Category Archives: Flexible Displays

July 10, 2007 — Nantero, Inc., a nanotechnology company using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for the development of next-generation semiconductor devices, announced that it is working with HP to explore the use of HP inkjet technology and Nantero’s CNT formulation to create flexible electronics products and develop low-cost printable memory applications.

Nantero is using HP’s Thermal Inkjet Pico-Fluidic System (TIPS) research and development tool to evaluate the company’s inkjet technology for printable memory applications that can be used in a range of applications including low-cost RFID tags. TIPS adapts HP’s Scalable Print Technology for testing a variety of fluids including Nantero’s CMOS grade CNT formulation, a core building block for its NRAM memory product. HP’s core thermal inkjet technology provides intelligent heads with high nozzle density, large drop size range, excellent volumetric precision, world-class formulation expertise and production scale.

The companies’ collaboration is part of an HP initiative to extend HP inkjet printing technology into non hardcopy applications where accurate placement of small drops and deposition of precise volumes of fluid is required. This technology is especially applicable when complex surfaces or specialized coatings are part of the challenge. The goal is to assist customers in capturing the advantages of additive drop-on-demand technology in their production processes as an alternative to traditional manufacturing methodologies.

“Working with HP and its TIPS system to explore the printability of our NRAM memory cell can open up entirely new application spaces in the memory segment,” said Greg Schmergel, CEO and co-founder of Nantero. “For example, a printable NRAM memory could be deposited on flexible substrates to enable very low cost RFID tags.”

Kathy Tobin, vice president of Specialty Printing Systems at HP, added, “For the semiconductor industry, this approach may offer both substantial cost advantages as well as enable new electronics applications on flexible substrates when combined with technology such as Nantero’s material system and memory expertise.”

The large-area printed photodetector array (Photo: Business Wire)

May 22, 2007 — NANOIDENT Technologies AG of Linz, Austria, says it has delivered the world’s largest printed semiconductor-based photodetector array on a flexible PET foil substrate. The array, which converts light into electrical signals, was developed with the NANOIDENT Semiconductor 2.0 platform and manufactured at the NANOIDENT Organic Fab (OFAB). NANOIDENT says its OEM partners can now realize application-specific, cost-effective, printed semiconductor-based photodetector arrays that eliminate the need for costly optical filters and can be used in a wide variety of new industrial, medical and security applications.

The NANOIDENT Semiconductor 2.0 platform serves as the core technology foundation for a range of application-specific printed semiconductor platforms and products. With its platform, NANOIDENT was able to manufacture a large-area photodetector array by depositing thin layers of conducting and semiconducting “inks” onto a plastic foil substrate using state-of-the-art printing techniques. By using printed semiconductor-based technology—which enables unique mechanical, electro-optical and structural properties—the company was able to deliver an array 18 x 12cm in size, and says it could easily produce detectors up to 50 x 50cm or larger. With large-area, ultra-thin, flexible devices that incorporate application specific spectral properties, customers are able to eliminate expensive optical filters and develop an entirely new class of application types. Sample applications for large-area photodetector arrays include industrial measurement and test, medical imaging and security screening.

“One of our industrial customers came to NANOIDENT requesting a radical new photodetector array design for a specific industrial application that could not be delivered with silicon,” said Klaus Schroeter, CEO of NANOIDENT. “Working together, we were able to deliver the industry’s first large-area array on a flexible substrate that includes specific spectral sensitivity and meets other application-specific requirements. We are excited to deliver this solution, which will transform existing test processes as well as create an entirely new application for the industrial market.”

NANOIDENT’s Semiconductor 2.0 platform is the core technology for all NANOIDENT vertical market platforms and is comprised of four core intellectual property (IP) elements, which include liquid conductive and semiconductive materials IP, design and simulation IP, production processes and quality assurance IP and functional component IP. The Semiconductor 2.0 platform enables the design and mass production of printed semiconductor-based functional components, such as photo detectors, light emitting diodes, transistors, resistors, capacitors and interconnects. With NANOIDENT’s new printed semiconductor production process, devices can also be manufactured in hours rather than weeks.

May 9, 2007 – Solar PV silicon startup Solaicx says it has closed a Series C round of funding totaling $27.1 million, led by the D.E. Shaw group, with participation from several VC firms as well as an increased investment from Applied Materials’ VC arm.

Last fall Applied said its Applied Ventures LLC unit had invested about $3.5 million for convertible notes of Solaicx, which planned to use the extra funds to open a second manufacturing site in the US in 2007. A spokesperson for the startup indicated that AMAT’s $3.5M investment was rolled over into the Series C round with “a little bit more” investment on top of that, though she declined to provide a specific amount.

Solaicx claims its products utilize a proprietary continuous Czochralski (CZ) crystal growing methodology that are up to 5x more effective for growing single-crystal silicon than traditional CZ systems designed primarily for use in semiconductor manufacturing. The company also says it offers “streamlined ingot production techniques” and up to 30% higher efficiencies in polysilicon feedstock usage.”

“Since we invested in the company last fall, Solaicx has made great strides with its unique manufacturing technology. This technology will benefit the photovoltaic industry as it ramps up to meet growing demand,” said
J. Christopher Moran, VP and GM of Applied Ventures, in a statement.

In July, AMAT completed its $464 million acquisition of Applied Films Corp., a supplier of thin-film deposition equipment used in manufacturing flat-panel displays, solar cells, flexible electronics and energy-efficient glass. The company also has restructured its operations to break out a new business encompassing solar and other high-growth activities. In AMAT’s fiscal 4Q06 (ended in October), this Adjacent Technologies segment posted revenues of $20 million.


Nano-piezotronics uses piezoelectric and semiconducting properties to produce novel components. (Photo: Georgia Tech)

Mar. 1, 2007&#8212Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have taken advantage of the unique coupled semiconducting and piezoelectric properties of zinc oxide nanowires to create a new class of electronic components and devices that could provide the foundation for a broad range of new applications.

So far, the researchers have demonstrated field-effect transistors, diodes, sensors, and current-producing nanogenerators¿that operate by bending zinc oxide nanowires and nanobelts. The new components take advantage of the relationship between the mechanical and electronic coupled behavior of piezoelectric nanomaterials, a mechanism the researchers call “nano-piezotronics.”

“Nano-piezotronics utilizes the coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting properties to fabricate novel electronic components,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. “These devices could provide the fundamental building blocks that would allow us to create a new area of electronics.”

For example, in a nano-piezotronic transistor, bending a one-dimensional zinc oxide nanostructure alters the distribution of electrical charges, providing control over the current flowing through it. By measuring changes in current flow through them, piezotronic sensors can detect forces in the nano- or even pico-Newton range. Other piezotronic sensors can determine blood pressure within the body by measuring the current flowing through the nanostructures. And, an electrical connection made to one side of a bent zinc oxide nanostructure creates a piezotronic diode that limits current flow to one direction.

The nano-piezotronic mechanism takes advantage of the fundamental property of nanowires or nanobelts made from piezoelectric materials: bending the structures creates a charge separation – positive on one side and negative on the other. The connection between bending and charge creation has also been used to create nanogenerators that produce measurable electrical currents when an array of zinc oxide nanowires is bent and then released.

Development of a piezotronic gated diode based on zinc oxide nanowires was reported February 13 in the online advance issue of the journal Advanced Materials. Other nano-piezotronic components have been reported in the journals Nano Letters and Science. The research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Institutes of Health (NHI) and NASA.

“The future of nanotechnology research is in building integrated nanosystems from individual components,” said Wang. “Piezotronic components based on zinc oxide nanowires and nanobelts have several important advantages that will help make such integrated nanosystems possible.”

These advantages include:

* Zinc oxide nanostructures can tolerate large amounts of deformation without damage, allowing their use in flexible electronics such folding power sources.
* The large amount or deformation permits a large volume density of power output.
* Zinc oxide materials are biocompatible, allowing their use in the body without toxic effects.
* The flexible polymer substrate used in nanogenerators would allow implanted devices to conform to internal structures in the body.
* Nanogenerators based on the structures could directly produce power for use in implantable systems.

In comparison to conventional electronic components, the nano-piezotronic devices operate much differently and exhibit unique characteristics. In conventional field-effect transistors, for instance, an electrical potential – called the gate voltage – is applied to create an electrical field that controls the flow of current between the device’s source and its drain. In the piezotronic transistors developed by Wang and his research team, the current flow is controlled by changing the conductance of the nanostructure by bending it between the source and drain electrodes. The bending produces a “gate” potential across the nanowire, and the resulting conductance is directly related to the degree of bending applied.

“The effect is to reduce the width of the channel to carry the current, so you can have a 10-fold difference in the conductivity before and after the bending,” Wang explained.

Diodes, which restrict the flow of current to one direction, have also been created through nano-piezotronic mechanisms to take advantage of a potential barrier created at the interface between the electrode and the tensile (stretched) side of the nanowire by mechanical bending. The potential barrier created by the piezoelectric effect limits the follow of current to one direction.

Nanogenerators, which were announced in the April 14, 2006 issue of the journal Science, harvest energy from the environment around them, converting mechanical energy from body movement, muscle stretching, fluid flow or other sources into electricity. By producing current from the bending and releasing of zinc oxide nanowires, these devices could eliminate the need for batteries or other bulky sources for powering nanometer-scale systems.

Piezotronic nanosensors can measure nano-Newton (10 -9) forces by examining the shape of the structure under pressure. Implantable sensors based on the principle could continuously measure blood pressure inside the body and relay the information wirelessly to an external device similar to a watch, Wang said. The device could be powered by a nanogenerator harvesting energy from blood flow.

Other nanosensors can detect very low levels of specific compounds by measuring the current change created when molecules of the target are adsorbed to the nanostructure’s surface. “Utilizing this kind of device, you could potentially sense a single molecule because the surface area-to-volume ratio is so high,” Wang said.

By Tom Cheyney
Small Times Contributing Editor

Feb. 15, 2007 — As the first commercial flexible electronics reach consumers, many significant manufacturing and technological obstacles must be overcome for the market to reach its multibillion-dollar potential over the next five to 10 years. This was one of the key themes at the U.S. Display Consortium‘s sixth annual Flexible Display & Microelectronics Conference, held last week.

The conference broadened its focus beyond flexible displays this year, adding photovoltaics, RFIDs, sensors, LEDs, and other organic and printed electronics to the topical mix. The event organizers also increased the number of technical sessions, with parallel tracks for manufacturing and thin-film transistor (TFT)/flex technologies convening during the second day.

The manufacturing track was particularly well attended, with presentations by Hewlett-Packard, Philips, and Applied Materials focusing on the development and differentiation of roll-to-roll and batch-style processing techniques. Papers from Semprius, Kodak, and Fujifilm Dimatix detailed efforts to adapt inkjet and classic printing techniques to flexible electronic applications.

The popularity of the manufacturing sessions also reflected the pioneering efforts by Polymer Vision, Plastic Logic, and other companies to move from the lab or pilot-line stage to volume production. Citing a long-term goal of putting “a rollable display in every mobile device,” Polymer Vision CEO Karl McGoldrick described his company’s efforts to bring its ultrathin-film-transistor polymer display module to market.

Polymer Vision, which spun off from Philips late last year, has announced it will ramp up a Southampton, U.K., manufacturing facility (in partnership with Innos). The company has also entered into an agreement with Telecom Italia to “bring the ‘cellular book’ to market.” Models of what the company touts as the “world’s first commercial rollable display product” were to be unveiled at the 3GSM World conference in Barcelona this week, according to McGoldrick.

Company CTO Edzer Huitema told Small Times that a blend of refurbished and new AMLCD equipment will be deployed, as well as a proprietary lamination/delamination tool, in its Class 100 production facility (scheduled to come on line later this year). He said they are “on spec for creating the product,” with field-effect mobility and driving voltages comparable to conventional TFT devices. Although it is early, yields appear to be sustainable throughout the process flow. Defect sources, which are “comparable to those found in LCD manufacturing,” are “under control.” Ongoing quality control work is focusing on materials purity and various types of insulator layers, he added.


A prototype Plastic Logic e-book at the Flexible Display & Microelectronics Conference. (Photo: Tom Cheyney)

Bolstered by a recent funding round of $100 million, Plastic Logic plans to build and equip a green-field factory site in Dresden, said Simon Jones, VP of product development. The company expects to have “product-quality modules” of its “take anywhere, read anywhere thin, light, robust e-paper displays” by mid-2008, with a production target of more than 1 million 10-in.-equivalent units for 2009.

Plastic Logic’s direct-write, room-temperature process requires no mask alignment and can be scaled to a large substrate size. Jones explained that the company “measures contrast and yield on every panel” and has “captured a huge amount of defect data,” which is “essential for the move from R&D to production.”

During his presentation on the alignment of market forecasts, manufacturing capacity, and investments in organic, plastic, and printed electronics, cintelliq‘s Craig Cruickshank offered a sober assessment of the prospects for manufacturing. He said that, other than in the organic LED (OLED) sector, “the industry will take longer to commercialize than currently anticipated.”

Cruickshank’s data showed that despite the recently announced factory investments, “significant production capacity will need to be built over the next three years to satisfy demand by 2010/2011.” Nearly $800 million will be necessary over the next three years “to build the capacity needed¿to meet the forecasts.” As a result, device and materials companies “need to decide whether to enter production in the next year or so.” He also noted that government investments in the industry in Europe and North America “still exceed the accumulated venture capital funding,” which suggests that the industry remains in R&D mode.

Jan. 19, 2007 — Advance Nanotech Inc., a New York-based provider of financing and support services to drive the commercialization of nanotechnology related products for homeland security and display technologies, announced that its subsidiary, Advance Display Technologies plc (ADT), commenced trading on the PLUS-quoted market in London.

ADT was formed in August 2006 as one of two operating divisions and majority-owned subsidiaries of Advance Nanotech. ADT, the first PLUS market listing in 2007, listed 50 million shares at 96 cents per share. Following the placing there were 50 million ordinary shares in issue, valuing the company at approximately $49 million at the placing price. Advance Nanotech Inc. holds 94 percent of the issued share capital with a market value of just over $46 million. ADT trades under the ticker ADTP.

Commenting on the announcement, Magnus Gittins, chairman of Advance Nanotech, said in a prepared statement: “We estimate that the global display market is worth over $100 billion. This growing market offers huge potential for our nano-enabled technologies. This listing will serve to augment the profile of the business such that we may take full advantage of the opportunities the sector offers.”

ADT develops materials and devices across three distinct display applications areas: flat panel and projection displays, plastic electronics, and flexible displays. It has nine technologies in development for which the company said it anticipates commercialization within 12 to 36 months, and possesses agreements with global-leading scientific groups at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Bristol, UK.

By partnering with universities and leveraging their infrastructures and multi-disciplinary human resources, ADT says it reduces its cost base and mitigates its risk.

January 3, 2007 – Taiwan’s government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has set an aggressive budget over the next two years to support research and development of flexible electronic technologies and products, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

Many bottlenecks in flexible electronics materials, device design, and production processes have already been addressed, noted Tang Yu-hwa, project manger of Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK) under ITRI, quoted by the Taiwan paper. The IEK estimates the flexible electronics market will mature in 2008, with sales rising sharply through 2010. Annual global production could potentially hit $16 billion by 2015, with devices including flexible logic, memory, and display products entering the mainstream.

The ITRI plans to invest about $27.27 million in 2007, and $30.37 million in 2008, for flexible electronic R&D, following similarly aggressive investments in prior years — in 2006 the institute spent about $15 million in 2006 on a new flexible-electronics experiment lab, the paper noted. By 2008 the ITRI aims to have ready its first product — printed passive RFID tags to replace traditional barcode systems — as well as a prototype of static flexible-display signage. More high-level static flexible display products such as e-paper and e-newspapers are expected by around 2010, with advances to big-screen TVs possible by 2015.

Flex circuits or flex circuit boards enable deposition of electronic devices on flexible substrates such as plastic, which can be used for circuit boards, or to replace LCD glass substrates with thin plastics or metal foils. Another product goal is the e-book, which could be based on organic materials and flexible substrates to create a more lower-power, portable product.

November 20, 2006 – Furthering its newfound interests in the high-growth solar market, Applied Materials Inc. says it has invested $3.0 million in Solaicx, a privately held manufacturer of single-crystal silicon wafers for the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry. The firm plans to use the investment to open a second manufacturing site in the US by next year.

Solaicx utilizes a proprietary continuous Czochralski (CZ) crystal growing methodology that it says could be up to 5x more effective for growing single-crystal silicon than traditional CZ systems, which were designed primarily for use in semiconductor manufacturing.

“Applied is committed to providing the solar industry with technology and process innovations to reduce the cost per watt of solar power. Solaicx meets these requirements — offering improved manufacturing technology to facilitate the streamlined manufacturing of solar cell wafers,” said J. Christopher Moran, VP and GM of Applied Ventures, in a statement.

In July, AMAT completed its $464 million acquisition of Applied Films Corp., a supplier of thin-film deposition equipment used in manufacturing flat-panel displays, solar cells, flexible electronics and energy-efficient glass. The company also has restructured its operations to break out a new business encompassing solar and other high-growth activities. In AMAT’s fiscal 4Q06 (ended in October), this Adjacent Technologies segment posted revenues of $20 million.

GOLDEN, CO – To build high-volume manufacturing facilities for its proprietary thin-film batteries, Infinite Power Solutions (IPS) attracted funding from existing and new corporate investors. Part of the $34.7 million investment will go toward business development and technological innovations.

Investors include the D.E. Shaw Group, Polaris Venture Partners, Core Capital Partners, Applied Ventures LLC, Advanced Energy Technologies, and Springworks. The board of directors will include representatives from the investors, the company, and Tucson Electric Power. IPS thin-film micro-batteries are mass-produced on a thin, inexpensive, flexible substrate.

Aug. 31, 2006 – U.S. scientists using an off-the-shelf inkjet printer have developed a technique for printing patterns of carbon nanotubes on paper and plastic surfaces.

The research team says the method could lead to a new process for manufacturing a wide range of nanotube-based devices, from flexible electronics and conducting fabrics to sensors for detecting chemical agents.

Carbon nanotubes offer the combination of high strength, low weight and excellent conductivity. But most current techniques to make nanotube-based devices require complex and expensive equipment.

“Our results suggest new alternatives for fabricating nanotube patterns by simply printing the dissolved particles on paper or plastic surfaces,” said Robert Vajtai, a researcher with the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and corresponding author of the paper.

Vajtai and colleagues at Rensselaer — along with a group of researchers led by Krisztian Kordas and Geza Toth at the University of Oulu in Finland — explain the discovery in the August issue of the journal Small.

© 2006, YellowBrix, Inc.