Category Archives: Flexible Displays

University of Utah engineers have developed a polarizing filter that allows in more light, leading the way for mobile device displays that last much longer on a single battery charge and cameras that can shoot in dim light.

Polarizers are indispensable in digital photography and LCD displays, but they block enormous amounts of light, wasting energy and making it more difficult to photograph in low light.

The Utah electrical and computer engineering researchers created the filter by etching a silicon wafer with nanoscale pillars and holes using a focused gallium-ion beam. This new concept in light filtering can perform the same function as a standard polarizer but allows up to nearly 30 percent more light to pass through, says U electrical and computer engineering associate professor Rajesh Menon. The study is being published in November’s issue of Optica, a new journal from The Optical Society.

Sunlight as well as most ambient light emits half of its energy as light polarized along a horizontal axis and the other half along a vertical axis. A polarizer typically allows only half of the light to pass because it’s permitting either the horizontal or vertical energy to go through, but not both. Meanwhile, the other half is reflected back or absorbed, but the resulting image is much darker. Polarizers are widely used by photographers, for example, to reduce glare in the image. They also are used in LCD displays to regulate what light passes through to create images on the screen.

“When you take a picture and put the polarized filter on, you are trying to get rid of glare,” Menon says. “But most polarizers will eliminate anywhere from to 60 to 70 percent of the light. You can see it with your eyes.”

Yet with Menon’s new polarizer, much of the light that normally is reflected back is instead converted to the desired polarized state, he says. The U researchers have been able to pass through about 74 percent of the light, though their goal is to eventually allow all of the light to pass through.

LCD displays on devices such as smartphones and tablets have two polarizers that ultimately throw away most of the light when working with the liquid crystal display.

“If one can increase that energy efficiency, that is a huge increase on the battery life of your display. Or you can make your display brighter,” Menon says.

Menon’s team validated their concept using a polarizer that is only 20 by 20 micrometers and tested with only infrared light. But they plan to increase the size of the filter, use it with visible light, and figure out a way to make it more cost effective to manufacture. Menon says the first marketable applications of this technology could be available in five to 10 years. The technology also could be a boon for photographers who want to bring out more detail in their pictures while shooting in low-light situations and for scientists using microscopes and telescopes to visualize obscure phenomenon.

University of Utah electrical and computer engineering associate professor, Rajesh Menon, holds up a piece of silicon that has been etched with microscopic pillars and holes to create a polarized filter. He leads a team of researchers that have developed a new polarizer that can allow more light to pass through than conventional polarizers. This could lead to LCD displays for smartphones and tablets that last longer on a battery charge and cameras that can take better pictures at low light. Credit: University of Utah

University of Utah electrical and computer engineering associate professor, Rajesh Menon, holds up a piece of silicon that has been etched with microscopic pillars and holes to create a polarized filter. He leads a team of researchers that have developed a new polarizer that can allow more light to pass through than conventional polarizers. This could lead to LCD displays for smartphones and tablets that last longer on a battery charge and cameras that can take better pictures at low light. Credit: University of Utah

SmartKem, a supplier of high performance semiconductor materials for the manufacture of truly flexible displays and electronics, has announced the opening of a new thin-film-transistor (TFT) fabrication and testing facility at the company’s Manchester site – doubling the size of the company.

The expansion is set to provide comprehensive support to product development agreements, allowing partners to rapidly develop market-driven, flexible TFT-based products for applications in the display, touchscreen and sensor industries.

Together with the company’s organic synthesis technology and material formulation laboratories the center will offer complete turn-key support for its ground-breaking tru-FLEX technology platform in the development of flexible electronics applications. This will provide partners with additional services across the value chain from material synthesises, formulation and validation of the technology in transistor, circuit or end product form.

The new facility offers TFT device modelling, device stack design and a complete TFT fabrication suite including coating and evaporation equipment as well as a comprehensive test suite for device and circuit characterization including a semi-automated probe station. This not only augments SmartKem’s internal development work, but offers its customers comprehensive support in the rapid development of market driven flexible TFT-based products for application to the display, touchscreen and sensor industry.

The expansion and significant capital investment follows the recent Series A funding from a syndicate of leading investors including Finance Wales, BASF Venture Capital, Entrepreneurs Fund and Octopus Investments. Together with the creation of this new device facility expansion, SmartKem will also be increasing the size of its team by 30 percent with new members joining the synthesis, formulations and device technology groups.

Steve Kelly, Chief Executive of SmartKem, commented: “We are delighted with the speed with which we’ve managed to turn around the installation and commissioning of the new device facility. This is the final piece of the development cycle to bring in-house and the timing could not be better. We are seeing positive traction in the market for flexible electronics across the board from our core market of flexible AMOLED and EPD backplane drivers as well as many new and exciting applications. With the combined market for flexible display and electronics set to top $50 billion in the next 5 years, we are in great shape to continue to supply SmartKem tru-FLEX into new products and satisfy the growing market demand.”

Holst Centre, set up by the Belgian nanoelectronics research center imec and the Dutch research institute TNO, and Cartamundi NV have announced a collaboration to develop ultra-thin flexible near field communication (NFC) tags. The partners will develop these new NFC tags using metal-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) technology on plastic film. The flexible chips will be integrated into game cards as a part of Cartamundi’s larger strategy of developing game cards for the connected generation.

Holst Centre, imec and Cartamundi engineers will look into NFC circuit design and TFT processing options, and will investigate routes for up-scaling of the production. By realizing the NFC tags using chips based on IGZO TFT technology on plastic film, the manufacturing cost can be kept low. Moreover, the ultra-thin and flexible form factor required for paper-embedded NFC applications can be realized.

Currently, Cartamundi NV embeds silicon-based NFC chips in their game cards, connecting traditional game play with electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets. The advanced IGZO TFT technology that will be used addresses the game card industry call for much thinner, more flexible and virtually unbreakable NFC chips. Such chips are essential to improve and broaden the applicability of interactive technology for game cards, compared to the currently-used silicon based NFC chips. Next to technical specifications, this next-generation of NFC tags will better balance manufacturing cost and additional functionalities.

Chris Van Doorslaer, CEO of Cartamundi, explains: “Cartamundi is committed to creating products that connect families and friends of every generation to enhance the valuable quality time they share during the day. With Holst Centre’s and imec’s thin-film and nano-electronics expertise, we’re connecting the physical with the digital which will enable lightweight smart devices with additional value and content for consumers.”

“Not only will Cartamundi be working on the NFC chip of the future, but it will also reinvent the industry’s standards in assembly process and the conversion into game cards,” says  Steven Nietvelt, chief innovation and marketing officer at Cartamundi. “All of this is part of an ongoing process of technological innovation inside Cartamundi. I am glad our innovation engineers will collaborate with the strongest technological researchers and developers in the field at imec and Holst Centre. We are going to need all expertise on board. Because basically what we are creating is game-changing technology.”

“Imec and Holst Centre aim to shape the future and our collaboration with Cartamundi  will do so for the future of gaming technology and connected devices,” says Paul Heremans, Department Director Thin Film Electronics at imec and Technology Director at the Holst Centre. “Chip technology has penetrated society’s daily life right down to game cards. We are excited to work with Cartamundi to improve the personal experience that gaming delivers.”

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new way to transfer thin semiconductor films, which are only one atom thick, onto arbitrary substrates, paving the way for flexible computing or photonic devices. The technique is much faster than existing methods and can perfectly transfer the atomic scale thin films from one substrate to others, without causing any cracks.

At issue are molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) thin films that are only one atom thick, first developed by Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State. MoS2 is an inexpensive semiconductor material with electronic and optical properties similar to materials already used in the semiconductor industry.

“The ultimate goal is to use these atomic-layer semiconducting thin films to create devices that are extremely flexible, but to do that we need to transfer the thin films from the substrate we used to make it to a flexible substrate,” says Cao, who is senior author of a paper on the new transfer technique. “You can’t make the thin film on a flexible substrate because flexible substrates can’t withstand the high temperatures you need to make the thin film.”

Cao’s team makes MoS2 films that are an atom thick and up to 5 centimeters in diameter. The researchers needed to find a way to move that thin film without wrinkling or cracking it, which is challenging due to the film’s extreme delicacy.

“To put that challenge in perspective, an atom-thick thin film that is 5 centimeters wide is equivalent to a piece of paper that is as wide as a large city,” Cao said. “Our goal is to transfer that big, thin paper from one city to another without causing any damage or wrinkles.”

Existing techniques for transferring such thin films from a substrate rely on a process called chemical etching, but the chemicals involved in that process can damage or contaminate the film. Cao’s team has developed a technique that takes advantage of the MoS2’s physical properties to transfer the thin film using only room-temperature water, a tissue and a pair of tweezers.

MoS2 is hydrophobic – it repels water. But the sapphire substrate the thin film is grown on is hydrophilic – it attracts water. Cao’s new transfer technique works by applying a drop of water to the thin film and then poking the edge of the film with tweezers or a scalpel so that the water can begin to penetrate between the MoS2 and the sapphire. Once it has begun to penetrate, the water pushes into the gap, floating the thin film on top. The researchers use a tissue to soak up the water and then lift the thin film with tweezers and place it on a flexible substrate. The whole process takes a couple of minutes. Chemical etching takes hours.

“The water breaks the adhesion between the substrate and the thin film – but it’s important to remove the water before moving the film,” Cao says. “Otherwise, capillary action would case the film to buckle or fold when you pick it up.

“This new transfer technique gets us one step closer to using MoS2 to create flexible computers,” Cao adds. “We are currently in the process of developing devices that use this technology.”

Plastic Logic, experts in the development and industrialisation of flexible organic electronics, won the OLED Innovation Excellence award for its truly flexible AMOLED display technology. The Global OLED Congress is a gathering of the world’s leading display manufacturers and display industry analysts, with the programme very much geared towards C-level attendees.          

Plastic Logic won the Innovation Excellence award in recognition of their pioneering work and development of truly flexible plastic AMOLED displays. The displays are based on Plastic Logic’s own low (<100°C) temperature process organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) array. The display has a bend radius of 0.75mm – so flexible that it could be wrapped around a pencil lead whilst still operating.

The plastic OTFT AMOLED differs from other array technologies in that it enables displays to be shaped, contoured and moulded; properties which will help manufacturers and system integrators to enable or even create new markets. Crucially these markets include wearable technology, where flexible displays unlock game-changing levels of utility in electronic products worn on the body or clothing.

‘I would like to congratulate the Plastic Logic team on gaining further recognition of our uniquely enabling flexible transistor technology, particularly from a community of peers in the displays industry. Plastic transistors bring unrivalled levels of flexibility to displays and other electronics, and are the key to unlocking the full potential of markets including wearable electronics and the Internet of Things.’ said Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic.

Making a paper airplane in school used to mean trouble. Today it signals a promising discovery in materials science research that could help next-generation technology –like wearable energy storage devices- get off the ground. Researchers at Drexel University and Dalian University of Technology in China have chemically engineered a new, electrically conductive nanomaterial that is flexible enough to fold, but strong enough to support many times its own weight. They believe it can be used to improve electrical energy storage, water filtration and radiofrequency shielding in technology from portable electronics to coaxial cables.

Finding or making a thin material that is useful for holding and disbursing an electric charge and can be contorted into a variety of shapes, is a rarity in the field of materials science. Tensile strength -the strength of the material when it is stretched- and compressive strength –its ability to support weight- are valuable characteristics for these materials because, at just a few atoms thick, their utility figures almost entirely on their physical versatility.

“Take the electrode of the small lithium-ion battery that powers your watch, for example, ideally the conductive material in that electrode would be very small –so you don’t have a bulky watch strapped to your wrist- and hold enough energy to run your watch for a long period of time,” said Michel Barsoum, PhD, Distinguished Professor in the College of Engineering. “But what if we wanted to make the watch’s wristband into the battery? Then we’d still want to use a conductive material that is very thin and can store energy, but it would also need to be flexible enough to bend around your wrist. As you can see, just by changing one physical property of the material –flexibility or tensile strength- we open a new world of possibilities.”

This flexible new material, which the group has identified as a conductive polymer nanocomposite, is the latest expression of the ongoing research in Drexel’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering on a family of composite two-dimensional materials called MXenes.

This development was facilitated by collaboration between research groups of Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Trustee Chair professor in the College of Engineering at Drexel, and Jieshan Qiu, vice dean for research of the School of Chemical Engineering at Dalian University of Technology in China. Zheng Ling, a doctoral student from Dalian, spent a year at Drexel, spearheading the research that led to the first MXene-polymer composites. The researchat Drexel was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Drexel team has been diligently examining MXenes like a paleontologist carefully brushing away sediment to unearth a scientific treasure. Since inventing the layered carbide material in 2011 the engineers are finding ways to take advantage of its chemical and physical makeup to create conductive materials with a variety of other useful properties.

One of the most successful ways they’ve developed to help MXenes express their array of abilities is a process, called intercalation, which involves adding various chemical compounds in a liquid form. This allows the molecules to settle between the layers of the MXene and, in doing so, alter its physical and chemical properties. Some of the first, and most impressive of their findings, showed that MXenes have a great potential for energy storage.

 

To produce the flexible conductive polymer nanocomposite, the researchers intercalated the titanium carbide MXene, with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) –a polymer widely used as the paper adhesive known as school or Elmer’s glue, and often found in the recipes for colloids such as hair gel and silly putty. They also intercalated with a polymer called PDDA (polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride) commonly used as a coagulant in water purification systems.

“The uniqueness of MXenes comes from the fact that their surface is full of functional groups, such as hydroxyl, leading to a tight bonding between the MXene flakes and polymer molecules, while preserving the metallic conductivity of nanometer-thin carbide layers.  This leads to a nanocomposite with a unique combination of properties,” Gogotsi said.

The results of both sets of MXene testing were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the paper, the researchers report that the material exhibits increased ability to store charge over the original MXene; and 300-400 percent improvement in strength.

“We have shown that the volumetric capacitance of an MXene-polymer nanocomposite can be much higher compared to conventional carbon-based electrodes or even graphene,” said Chang Ren, Gogotsi’s doctoral student at Drexel. “When mixing MXene with PVA containing some electrolyte salt, the polymer plays the role of electrolyte, but it also improves the capacitance because it slightly enlarges the interlayer space between MXene flakes, allowing ions to penetrate deep into the electrode; ions also stay trapped near the MXene flakes by the polymer. With these conductive electrodes and no liquid electrolyte, we can eventually eliminate metal current collectors and make lighter and thinner supercapacitors.”

Though just a few atoms thick, the MXene-polymer nanocomposite material shows exceptional strength -especially when rolled into a tube.

 

The testing also revealed hydrophilic properties of the nanocomposite, which means that it could have uses in water treatment systems, such as membrane for water purification or desalinization, because it remains stable in water without breaking up or dissolving.

In addition, because the material is extremely flexible, it can be rolled into a tube, which early tests have indicated only serves to increase its mechanical strength. These characteristics mark the trail heads of a variety of paths for research on this nanocomposite material for applications from flexible armor to aerospace components. The next step for the group will be to examine how varying ratios of MXene and polymer will affect the properties of the resulting nanocomposite and also exploring other MXenes and stronger and tougher polymers for structural applications.

Freescale Semiconductor has been named a 2015 CES Innovation Awards Honoree for its Wearable Reference Platform (WaRP). WaRP is a community-based, Internet of Things platform offering designers unique product development flexibility in the quickly evolving consumer wearables market. It encourages design creativity by addressing key development challenges such as battery life, miniaturization, cost and usability.

Announced last night in New York City at the 2015 International CES Unveiled New York, the CES Innovation Awards is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products. Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the trade media, to recognize cutting-edge consumer electronics products across 28 product categories.

An honoree in the Embedded Technologies category, WaRP is a flexible platform built on a hybrid architecture that enables systems designers to move from prototype to product quickly and easily for a broad range of fitness, healthcare and infotainment wearables. The system-level development kit supports embedded wireless charging, incorporates Freescale processors and sensors, and comes with open-source software, a battery and a touchscreen LCD module. WaRP is a result of collaboration among Freescale, CircuitCo, Kynetics and Revolution Robotics.

“We are proud to be among the chosen CES Innovation Honorees, and look forward to seeing many new, imaginative wearable products made possible by the WaRP platform,” said Sujata Neidig, consumer market business development manager for Freescale. “We also want to congratulate our customer and fellow awardee AMPL Labs for the creative use of Freescale technology they’ve packed into their SmartBackpack, which is a great example of adding intelligence to everyday items.”

Freescale customer AMPL Labs was named a 2015 CES Innovation Awards Honoree in the Portable Power and Computer Accessories categories. The company’s SmartBackpack provides connected, on-the-go consumers with a versatile portable charging system, advanced protection of electronics carried in the bag, and wireless connectivity with mobile devices.

Freescale’s Kinetis KL26 microcontroller enabled AMPL Labs to design the backpack’s intelligence, which monitors battery levels, controls power flow for charging devices and communicates with mobile devices using Bluetooth LE. The backpack also utilizes several Freescale sensors, including an accelerometer and pressure sensors. The Freescale Freedom Development Platform (FRDM-KL26Z) enabled AMPL Labs to prototype quickly and efficiently.

“We are honored to win this prestigious CES award and to highlight the innovative ways we are using Freescale chips, technology and tools to make common, everyday things smarter,” said Michael Patton, CEO of AMPL Labs.

For much the same reason LCD televisions offer eye-popping performance, a thermomagnetic processing method developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory can advance the performance of polymers.

Polymers are used in cars, planes and hundreds of consumer products, and scientists have long been challenged to create polymers that are immune to shape-altering thermal expansion.  One way to achieve this goal is to develop highly directional crystalline structures that mimic those of transparent liquid crystal diode, or LCD, films of television and computer screens. Unfortunately, polymers typically feature random microstructures rather than the perfectly aligned microstructure – and transparency – of the LCD film.

ORNL’s Orlando Rios and collaborators at Washington State University have pushed this barrier aside with a processing system that changes the microstructure and mechanical properties of a liquid crystalline epoxy resin.  Their finding, outlined in a paper published in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, offers a potential path to new structural designs and functional composites with improved properties.

The method combines conventional heat processing with the application of powerful magnetic fields generated by superconducting magnets. This provides a lever researchers can use to control the orientation of the molecules and, ultimately, the crystal alignment.

“In this way, we can achieve our goal of a zero thermal expansion coefficient and a polymer that is highly crystalline,” said Rios, a member of ORNL’s Deposition Science Group. “And this means we have the potential to dial in the desired properties for the epoxy resin polymers that are so prevalent today.”

Epoxy is commonly used in structural composites, bonded magnets and coatings. Rios noted that thermosets such as epoxy undergo a chemical cross-linking reaction that hardens or sets the material. Conventional epoxy typically consists of randomly oriented molecules with the molecular chains pointing in every direction, almost like a spider web of atoms.

“Using thermomagnetic processing and magnetically responsive molecular chains, we are able to form highly aligned structures analogous to many stacks of plates sitting on a shelf,” Rios said. “We confirmed the directionality of this structure using X-ray measurements, mechanical properties and thermal expansion.”

Co-authors of the paper, “Thermomagnetic processing of liquid crystalline epoxy resins and their mechanical characterization using nanoindentation,” are Yuzhan Li and Michael Kessler of Washington State’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. The ORNL portion of the research was supported by the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Washington State’s research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have identified a class of low-cost, easily-processed semiconducting polymers which, despite their seemingly disorganised internal structure, can transport electrons as efficiently as expensive crystalline inorganic semiconductors.

This is a high performance semiconducting polymer with an amorphous structure. Highlighted in yellow is a single chain demonstrating negligible backbone torsion. Credit: Deepak Venkateshvaran/Mark Nikolka

This is a high performance semiconducting polymer with an amorphous structure. Highlighted in yellow is a single chain demonstrating negligible backbone torsion.
Credit: Deepak Venkateshvaran/Mark Nikolka

In this new polymer, about 70% of the electrons are free to travel, whereas in conventional polymers that number can be less than 50%. The materials approach intrinsic disorder-free limits, which would enable faster, more efficient flexible electronics and displays. The results are published today (5 November) in the journal Nature.

For years, researchers have been searching for semiconducting polymers that can be solution processed and printed – which makes them much cheaper – but also retain well-defined electronic properties. These materials are used in printed electronic circuits, large-area solar cells and flexible LED displays.

However, a major problem with these materials – especially after they go through a messy wet coating, fast-drying printing process – is that they have an internal structure more like a bowl of spaghetti than the beautifully ordered crystal lattice found in most electronic or optoelectronic devices.

These nooks and crannies normally lead to poorer performance, as they make ideal places for the electrons which carry charge throughout the structure to become trapped and slowed down.

Polymer molecules consist of at least one long backbone chain, with shorter chains at the sides. It is these side chains which make conjugated polymers easy to process, but they also increase the amount of disorder, leading to more trapped electrons and poorer performance.

Now, the Cambridge researchers have discovered a class of conjugated polymers that are extremely tolerant to any form of disorder that is introduced by the side chains. “What is most surprising about these materials is that they appear amorphous, that is very disordered, at the microstructural level, while at the electronic level they allow electrons to move nearly as freely as in crystalline inorganic semiconductors,” said Mark Nikolka, a PhD student at the University’s Cavendish Laboratory and one of the lead authors of the study .

Using a combination of electrical and optical measurements combined with molecular simulations, the team of researchers led by Professor Henning Sirringhaus were able to measure that, electronically, the materials are approaching disorder-free limits and that every molecular unit along the polymer chain is able to participate in the transport of charges.

“These materials resemble tiny ribbons of graphene in which the electrons can zoom fast along the length of the polymer backbone, although not yet as fast as in graphene,” said Dr Deepak Venkateshvaran, the paper’s other lead author. “What makes them better than graphene, however, is they are much easier to process, and therefore much cheaper.”

The researchers plan to use these results to provide molecular design guidelines for a wider class of disorder-free conjugated polymers, which could open up a new range of flexible electronic applications. For example, these materials might be suitable for the electronics that will be needed to make the colour and video displays that are used in smartphones and tablets more lightweight, flexible and robust.

Crocus Technology, a provider of magnetically enhanced semiconductor technologies and products, today announces a new Magnetic Logic Unit (MLU) based solution that can detect the position and shape of flexible two dimensional surfaces. Wearable devices, curved panel displays, flexible solar panels and, in the future mobile phones will integrate flexible shape sensor foils.

By having knowledge about the shape and bendability of these flexible surfaces, system integrators can use software to make much needed improvements, such as to correct distorted images.

Crocus’ magnetic sensors aim to provide an efficient solution for shape sensing in flexible surfaces and foils to overcome deficiencies occurring in other solutions, such as piezoelectric sensors.

Unlike other solutions, Crocus’ MLU sensors exhibit high sensitivity and directional capabilities. This means that only a minimal number of MLU sensors need to be embedded in flexible shape sensor foils. In its prototype, Crocus only uses 0.25 sensors per square centimeter, making its solution extremely cost-effective.

In addition, Crocus’ MLU sensors offer advantages in low power consumption and high-speed detection. They provide strong signals without active components. Crocus’ 20cm x 20cm prototype consumes less than 10mA (milliampere) during the sensing cycle that lasts less than 1ms (microsecond).

“Crocus has created a new IP based on magnetic sensors for flexible surface position detection. This enables equipment makers to gain in the added performance of flexible shape devices, while reducing costs,” said Bertrand Cambou, chairman and CEO of Crocus Technology. “MLU sensors in flexible displays are an exciting development. We anticipate strong interest from players in a rapidly growing market.”

As flexible displays are light, thin and unbreakable, they are expected to replace conventional displays. Key technology providers include Samsung Display, LG Display, Sony, Sharp and AU Optronics (source: Emerging Technologies Display Report 2013, published by IHS Electronics and Media).

The market for flexible displays is expected to reach $3.89 billion by 2020 (source: Markets and Markets, March 2014).