Category Archives: Flexible Displays

April 3, 2008 — Binghamton University inaugurated its Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing (CAMM) facility this week. A collaborative effort by Binghamton University, Endicott Interconnect Technologies and Cornell University, the CAMM plans to pioneer microelectronics manufacturing research and development in a roll-to-roll (R2R) format. These efforts are expected to generate flexible, rugged, lightweight electronic components and innovative products for applications in areas such as military and homeland security, lighting, energy and power generation, displays, and product identification and tracking.

The CAMM is a component of Binghamton University’s New York State Center of Excellence in Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging. Plans for the CAMM were initiated in 2005 when the United States Display Consortium (USDC) selected Binghamton University to manage this new initiative. The USDC provided $12 million in equipment to establish the CAMM, which is hosted by Endicott Interconnect Technologies and draws collaborative resources from Cornell University.

“Binghamton University is a world leader in small scale systems integration and packaging research,” said Binghamton University President Lois B. DeFleur.
Currently, most advanced electronics components are produced on silicon or quartz wafers, or on plates of specialized glass in a “batch” process that has been the backbone of the integrated circuit (IC) and flat panel display (FPD) industries. A R2R process, which integrates electronics on flexible plastic means, in theory, that components can be produced more efficiently, at higher yields and at a lower cost than is common practice today and opens up potential new application areas for flexible electronics.

March 27, 2008 — /PRNewswire/ — PHILADELPHIA, PA — Honeywell (NYSE:HON) announcesthat it will expand production of AclarR film to meet growing demand for the clear, moisture-barrier material, which is used extensively in pharmaceutical packaging.

An upgrade of existing production capability, combined with overall productivity improvements, is expected to boost Aclar production by up to 23 percent by the end of 2008 at the business’ Pottsville, PA facility.

“This is another step in our continued strategy to invest to meet the packaging needs of the pharmaceutical industry now and in the future,” says Jeff Czarnecki, global segment leader for the specialty films segment of Honeywell Performance Products. Czarnecki notes that the business implemented productivity improvements at the Pottsville site in 2007, which also boosted capacity.

Rick Knight, global business manager for healthcare, says pharmaceutical companies worldwide continue to demand thermoformed packaging material with superior barrier capabilities. “Honeywell is committed to supporting pharmaceutical companies globally as they introduce new products to the marketplace,” he says.

The announcement was made at INTERPHEX, the world’s largest and most comprehensive pharmaceutical conference and exhibition. The event focuses on leading-edge technology, education, and sourcing of products and services that drive scientific innovation for life sciences manufacturing.

As part of its commitment to the pharmaceutical industry, Honeywell is continuing its technical training and educational series to address critical aspects of thermoform packaging. The program consists of half- and one-day workshops.

Aclar is a polychlorotrifluoroethylene (PCTFE) fluoropolymer film that has excellent moisture barrier and chemical stability. Aclar film is crystal clear, biochemically inert, chemical-resistant, nonflammable, and plasticizer- and stabilizer-free.

In addition to Aclar, Honeywell Specialty Films manufactures CapranR biaxially oriented nylon film, also known as biaxially oriented polyamide (BOPA) film; Capran heat stabilized nylon film; AclonTM fluoropolymer resins, which provide the highest moisture barrier of any clear thermoplastic resins; and Honeywell PCTFE, ECTFE, and PMP barrier films for high performance industrial applications.

About Honeywell

Honeywell Specialty Materials, based in Morristown, NJ, is a $4.9 billion, global leader in providing customers with high-performance specialty materials, including fluorine products; specialty films and additives; advanced fibers and composites; intermediates; specialty chemicals; electronic materials and chemicals; and technologies and materials for petroleum refining.

Honeywell International is a $36 billion diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; automotive products; turbochargers; and specialty materials. Based in Morris Township, NJ, Honeywell’s shares are traded on the New York, London, and Chicago Stock Exchanges.

Visit www.honeywell.com

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March 1, 2008

Besides the obvious bonus in this issue—inclusion of the annual Small Tech Business Directory—this issue features another one: For the first time, Small Times is supplementing its standard print features with “Web exclusive feature articles” available only online. While Small Times has historically had a robust Website (www.smalltimes.com)—with news updated daily as well as our Small Times Direct newsletter—this is a first for in-depth feature material. Please see the URLs on our Table of Contents (p. 1), and look for more feature articles—and other exclusive content—on the Small Times’ site in the future.

Speaking of Small Times Direct, I’m always grateful to hear from readers. Tom Winter of Texas Instruments’ DLP FP Product Engineering group responded to my commentary on display advances, which mainly focused (as does this issue’s flexible and printed electronics feature, p. 13) on flexible technologies. “I’m always surprised when I see the words ‘MEMS’ and ‘display applications’ together, and don’t see any reference to DLP’s DMD chip [up to 2 million mirrors, 50% projector market share, 100% digital cinema market share, etc.—far and away the most complex and most successful MEMS device in history]. Is it because the technology is so successful that it’s fully mainstream, and thus technologically uninteresting? And, also, a captive market produced by only one company?”

Excellent points, and I’m sure the flexible display innovators would love to replicate the success of TI’s DLP, which deserves celebration. But as Tom Cheyney’s feature reveals, the “flexible” folks have a number of hurdles to leap on the way to market.

In another recent issue of Small Times Direct I’d written that Sustainable Titania Technology’s new chemical solution for coating solar cells “improves their ability to convert sunlight by 100%”—and Dr. Philip Lippel, Policy Analyst for the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, wrote to tell the real story. “What they claim is a 100% increase in the [small-but-significant] increase you get from a structured coating,” he said. “That’d probably work out to a 15% or 20% increase in actual efficiency for a typical commercial photovoltaic cell.” Indeed!

We’ve received numerous comments, too, about the redesign that debuted last issue. Dr. George Riley of FlipChips.com wrote to say, “Congratulations and thank you for the intelligent redesign of Small Times. As one who reads Small Times primarily for technical content, I’m happy to find it now more technically informative and much easier to navigate.” And Craig Lazinsky of Parker-Hannifin noted that he is “impressed with the condensed, easy-to-read format and technical content.”

Rich Allen started his note saying, “The feature that lists the companies mentioned in the corresponding article is useful.” He went on to relate how he is working with his 18-year-old son, who just opened a Scottrade account, to find nano and biotech stocks—the sole focus of the account. “It would be great to have, say, a recommended publicly traded nanotech stock highlighted,” said Rich.

I directed him to Small Times’ financial page, accessible from the bottom of our homepage, at http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/smalltimes.

But other than Rich’s small wish, I’ve had no requests and no complaints—only kudos. This is wonderful, but leaves me hoping for more input to better serve your needs. So c’mon small-tech innovators; let me know what else you want from Small Times—and we’ll do our best to deliver. Meanwhile, enjoy this issue—including the newest edition of the Small Tech Business Directory, which has been updated this year with many more categories and helpful descriptions to assist you in finding suppliers and partners.

Click here to enlarge image

Barbara G. Goode is editor-in-chief of Small Times. She can be reached at [email protected].

By Tom Cheyney, Small Times Senior Contributing Editor

February 4, 2008 — Smart credit cards with embedded displays, e-packaging with printed RFID chips, and mobile devices with rollable, e-paper screens are among the growing number of flexible electronics-enabled gizmos that have reached or about to reach the commercialization stage. A sector once dominated by artists’ renderings has evolved significantly over the past several years, as more production has come online, delivering both critical materials and real products. Despite the gains, many significant manufacturing and infrastructure challenges remain for flexible, printed, and organic electronics (FPOE) to become a multibillion-dollar market.

At the U.S. Display Consortium‘s Flexible Electronics and Display conference held January 21-24 in Phoenix, a parade of speakers talked about their own breakthroughs in moving toward volume fabrication. Dennis Brestovansky, president and CEO of Aveso, described how the spinoff of Dow Chemical uses a proprietary family of electrochromic inks “that change color when low voltage (<1 volt) is applied within a confined electrical field" for its printed, high-contrast flexible display devices. This material technology enables the creation of low-cost, 250-micron-thick, rugged "active label" displays that can be manufactured using screen, gravure, and flexographic roll-to-roll (R2R) printing methods.

The company’s Primero modules can be integrated into ISO-compliant one-time password and other “secure” smart cards made with hot lamination, which Brestovansky said “is the key to producing a low-cost, high-volume electronic display card. You can drop these parts into any membrane switch factory and be running products in days.” The “adoption of the new card technology hinges on its ability to deliver volume, pricing, and process,” he added, noting that the “installed global infrastructure of approved secure card facilities must be leveraged.”

Not every flexible electronics device is as “simple” to make as a display card or can tap into a mature manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure. A recurring theme runs through discussions of FPOE’s volume-production potential: The higher the information content and the larger the substrate area of the device being developed, the more complex — and costly — the manufacturing will likely be, with nonvacuum R2R processing being especially tricky.

Some companies have chosen a hybrid approach for getting on the fast-track to mass production, piggybacking flexible processing onto existing vacuum thin-film-transistor manufacturing infrastructure. Presenters from Polymer Vision, Prime View International (PVI), and Samsung discussed their reliance on low-temperature semiconductor/LCD processes, running the new products through existing lines, adding a few specialized tools and materials and employing glass or wafer carrier/support substrates, on which the plastic film or metal foil is laminated during the process and delaminated at the end.

Polymer Vision CTO Edzer Huitema said his company “is making thousands of rollable displays” at its Southampton, U.K., fab (which uses 150-mm silicon wafers as carriers), in preparation for the midyear commercial launch of its first Readius mobile reader devices. PVI is ramping to volume production of its Phillips-invented Flexi-e displays (which, like the Polymer Vision and Samsung devices, employ E Ink’s Vizplex microencapsulated electrophoretic e-paper film) at its Gen 2.5 TFT-LCD factory in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Flex displays “run side by side” with glass, using “standard production equipment as much as possible” and showing “similar TFT characteristics and stability” as their glass counterparts, according to company chairman/CEO Scott Liu.

For those pursuing an atmospheric, solutions/functional ink-based, additive printable electronics approach, one weak link is the lack of a high-end, PE-specific, roll-to-roll process equipment infrastructure. Dan Gamota, director of printed electronics at Motorola (which has “not done anything in vacuum—we’ve used all graphic arts” techniques), told Small Times “people are realizing that…along the supply chain, the silver bullet is not materials—the equipment needs to be developed.”

He believes “things are going in the right direction,” however: Several large tool companies have approached Motorola about starting focused businesses; the R2R pilot line is coming online at the Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing (CAMM) at the State University of New York, Binghamton; and the new iNEMI organic and printed electronics roadmap (due out in early 2009) will focus more on equipment and processes. Also citing ongoing work at Toppan Forms and Degussa, Gamota thinks that “this year we’ll see lots of activities in tooling.”

The new facility was specifically designed to meet the increasing customer demand in need of qualifying a new cleaning process but also evaluate and compare the cleaning performances. In addition to personalized technical support provided by our on-site process engineers, customers now have access to an analytical platform specifically designed to conduct a wide range of cleanliness testing in compliance with the latest IPC, J-STD and DIN standards.

(January 24, 2008) SAN JOSE, CA — Honeywell Electronic Materials and the US Display Consortium (USDC), a public/private partnership chartered with developing the supply chain for the flat panel display industry, have announced a new agreement to develop materials for flexible electronics. Under this new $500,000 agreement, Honeywell will focus on developing materials to prevent short circuits in leading-edge flexible electronics for devices used by the US military.

Flexible electronics are key to the military’s goal of employing rugged, yet lightweight and highly mobile, flexible electronic equipment.

(January 24, 2008) Hampton Beach, NH — Ardent Concepts Inc. has announced the acquisition of Liberty Research Co. of Cupertino, CA, in a private equity agreement. Financial terms were not disclosed.

So in our upcoming January/February issue of Advanced Packaging, in addition to hearing what industry experts have to say about 2008 in our annual Forecast issue, you’ll also read about edgy technologies we think deserved some ink. For example, I first learned about IMEC’s work with stretchable electronics during SEMICON Europa. Researchers there have taken flexible electronics beyond the limits to create stretchable electronics, destined for applications in medical devices. Jan Provoost describes the process in Notable Developments. We’ve also been following the progress of Nextreme Thermal Solution’s thermal copper bump technology since they introduced it in October of 2007. This technical feature, written by Paul Magill, explains the entire process of integrating thermal material into the solder bumps for spot cooling at the chip level. Interestingly enough, the story was picked up by the Wall Street Journal in its technology section on January 10th, 2008. When I saw it, I had one of those yeah-I-already-knew-that moments that makes an editor’s day.

The schematic-based MEMS design environment ARCHITECT features a 3D visualization tool called Scene3D, which allows users to create 3D views of an ARCHITECT schematic and visualize simulation results with fully contoured 3D animations. Whether designing next generation gyroscopes, accelerometers, oscillators, RF switches, RF filters, optical mirrors or microphones, ARCHITECT with Scene3D not only reportedly helps the user ease the design process, but also document and communicate from initial steps to full production, across all design and management levels. ARCHITECT Scene3D provides output filters to generate 2D masks or 3D solid models in standard formats, making it fit seamlessly into most established design flows. Coventor, Cary, NC, www.coventor.com.

January 16, 2008 — EV Group (EVG), a supplier of manufacturing equipment for the advanced packaging/3D interconnect, MEMS, SOI (silicon-on-insulator), nanotechnology, compound semiconductor and silicon-based power devices markets, says it has received a multi-million-Euro order from a leading European plastic electronics manufacturer for the high-volume production of flexible displays.

The multiple system order will be installed at the customer’s facility between now and mid-2008, and leveraged in the development of flexible display modules used within thin, light and robust consumer electronics products, such as portable electronic readers.

According to EVG, the sale is a key milestone as it demonstrates the successful deployment of the company’s advanced coating technology in the flexible display arena.

October 26, 2007 FRANKFURT, Germany — Leaders in the emerging printed electronics sector will be showcasing technological advances at the 3rd Global Plastic Electronics Conference from October 29-30th in Frankfurt, Germany. Printed electronics technology enables new products or significant improvements, in applications such as handheld devices, flexible displays, or printed sensors and batteries.


LG Philips developed the first full-color flexible active matrix organic LED in cooperation with Universal Display. (Photo: LG Philips)

October 18, 2007 — Universal Display Corp.), which develops organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology, has been awarded a $935,000 contract extension by the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC), the company announced.

The extension builds on an existing Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase III grant with CERDEC to develop flexible, active-matrix OLED display technology for demonstration in a prototype wrist-based communications device. Screens based on UDC’s technology are composed of several ultrathin films of special molecules that glow when excited by an electric current.

Development efforts under the contract extension will focus on combining Universal Display’s PHOLED (phosphorescent OLED) technology with companion technology by LG Philips LCD Co. Ltd. Bringing LPL to the program as a development partner marks an important step toward the commercialization of flexible OLED display products, Universal Display announced in a news release.

In May, the two companies showcased the world’s first high-resolution AMOLED display built on flexible metal foil. Building on this initial demonstration, Universal Display and LPL plan to work on a prototype with key design and performance enhancements under this program.

L-3 Communications Display Systems, which supplies ruggedized display systems for military uses, will design and integrate its advanced communications components with the QVGA, full-color, flexible AMOLED (“active matrix” OLED) display into the prototype wrist-mounted communications device for delivery to CERDEC.

Universal Display was awarded Phase III of the SBIR grant by CERDEC in January 2006. The Company’s work with the U.S. Department of Defense also includes flexible AMOLED display development for the U.S. Army Research Laboratories (ARL), the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories.