniques to mobile display manufacturing.”

Advanced display technologies require an increasing number of process steps resulting in more and smaller contaminates, and new types of defects. Current inline automated optical defect inspection tools for displays are not as effective as SEM analysis in distinguishing killer from non-killer defects, or in determining systematic root causes of defects. Prior to the introduction of Applied’s EBR system, conducting SEM analysis on displays required breaking the glass substrate into pieces and examining each piece separately under a microscope. This is not only costly and time consuming but also makes it nearly impossible to determine the location of the defect on the full panel. Applied solves these limitations by providing inline SEM review at the industry’s highest resolution and throughput without requiring the panel to be broken.

Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT) is a leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world.

Applied Materials’ display e-beam review (EBR) system

Applied Materials’ display e-beam review (EBR) system

Solid State Technology announced today that its premier semiconductor manufacturing conference and networking event, The ConFab, will be held at the iconic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego on May 14-17, 2017. A 30% increase in attendance in 2016 with a similar uplift expected in 2017, makes the venue an ideal meeting location as The ConFab continues to expand.

    

For more than 12 years, The ConFab, an invitation-only executive conference, has been the destination for key industry influencers and decision-makers to connect and collaborate on critical issues.

“The semiconductor industry is maturing, yet opportunities abound,” said Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Technology and Conference Chair of The ConFab. “The Internet of Things (IoT) is exploding, which will result in a demand for “things” such as sensors and actuators, as well as cloud computing. 5G is also coming and will be the key technology for access to the cloud.”

The ConFab is the best place to seek a deeper understanding on these and other important issues, offering a unique blend of market insights, technology forecasts and strategic assessments of the challenges and opportunities facing semiconductor manufacturers. “In changing times, it’s critical for people to get together in a relaxed setting, learn what’s new, connect with old friends, make new acquaintances and find new business opportunities,” Singer added.

Dave Mount

David Mount

Solid State Technology is also pleased to announce the addition of David J. Mount to The ConFab team as marketing and business development manager. Mount has a rich history in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment business and will be instrumental in guiding continued growth, and expanding into new high growth areas.

Mainstream semiconductor technology will remain the central focus of The ConFab, and the conference will be expanded with additional speakers, panelists, and VIP attendees that will participate from other fast growing and emerging areas. These include biomedical, automotive, IoT, MEMS, LEDs, displays, thin film batteries, photonics and advanced packaging. From both the device maker and the equipment supplier perspective, The ConFab 2017 is a must-attend networking conference for business leaders.

The ConFab conference program is guided by a stellar Advisory Board, with high level representatives from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Texas Instruments, TSMC, Cisco, Samsung, Intel, Lam Research, KLA-Tencor, ASE, NVIDIA, the Fab Owners Association and elsewhere.

Details on the invitation-only conference are at: www.theconfab.com. For sponsorship inquiries, contact Kerry Hoffman at [email protected]. For details on attending as a guest or qualifying as a VIP, contact Sally Bixby at [email protected].

SEMI today announced that twenty-one start-ups have been selected to pitch to investors and exhibit their products at SEMICON Europa‘s INNOVATION VILLAGE in Grenoble, France at the Alpexpo from 25-27 October, 2016. INNOVATION VILLAGE will showcase never-before-seen technologies, with early stage companies introducing their technologies on the exposition floor.

INNOVATION VILLAGE, an area of more than 400m² on the SEMICON Europa exhibition floor, is dedicated to the launch and promotion of technological innovation.  Twenty-one leading European start-ups will be featured, including:

• 3Dis Technologies • HPROB • ProNT GmbH
• Antaios • Irlynx • Silicon Radar
• Applied Nanolayers BV • Madci • Siltectra
• Bright Red Systems Gmbh • Mi2-factory GmbH • Smart Force Technologies
• Fastree3D • Miniswys SA • Smoltek
• FlexEnable • Noivion • Solayl
• FMC – The Ferroelectric Memory Company • Pollen Metrology • Terabee

Start-ups will be given the opportunity to “pitch” their products to potential investors including Applied Ventures LLC, Samsung Ventures, TEL Venture Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, 3M New Ventures, Aliad-Air Liquide Corporate Venture Capital, Capital ASTER, CEA Investment, VTT Ventures, Capital-E, Siemens Technology Accelerator GmbH and more.

For the first time at the INNOVATION VILLAGE, a new technology transfer program, called the TechnoMarket, from partner Linksium, SATT Grenoble Alpes will be showcased on 26 October. “The national network, SATT, has chosen SEMICON Europa to promote the best technological projects derived from public research within France that can also benefit manufacturers. The new Techno Market event offers new opportunities for businesses,” says Gilles Talbotier, CEO, Linksium.  The TechnoMarket acts as a genuine market place for VCs and companies ready to invest in innovation.

Free admission code: Use the promotional code SCEU-TBN4U to gain free admission to the show floor (not including conferences or forums).  Register now – attend to connect.

For more information about SEMICON Europa, please visit http://www.semiconeuropa.org

Nanoelectronics research center imec announces that Kris Myny, one of its young scientists, has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant. The grant of 1.5 million euros is earmarked to open up new research horizons in the field of thin-film transistor technology. This will allow a leap forward compared to current state-of-the-art and enable breakthrough applications in e.g. healthcare and the Internet-of-Things (IoT). ERC Starting Grants are awarded by the European Research Council to support excellent researchers at the stage at which they are starting their own independent research team after a stringent selection procedure; they are among the most prestigious of European research grants.

With his research, Kris Myny wants to realize a breakthrough in thin-film transistor technology, a technology used to create the large-area, flexible circuits that e.g. drive today’s flat-panel displays.

Specifically, he wants to introduce design innovations of unipolar n-type transistor circuits based on amorphous Indium-Gallium-Zinc-Oxide (a-IGZO) as semiconductor. These are currently acknowledged as the most promising transistors for next-generation curved, flexible, or even rollable electronic applications.

Kris Myny said, “My goal is to use these transistors to introduce a new logic family for building digital circuits that will drastically decrease the power consumption compared to current flexible circuits. And this of course without compromising the speed of the electronics. At the same time, we will also make the transistors smaller, in a way that is compatible with large-area manufacturing. In addition, I will also look at new techniques to design ultralow-power systems in the new logic style. These will allow building next-generation large-area flexible applications such as displays, IoT sensors, or wearable healthcare sensor patches.”

In a recent press release, the European Commission announced that in 2017 it would invest a record 1.8 billion in its ERC grant scheme. A sizable part of the budget is earmarked for Starting Grants, reserved for young scientists with two to seven years of post-PhD experience. Jo De Boeck, imec’s CTO says “We congratulate Kris Myny for all his valuable research culminating in this grant. Imec goes to great lengths to select and foster our young scientists and provide them with a world-class infrastructure. These ERC Starting Grants show that their work indeed meets the highest standards, comparable to any in Europe.”

A research team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and by Dr. Jae-Hyun Kim from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) has jointly developed a continuous roll-processing technology that transfers and packages flexible large-scale integrated circuits (LSI), the key element in constructing the computer’s brain such as CPU, on plastics to realize flexible electronics (Advanced Materials, “Simultaneous Roll Transfer and Interconnection of Flexible Silicon NAND Flash Memory”).

This schematic image shows the flexible silicon NAND flash memory produced by the simultaneous roll-transfer and interconnection process. (Image: KAIST)

This schematic image shows the flexible silicon NAND flash memory produced by the simultaneous roll-transfer and interconnection process. (Image: KAIST)

Professor Lee previously demonstrated the silicon-based flexible LSIs using 0.18 CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) process in 2013 (ACS Nano, “In Vivo Silicon-based Flexible Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Monolithically Encapsulated with Biocompatible Liquid Crystal Polymers”) and presented the work in an invited talk of 2015 International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM), the world’s premier semiconductor forum.

Highly productive roll-processing is considered a core technology for accelerating the commercialization of wearable computers using flexible LSI. However, realizing it has been a difficult challenge not only from the roll-based manufacturing perspective but also for creating roll-based packaging for the interconnection of flexible LSI with flexible displays, batteries, and other peripheral devices.

To overcome these challenges, the research team started fabricating NAND flash memories on a silicon wafer using conventional semiconductor processes, and then removed a sacrificial wafer leaving a top hundreds-nanometer-thick circuit layer. Next, they simultaneously transferred and interconnected the ultrathin device on a flexible substrate through the continuous roll-packaging technology using anisotropic conductive film (ACF). The final silicon-based flexible NAND memory successfully demonstrated stable memory operations and interconnections even under severe bending conditions. This roll-based flexible LSI technology can be potentially utilized to produce flexible application processors (AP), high-density memories, and high-speed communication devices for mass manufacture.

Professor Lee said, “Highly productive roll-process was successfully applied to flexible LSIs to continuously transfer and interconnect them onto plastics. For example, we have confirmed the reliable operation of our flexible NAND memory at the circuit level by programming and reading letters in ASCII codes. Out results may open up new opportunities to integrate silicon-based flexible LSIs on plastics with the ACF packing for roll-based manufacturing.”

Dr. Kim added, “We employed the roll-to-plate ACF packaging, which showed outstanding bonding capability for continuous roll-based transfer and excellent flexibility of interconnecting core and peripheral devices. This can be a key process to the new era of flexible computers combining the already developed flexible displays and batteries.”

Imagine an electronic newspaper that you could roll up and spill your coffee on, even as it updated itself before your eyes.

It’s an example of the technological revolution that has been waiting to happen, except for one major problem that, until now, scientists have not been able to resolve.

Researchers at McMaster University have cleared that obstacle by developing a new way to purify carbon nanotubes – the smaller, nimbler semiconductors that are expected to replace silicon within computer chips and a wide array of electronics.

Artistic rendition of a metallic carbon nanotube being pulled into solution, in analogy to the work described by the Adronov group. Credit: Alex Adronov, McMaster University

Artistic rendition of a metallic carbon nanotube being pulled into solution, in analogy to the work described by the Adronov group. Credit: Alex Adronov, McMaster University

“Once we have a reliable source of pure nanotubes that are not very expensive, a lot can happen very quickly,” says Alex Adronov, a professor of Chemistry at McMaster whose research team has developed a new and potentially cost-efficient way to purify carbon nanotubes.

Carbon nanotubes – hair-like structures that are one billionth of a metre in diameter but thousands of times longer – are tiny, flexible conductive nano-scale materials, expected to revolutionize computers and electronics by replacing much larger silicon-based chips.

A major problem standing in the way of the new technology, however, has been untangling metallic and semiconducting carbon nanotubes, since both are created simultaneously in the process of producing the microscopic structures, which typically involves heating carbon-based gases to a point where mixed clusters of nanotubes form spontaneously as black soot.

Only pure semiconducting or metallic carbon nanotubes are effective in device applications, but efficiently isolating them has proven to be a challenging problem to overcome. Even when the nanotube soot is ground down, semiconducting and metallic nanotubes are knotted together within each grain of powder. Both components are valuable, but only when separated.

Researchers around the world have spent years trying to find effective and efficient ways to isolate carbon nanotubes and unleash their value.

While previous researchers had created polymers that could allow semiconducting carbon nanotubes to be dissolved and washed away, leaving metallic nanotubes behind, there was no such process for doing the opposite: dispersing the metallic nanotubes and leaving behind the semiconducting structures.

Now, Adronov’s research group has managed to reverse the electronic characteristics of a polymer known to disperse semiconducting nanotubes – while leaving the rest of the polymer’s structure intact. By so doing, they have reversed the process, leaving the semiconducting nanotubes behind while making it possible to disperse the metallic nanotubes.

The researchers worked closely with experts and equipment from McMaster’s Faculty of Engineering and the Canada Centre for Electron Microscopy, located on the university’s campus.

“There aren’t many places in the world where you can to this type of interdisciplinary work,” Adronov says.

The next step, he explains, is for his team or other researchers to exploit the discovery by finding a way to develop even more efficient polymers and scale up the process for commercial production.

Soft electronic devices, such as a smartphone on your wrist and a folding screen in your pocket, are looking to much improve your lifestyle in the not-too-distant future. That is, if we could find ways to make electronic devices out of soft organic materials instead of the existing rigid inorganic materials.

Conducting polymers are a promising candidate that could be utilized for these next-generation applications because they are malleable, lightweight, and can conduct electricity, although their charge carrier mobility is intrinsically lower than that of inorganic materials. Various studies therefore have focused on how to boost the speed at which the charge carriers move in conducting polymers. Many researchers have attempted to enhance the charge carrier mobility by increasing polymers’ crystallinity, which is the degree of structural order. However, this approach is inherently restrictive in terms of mechanical properties. In other words, an increase in the crystallinity results in a decrease of the mechanical resilience, at least according to the conventional norm.

A team of researchers with the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), consisting of Profs. Taiho Park and Chan Eon Park with their students Sung Yun Son and Yebyeol Kim, has found a way to solve this dilemma and developed a low crystalline conducting polymer that shows high-field effect mobility. Their findings were recently published as the cover article in the Journal of American Chemical Societyand highlighted in the Spotlights.

To improve charge transport in a low-crystalline conducting polymer, the researchers took a simple yet unconventional approach. They introduced monomers without side chains into the polymer and utilized unconventional localized aggregates as stepping-stones to expedite charge transport in the microstructure of the polymer. Park et al. found that the resulting increase in the backbone planarity and chain connectivity of the polymer gave rise to enhanced charge transport along and between the polymer chains.

Their findings provide not only a greater understanding of charge transport dynamics in low-crystalline conducting polymers but also a new strategy in molecular design that allows faster charge transport without the loss of mechanical advantages. Taiho Park and Chan Eon Park, the two corresponding authors of this research, anticipate that their study opens up numerous possibilities and will bring forth new research, solutions, and applications for soft electronics.

Although liquid-crystal display (LCD) has dominated mobile phone displays for more than 15 years, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology is set to become the leading smartphone display technology in 2020, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO). AMOLED displays with a low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) backplane will account for more than one-third (36 percent) of all smartphone displays shipped in 2020, becoming the most-used display technology in smartphone displays, surpassing a-Si (amorphous silicon) thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD and LTPS TFT LCD displays.

“While OLED is currently more difficult to manufacture, uses more complicated materials and chemical processes, and requires a keen focus on yield-rate management, it is an increasingly attractive technology for smartphone brands,” said David Hsieh, senior director, IHS Markit. “OLED displays are not only thinner and lighter than LCD displays, but they also boast better color performance and enable flexible display form factors that can lead to more innovative design.”

Samsung Electronics has already adopted OLED displays in its smartphone models, and there is also increasing demand from Chinese Huawei, OPPO, Vivo, Meizu and other smartphone brands. Apple is also now widely expected to use OLED displays in its upcoming iPhone models.

At one time, OLED displays were entirely glass-based and in terms of performance, there was little difference between LCD and OLED displays. Now, flexible OLED displays made from thinner and lighter plastic are enabled and have drawn Apple’s attention. “Apple’s upcoming adoption of OLED displays will be a milestone for OLED in the display industry,” Hsieh said.

Samsung Display, LG Display, Sharp, JDI, BOE, Tianma, GVO, Truly, and CSOT are also starting to ramp up their AMOLED manufacturing capacities and devote more resources to technology development. Samsung Display’s enormous sixth-generation A3 AMOLED fab, for example, will enable even more AMOLED displays to reach the market. Global AMOLED manufacturing capacity will increase from 5 million square meters in 2014 to 30 million square meters in 2020.

“Many display manufacturers were investing in LTPS LCD, thinking it would overtake a-Si technology,” Hsieh said. “However, many of the fabs under construction, especially in China, have had to change their plans to add OLED evaporation and encapsulation tools, because OLED penetration has been more rapid than previously expected.”