Category Archives: Flexible Displays

A new report from IHS Displaybank analyzes the scope of the flexible OLED patents issued. Of U.S patents published by July 2012, a patent containing flexible OLED structure-related technology was selected as the Issue Patent and through the prior art and citation analysis of the issue patent, key patents were extracted, and the flow of flexible OLED structure-related technology was analyzed.

Flexible OLED structure key patents analysis

patent analysis on flexible OLED structures

Flexible display is drawing attention because of its advantages that it is thin like a paper and can be bent and rolled without the damage through the substrate. As the display technology that can be integrated to the flexible display, OLED is being regarded as the one of the most likely candidates.

OLED is thin, bendable, cheap, self-luminance, and can implement clear picture quality. Thus, as OLED tries to widen the area up to large-area display market, the expectation for flexible OLED is growing.

The basic structure of flexible OLED consists of flexible substrate, which is needed to be the bendable or rollable form, TFT device that drives each pixel, light-emitting OLED, and thin-film encapsulation that blocks moisture and oxygen for the long lifetime of OLED.

Recently, the leading companies’ research on the core technology is accelerating and the patent barrier of the product structure (the basic concept) and the individual components of flexible OLED is strengthening, and it is not easy to find the source patent from many patents.

Thus, IHS Displaybank examined the source of flexible OLED structure patent through its report, “Flexible OLED Structure-related Key Patents Analysis.” 

Is the source patent of flexible OLED structure valid?

The report examined prior art that has been reviewed in the patent examination in details by selecting “issue patent,” and also traced the source of flexible OLED structure patents by encompassing 40 patents that have been cited in the “issue patent.”

In particular, main point analysis of flexible OLED structure-related key patents (16 patents), extracted from the citation analysis, and the presentation of yearly technology trend are configured to help setting the direction of R&D, patent application, and corresponding patent disputes.

The diffusion of roll-to-roll technologies is expected to have a marked effect in lowering the unit prices of flexible devices. Consequently, while consumption in terms of volume is forecast to rise very rapidly, revenues will increase somewhat more moderately. As a result, the total market for roll-to-roll flexible devices is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 16.1 percent from 2012 to 2017, reaching global revenues of nearly $22.7 billion by 2017.

The global market for flexible devices manufactured by roll-to-roll technologies increased from $8.5 billion in 2010 to nearly $10 billion in 2011, and was valued at nearly $10.8 billion in 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 percent during the two-year period.

Circuit devices currently account for a nearly 96.9 percent share of all revenues in 2012. Sales within this segment are primarily associated with flexible printed circuits.

Displays and other optoelectronic devices account for a 2.5 percent share of the roll-to-roll flexible devices market, with total 2012 revenues of $264 million, while solar cells, sensors, and other emerging applications currently represent a combined share of only 0.7 percent of the total.

There are several reasons why flexible devices are gaining increasing importance. First, flexible devices are being created with the same functionalities as traditional (rigid) integrated circuits, yet are produced with low-cost materials and processes with the intent to make them commercially available at lower unit prices than their rigid counterparts.

Printed circuit boards include rigid and flexible circuits. In recent years, flexible circuits have gained increased market share driven by their growing use in popular consumer electronics such as tablet PCs, notebooks, cell phones, and other wireless devices. Flexible circuits are also gaining acceptance for the fabrication of RFIDs and smart cards.

Flexible circuits offer several advantages compared to rigid circuits, including reduced package dimensions, reduced weight, and optimization of component real estate. Flexible circuits currently represent approximately one-fifth of the entire PCB market, but are forecast to continue growing at a faster pace than the overall PCB market during the next five years, with a CAGR of 8.4 percent.

As the flexible printed circuit (FPC) market continues to expand, driven by mass-market applications, the need will grow for high-volume, automated processes that maintain consistent quality (i.e., roll-to-roll technologies) to satisfy the increasing demand for these products.

Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.

The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with a material called graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon. The hybrid material shows promise as a possible replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, used in transparent electrodes for touch-screen monitors, cell-phone displays and flat-screen televisions. Industry is seeking alternatives to ITO because of drawbacks: It is relatively expensive due to limited abundance of indium, and it is inflexible and degrades over time, becoming brittle and hindering performance.

"If you try to bend ITO it cracks and then stops functioning properly," said Purdue University doctoral student Suprem Das.

The hybrid material could represent a step toward innovations, including flexible solar cells and color monitors, flexible "heads-up" displays in car windshields and information displays on eyeglasses and visors.

"The key innovation is a material that is transparent, yet electrically conductive and flexible," said David Janes, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Research findings were detailed in a paper appearing online in April in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The hybrid concept was proposed in earlier publications by Purdue researchers, including a 2011 paper in the journal Nano Letters. The concept represents a general approach that could apply to many other materials, said Alam, who co-authored the Nano Letters paper.

"This is a beautiful illustration of how theory enables a fundamental new way to engineer material at the nanoscale and tailor its properties," he said.

Such hybrid structures could enable researchers to overcome the "electron-transport bottleneck" of extremely thin films, referred to as two-dimensional materials.

Combining graphene and silver nanowires in a hybrid material overcomes drawbacks of each material individually: the graphene and nanowires conduct electricity with too much resistance to be practical for transparent electrodes. Sheets of graphene are made of individual segments called grains, and resistance increases at the boundaries between these grains. Silver nanowires, on the other hand, have high resistance because they are randomly oriented like a jumble of toothpicks facing in different directions. This random orientation makes for poor contact between nanowires, resulting in high resistance.

"So neither is good for conducting electricity, but when you combine them in a hybrid structure, they are," Janes said.

The graphene is draped over the silver nanowires.

"It’s like putting a sheet of cellophane over a bowl of noodles," Janes said. "The graphene wraps around the silver nanowires and stretches around them."

Findings show the material has a low "sheet resistance," or the electrical resistance in very thin layers of material, which is measured in units called "squares." At 22 ohms per square, it is five times better than ITO, which has a sheet resistance of 100 ohms per square.

Moreover, the hybrid structure was found to have little resistance change when bent, whereas ITO shows dramatic increases in resistance when bent.

"The generality of the theoretical concept underlying this experimental demonstration – namely ‘percolation-doping’ — suggests that it is likely to apply to a broad range of other 2-D nanocrystaline material, including graphene," Alam said.

A patent application has been filed by Purdue’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

“In the cloud computing era, AMOLED displays are most likely to have the greatest amount of influence on innovation in smart devices." Kinam Kim, CEO of Samsung Display, delivered this statement as part of a keynote speech on "Display and Innovation" to attendees at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week 2013 in the Vancouver Convention Centre today.

During the keynote speech, Kim said that the future of displays will change considerably, with special attention to be given for the virtually infinite number of imaging possibilities in AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) display technology.

Kim emphasized that three evolving “environments” are likely to make displays the central focus of the increasingly pervasive use of electronic devices.

The first environment is the spread of cloud computing. In the cloud environment, the capability of electronic networked devices for data processing and storage will be extended infinitely, allowing users everywhere to easily enjoy content that only highly advanced devices can fully process today, including ultra HD (3840 x 2160) images and 3D games. Higher levels of display technology will be required to support our increasing reliance on the cloud.

The second environment is the accelerating evolution of high-speed networks. By 2015, the velocity of 4G LTE will rise to 3 gigabits per second (Gbps), so the transmission time for a two-hour UHD-resolution movie will be under 35 seconds.

“As image quality of video content improves, larger and even more vibrant displays will emerge as a key differentiating point in mobile devices,” said Kim.

The third environment is the spread of connectivity among electronic devices. As the use of Wi-Fi networks explodes, the N-Screen era is on its way. A massive network environment will be established by connecting not only smartphones and tablet PCs but also automobiles, home appliances and wearable computing devices. Due to this explosion in “data flow,” there will be a huge surge of interest in touch-enabled displays.

Kim said that the innovative advantages of AMOLED technology will allow consumers to realize more possibilities in electronic convenience than we might have ever imagined.

AMOLED TV presented at CES 2013
AMOLED displays can embody true colors closest to natural colors with their color space 1.4 times broader than that of LCD displays.

The first innovative advantage of AMOLED, according to Kim, is the superiority of its color. AMOLED displays can embody true colors closest to natural colors with their color space 1.4 times broader than that of LCD displays. By offering the world’s broadest color gamut – supporting nearly 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, AMOLED will expand the range of displays well suited to printed media, where specialized color is frequently required.

The second innovative advantage of AMOLED is its flexibility and transparency. AMOLED displays can maximize portability by making devices foldable and rollable, and they can also lead innovation in product designs with advantages in curved forms, transparent panels, and lighter weight than other display technologies.

The third innovative advantage of AMOLED displays will be their responsiveness to touch and sensors for detecting all five human senses. Using Samsung’s new Diamond Pixel technology, which has been optimized for the human retina, AMOLED displays can now depict natural colors and images with super high resolution.

Kim went on to say that display applications, with advantages of AMOLED technology, will rapidly spread throughout other business sectors like the automotive, publishing, bio-genetic and building industries.

In the automotive business, AMOLED displays will replace conventional glass and mirrors that have been used for digital mirrors and head-up displays. Capitalizing on their advantages with flexibility, durability and high resistance to temperature changes, AMOLED display panels also will be used for watch displays and for products in the fashion and health care market sectors. Further, in publication and building, AMOLED displays will set the trend for the building market sector with AMOLED architectural displays in and outside buildings being used as highly desirable decorative and information-delivering products.

Kim expressed confidence that "the display market is unlimited in the amount of growth that it can achieve, as technical innovation continues to accelerate.”

The new report from IDTechEx titled "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics: Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2013-2023" finds that the total market for these technologies will grow from $16.04 billion in 2013 to $76.79 billion in 2023.

The sector includes profitable large sectors, the majority being OLEDs (organic but not printed) and conductive ink used for a wide range of applications. On the other hand, stretchable electronics, logic and memory, thin film sensors and other components are much smaller segments today, just emerging from R&D. A snapshot view of the technologies, development time, 2013 market size and general sector profitability and short term growth is shown below.

Source: IDTechEx report "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics: Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2013-2023" (www.IDTechEx.com/pe). Note that in some cases above the value of the film is included and not the module value – see the report for more detail.

Billion-dollar sale successes

So far, there have been three billion-dollar sales successes; OLEDs, e-paper and conductive ink. OLEDs are seeing continual adoption in cellphones and OLED TV sales have begun this year. IDTechEx see much movement in the display sector, as panel makers try and distance themselves from losses in the LCD industry, caused by new competition from China, and seek to differentiate. The landscape will change – with some East Asian countries potentially unable to afford extensive R&D in OLEDs such as Taiwan and new entrants, such as China. E-paper sales have declined as e-reader sales have declined. To reach that sales peak again new markets are being explored as is color, video capable bistable displays. IDTechEx found that the overall conductive ink market size is in decline this year as it was last year, due to less use in the photovoltaic market. However, thereafter the market will increase again as the PV sector shakes-out and other markets for conductive inks continue to grow.

Companies reposition for profitability

Some companies have survived ten years without making substantial sales or any profit. Some of these are now repositioning from trying to do something very difficult, such as replacing complete existing devices, to simpler things, allowing them to move to market more quickly. Few can keep going after ten years of minimal sales. Examples of new focus include finely printed patterns for transparent conductive films (a $1.8 billion opportunity), improving the performance of lithium batteries (a $25 billion market), enabling supercapacitors for vehicles and consumer electronics ($0.8 billion in 2013) and adding 3D touch surfaces to many things, as Ford has done for its overhead consoles in some cars.

Some systems development but much more to be done

A few vendors are building ecosystems to develop complete systems – bringing together key enabling components and creating complete working devices. Watch Thinfilm, PARC, PST, PragmatIC and Soligie amongst others. For equipment manufacturers, it is notable that NovaCentrix and Muhlbauer have come together to provide a turnkey solution for RFID tag manufacture using copper ink for the tag antennas – now the purchaser does not have to try and build the disparate systems themselves. Still, there is quite a way to go. For example, even simply creating hybrid devices – part printed, part conventional on the same substrate is proving a challenge to automate.

Broadening topic

The topic is broader than many people realize. There is strong interest in printed electronics enabling part of the Internet of Things vision; researchers are working on bringing together 3D printing with electronics; bioelectronics; touch surfaces everywhere and much more.

New research report from IDTechEx

The IDTechEx report "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics: Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2013-2023" (www.IDTechEx.com/pe) provides detailed analysis of all these aspects, including ten year forecasts. Researched by multilingual IDTechEx consultants based in four countries and three continents, this report builds on ten years of knowledge of the industry.

Atmel Corporation, a developer of microcontroller and touch technology solutions, this week announced the maXTouch T Series, its next-generation family supporting touchscreens up to 23 inches for applications such as handsets, tablets, Ultrabooks, notebooks and all-in-one computers.

The first device in the family, the mXT2952T, is the world’s first ultra-low power single-chip device that supports Windows 8-certified touchscreens up to 15.6 inches and optimized to support touchscreen cover glass as thin as 0.4mm.

The new T Series delivers a revolutionary adaptive-sensing architecture featuring both mutual and self capacitance to optimize performance. The maXTouch T Series automatically selects the best sensing architecture, seamlessly switching to enable higher performance and lower power consumption. Mutual capacitance enables true multi-touch tracking while self capacitance offers benefits including idle power consumption, moisture immunity, glove tracking, and hover capability which detects a finger or an object not in contact with the screen. The new maXTouch T Series enhances noise immunity with an industry-first capacitive touch dual analog and digital filtering architecture to deliver the best signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio and power consumption. The new features in the maXTouch T Series deliver improved responsiveness and a more intuitive user interface with additions such as hover that allow users to pre-select icons, letters, links and other images without physically touching the screen.

With the increasing popularity of active stylus on touchscreens, the maXTouch T Series natively supports Atmel’s maXStylus, a solution that requires no additional sensor layer to enable thinner stack-ups and lower overall bill of materials (BOM). The award-winning maXStylus offers a Window 8-compatible solution with better touch performance, lower power consumption and lower overall system cost than other capacitive active stylus solutions on the market today.

"Flawless touch performance, longer battery life and thinner screens for mobile devices are key features for today’s touchscreen designs," said Jon Kiachian, Vice President of Touch Marketing, Atmel Corporation. "As a leader in touch technologies, the maXTouch T Series is Windows 8 compatible, Intel Ultrabook-ready, and supports both active stylus and sensor hub. We are a leader in this space, and excited to deliver the mXT2952T, the world’s first single-chip controller for Windows 8-certified touchscreens up to 15.6 inches."

To better support Ultrabook and notebook touch sensors, the mXT2952T has specific circuitry to take advantage of ITO (indium tin oxide) alternative sensor materials such as Atmel’s XSense flexible touch sensor. This allows system designers to build more innovative designs with faster operation, lower power, borderless and even flexible touchscreens.

The maXTouch T Series integrates Atmel’s proprietary maXFusion sensor hub management technology that enables designers to manage both the touch interface and all the sensor intelligence in a single chip. This technology enables lower bill of materials and higher performance.

Initiated by the arrival of Google Glass and magnified by Google’s efforts to promote application development for the product, the global market for smart glasses could amount to almost 10 million units from 2012 through 2016.

Shipments of smart glasses may rise to as high 6.6 million units in 2016, up from just 50,000 in 2012, for a total of 9.4 million units for the five-year period, according to an upside forecast from IMS Research, now part of IHS Inc. Growth this year will climb 150 percent to 124,000 shipments, mostly driven by sales to developers, as shown in the figure below. Expansion will really begin to accelerate in 2014 with the initial public availability of Google Glass, as shipment growth powers up to 250 percent, based on the optimistic forecast.

Google Glass this month began shipping to application developers who registered as early backers and paid the $1,500 price tag. This is expected to spur innovations in applications that should take Glass from early adopters to the mass market. As the developers get to work and Google encourages venture capitalists to back them, shipments will begin to surge to high volumes, according to the forecast.

However, the success of Google Glass will depend primarily on the applications developed for it. If developers fail to produce compelling software and uses for the devices, shipments could be significantly lower during the next several years.

“The applications are far more critical than the hardware when it comes to the success of Google Glass,” said Theo Ahadome, senior analyst at IHS. “In fact, the hardware is much less relevant to the growth of Google Glass than for any other personal communications device in recent history. This is because the utility of Google Glass is not readily apparent, so everything will depend on the appeal of the apps. This is why the smart glass market makes sense for a software-oriented organization like Google, despite the company’s limited previous success in developing hardware. Google is betting the house that developers will produce some compelling applications for Glass.”

The glass is half full

According to the optimistic scenario, developers will succeed in producing augmented reality applications for smart glasses that provide the user with information that can be safely and conveniently be integrated into casual use. Such applications typically are known as augmented reality, which involves adding a layer of computer-generated data to real-world people, places and things.

“The true success of Glass will be when it can provide some information to users not apparent when viewing people, places or things,” Ahadome said. “This information may include live updates for travel, location reviews and recommendations, nutritional information and matching personal preferences, and previous encounters to aid decision making. The upside for smart glasses will arise when they become a powerful information platform. In many ways, this is exactly what Google already does via other mediums, and also is why the upside scenario seems more likely.”

Broken glass

Under a more pessimistic scenario, IHS forecasts that only about 1 million smart glasses will be shipped through 2016.

According to this outlook, applications for smart glasses will be limited to some of those already displayed by Google in its Glass marketing. These include scenarios where smart glasses become more of a wearable camera device than a true augmented reality system. In this case, smart glasses will be mainly used for recording sports and other non-casual events, like jumping out of a plane, as demonstrated at the Google I/O developer conference in 2012. 

However, Glass will face competition from alternative wearable camera devices already in the market, such as GoPro Hero or Recon MOD Live.

While the wearable camera market was worth more than $200 million in 2012, it is not the multibillion-dollar market that smart glasses can achieve with wider applicability.

“The less frequently consumers interact with any personal communications device, the less valuable it becomes,” Ahadome observed. “If smart glasses become devices that are used only occasionally, rather than all the time, they become less attractive and desirable to consumers.”

The polarizer market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6 percent until 2016 to $12 billion in 2013 and to $14 billion in 2016. In 2012, the market amounted to $11.2 billion, up 9 percent year on year, according to “Polarizer Market and Industry Trend Analysis” published by Displaybank, recently acquired by IHS Inc. Polarizers used for large size TFT-LCDs, such as TV, monitors, and laptops, made up 77 percent of the market, amounting to $8.6 billion, and this figure is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4 percent to $9.9 billion in 2016. However, the TFT-LCD segment will lose its share of the market, falling to 71 percent in 2016, as manufactures scale up their smartphones and other mobile devices and increase their volume. 

polarizer market TFT-LCD

The polarizer market can be characterized by the three powers: Nitto Denko, LG Chem, and Sumitomo. The biggest characteristic is that each company has different applications in which they excel at according to their own technical skills, competitiveness of securing component supplies, and production capacity. By major application, the LCD TV market has the largest share, with the manufacturing leaders being Nitto Denko (33 percent), Sumitomo (28 percent), and LG Chem (27 percent). These three companies combined make up 88 percent of the market for polarizers used in TVs. In the laptop segment that highly requires for thin panels, Sumitomo leads with 53 percent, with Cheil Industry and Nitto Denko taking the next two spots with 14 percent each. In the monitor segment, where prices matter, LG Chem leads with a 43 percent market share, and CMMT, Cheil Industry, and BQM are on its heels with 16 percent, 15 percent, and 11 percent, respectively. Polarizers for tablet PCs are getting the spotlight these days, and Nitto Denko is dominant in that segment with 62 percent, being the exclusive supplier to Apple for the iPad series. Next to Nitto Denko, LG Chem is the runner-up with a 24 percent share. 

Displaybank’s “Polarizer Market and Industry Trend Analysis” report analyzes the polarizer market forecast until 2016; production line status of polarizer maker; supply chain; and pricing trends. The report also analyzes polarizers’ sub-film market—TAC, PVA, PET protective film, release film, anti-reflective film, and replacement film—for a better understanding of the polarizer market where the competition for high value added film production has become more intense.

As more and more companies are gearing up and demonstrating flexible display prototypes (LG, Nokia and earlier this year at CES 2013, Samsung’s Youm display are just a few of the latest examples), the need for protection of these new devices that are freed from the constraints of conventional rigid form factors is highlighted once more.

Samsung flexible display
 Fig 1. Samsung’s flexible display, demonstrated at CES 2013

 

Nokia kinetic display
 Fig 2. Nokia’s Kinetic display

IDTechEx Research, in its latest report on the topic of flexible encapsulation “Barrier Films for Flexible Electronics 2013-2023: Needs, Players, Opportunities,” is forecasting the market for flexible barrier films to conservatively grow to just over $34 million by 2016. Up until that point, over 95% of the market is accounted for from a slowly growing market for flexible photovoltaics based on CIGS and a-Si platforms.

breakdown of market

Fig 3. A percentage breakdown of the market by applications for flexible barrier films in 2013

Source: IDTechEx Research report “Barrier Films for Flexible Electronics 2013-2023: Needs, Players, Opportunities”

The really significant growth though, is expected to kick in once flexible display technologies move out of the prototyping stage and start becoming commercial products, changing the way consumers interact with their portable electronic devices. By 2023, the market for flexible barriers will already be over $240 million, with display technologies accounting for over a third of that value.                              

Applications: OLED displays and lighting

The realization of flexible OLED applications still requires further advances in thin film encapsulation technology due to OLED sensitivity to oxygen and moisture. Several barrier architectures are possible and each technology is characterized by different materials, manufacturing processes and final barrier properties. The widely quoted requirement for water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) for an OLED lifetime of >10,000 hours is 10−6 g/m2/day. Barriers of this level of performance are not widely available yet but several barrier technology developers already have manufacturing facilities for small volumes and samples available.

On the other hand, flexible electrophoretic displays (EPDs) are already being commercialized but that’s mainly due to the fact that EPDs are not sensitive to oxygen and moisture. In fact, IDTechEx Research shows that a small amount of moisture is actually beneficial for EPDs so the technology has little or no need for a high performing barrier layer that minimizes water vapour permeation.

flexible e-reader
 Fig 4. Flexible e-reader from Wexler.

 

Encapsulation Technologies

IDTechEx Research were the first to identify the need for a market report on flexible encapsulation of electronics and launched the first report back in 2008. The new report is being launched as IDTechEx Research has been following the developments and trends in this space over the past few years. One of the most important such trends is definitely the increasing interest in flexible glass encapsulation.

With the introduction of flexible glass from several companies in the past few years, the competition for encapsulation becomes more intense as, there is now a new option being commercialized that would allow for perfect protection from oxygen and moisture, without having to rely on plastic substrates with inorganic coating deposited on them. Flexible glass can inherently be very low cost; after all, it’s only glass, only thinner, which could translate to less material utilization hence, lower raw materials and total costs. Unfortunately things are not as simple, given the fact that handling issues with flexible glass make its development, transportation, usage, etc. a bit more complex. As cracks are initiated from the edges of the glass tabbing is utilized in order to protect fractures from occurring and propagating.

Corning Willow Glass

Fig 5. Corning’s Flexible glass with protective tabbing on the edges.

Source: Corning

What is expected in the next few years is increasing competition between the developers of different technologies. Initially, flexible glass has a handicap as it is dealing with its handling issues. On the plus side for flexible glass developers, they already have long standing relationships with major display and PV manufacturers worldwide through their rigid glass businesses, a position which allows them for direct access to potential customers for their new flexible offerings (e.g. Corning, Schott, NEG). Overall, we are expecting to start seeing penetration of glass solutions in the flexible electronics space a bit later than solutions based on polymers but from 2016 onwards glass solution providers are expected to start slowly increasing their market share.

The Flexible Electronics and Display Center (FEDC) at Arizona State University and PARC, a Xerox company, today announced that they successfully manufactured the world’s largest flexible X-ray detector prototype using advanced thin film transistors (TFTs). Measuring 7.9 diagonal inches, the device was jointly developed at the FEDC and PARC in conjunction with the Army Research Lab (ARL) and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). This device will be used to advance the development of flexible X-ray detectors for use in thin, lightweight, conformable and highly rugged devices.

The TFT and PIN diode processing was done on the 470mm by 370mm Gen II line at the FEDC. This device showcases the Center’s successful scale up to GEN II, and the ability to produce sensors and displays using TFTs in standard process flows with the Center’s proprietary bond/de-bond technology.

The system design and integration was done at PARC. The flexible x-ray sensor was coupled to a flexible electrophoretic display and electronics to provide a self-contained, direct-view unit (including battery, user-interface and software). This system shows PARC’s capability to build user-defined prototype systems incorporating novel device physics, materials and technology. PARC has extensive experience in building large-area electronic systems, display and backplane prototypes and organic and printed electronics.

Formerly known as The Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University, the FEDC is a government – industry – academia partnership that’s advancing full-color flexible display technology and fostering development of a manufacturing environment to support the rapidly growing market for flexible electronic devices. FEDC partners include many of the world’s leading providers of advanced display technology, materials and process equipment. The FEDC is unique among the U.S. Army’s University centers, having been formed through a 10-year cooperative agreement with Arizona State University in 2004.