A European-funded project has demonstrated the ability to create a workable, rollable OLED display.
The 'Flexible organic active matrix OLED displays for nomadic applications' (Flame) project was completed earlier in 2011, and has demonstrated an OLED display that can be repeatedly rolled without degradation in performance.
Soeren Steudal at Imec spoke at the recent SID Organic Electronics UK conference at Imperial College, London, about the conclusion of the project.
The aim of the €4.1 million initiative is to produce a portable, rollable display that can be commercialised. As Steudal noted, this involves creating a new process for producing flexible OLED displays.
Low-temperature processing
He stated: 'With high-temperature foils we can use the existing manufacturing infrastructure to produce backplanes and other components, but then there will be limitations based on cost, transparency and rollability problems.
'Low-temperature processes involve making completely new infrastructures, however.'
The project consortium - which also includes TNO and Polymer Vision in the Netherlands, as well as Fraunhofer IPMS in Germany - intends to improve the rollability of the flexible OLED display to sustain thousands of stresses.
Partner firm Polymer Vision is trying to develop its own rollable displays for a variety of mobile products, having originally targeted the e-reader market. The company went into receivership in 2009 and was later acquired by Wistron.
The development of low-temperature processing for organic electronics was a much-dscussed theme at the SID Organic Electronics UK event on 5-6 September, with presentations from the likes of Solar Press and Imperial College's Centre for Plastic Electronics on sub-150ºC production of organic electronic components and devices.
+Plastic Electronics will be appearing at the OLEDs World Summit 2011 conference on 26-28 September in San Francisco, California, the US.
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Documents and links
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Subscribe to +Plastic Electronics magazine
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Flame project
The European-funded project to develop a rollable display concluded in 2011
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OLEDs World Summit 2011
+Plastic Electronics will be appearing at the forthcoming OLEDs World Summit on 26-28 September in California, US
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eReaders 2011
The eReaders 2011 conference will unite all facets of the industry in San Francisco, California, the US on 29-30 September 2011, to discuss the issues and opportunities currently facing the e-book market
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