Flex displays get closer

The era in which you will be able to roll up an electronic display and stick it in your pocket appears to be getting much closer. In the past two months there have been several significant announcements relating to flex displays.

Cambridge, UK-based Plastic Logic (www.plasticlogic.com) — which is building a plant for flexible displays in Dresden, Germany, that is expected to come on line this yearbought manufacturing equipment from NexTechFAS (Austin, TX) last month. PlasticLogic is purchasing extrusion spinless coaters and automated optical inspection equipment said to be worth multiple millions of dollars.

In March, the U.S. Display Consortium announced a contract with Etched in Time Inc. (EITI) to improving key specifications of etch tools currently for large-area panels used in the manufacture of flexible displays and electronics. The goal is to provide a pathway for customers to etch a variety of materials as well as a methodology for etching in a linear large-area system suitable for future roll-to-roll (R2R) processing, according to EITI President Bob Henderson.

The same month, GE Consumer & Industrial announced the successful demonstration of the world’s first R2R-manufactured OLED lighting devices. An important step for developing low-cost OLED lighting devices, this technology also could have impact in the manufacturing of roll-up displays, noted Anil Duggal, manager of GE’s Advanced Technology Program in Organic Electronics.

At the end of March, a USC-Purdue-Northwestern research team said it had build the first active-matrix displays using OLEDs made from transparent nanowire transistors and assembled on thin films of flexible plastic. Even in the first-draft pilot stage, the displays are said to be nearly as bright as flat-panel TVs.