Plastic Logic, the leader in the development and industrialisation of flexible organic
electronics, and Novaled, a leading company in organic electronic materials and technology
for OLED applications, announce a partnership which will transform and accelerate the
market for flexible and wearable displays. The companies demonstrate today at the Flextech
Conference in Phoenix, AZ a truly flexible, plastic, fully organic AMOLED display. This
will be the first of a series of technology demonstrators during 2014, which will be part
of each company's development of partnerships to enable the market for truly flexible,
unbreakable AMOLED displays - a market segment forecast to be worth over $10b by 2020 (IHS
2013 report).
The dream of wearable display technology is existing for a long time now. Making this
real has needed the correct set of electronics capabilities to enable compelling and
practical solutions for lifestyle, communications and fitness applications. The
demonstrator heralds a breakthrough by combining for the first time a functional
all-plastic AMOLED display with an industrialised turnkey manufacturing process for the
backplane electronics. This marks the beginning of a new chapter for display makers
searching for a path to ultra-flexible, ultra-thin, lightweight AMOLEDs, using a low
temperature process which has a number of key industrial benefits, including superior
uniformity, yield and hence ultimately a route to low cost solutions for volume
manufacturing.
Both companies bring critical technology to the demonstration. Novaled's PIN OLED(R)
technology enables the use of non-standard electrode materials needed for the flexible
AMOLED development. Plastic Logic's fully industrialised plastic, flexible Organic Thin
Film Transistor (OTFT) backplane and know-how enabled the world's first fully organic,
flexible display. Such truly flexible AMOLEDs, and the increased usable screen areas they
make possible, are set to power the next generation of products for the wearables market,
poised to take off in 2014.
Through the OTFT industrialisation process Plastic Logic has created unique IP and a
highly transferable process-flow. With an entire supply chain in place, OTFT manufacturing
has now reached a tipping point in performance with leading organic semiconductor (OSC)
materials suppliers, including Merck whose OSC material was used in the demonstration, now
showing mobilities required to drive OLED displays. The process is compatible with
existing mainstream display manufacturing operations, underpinning a new technology
licensing business model. Plastic Logic has already established a partner program to work
with leading global display makers and consumer electronics companies to enable flexible,
plastic AMOLED supply chains through licensing and technology transfer to mass volume
producers.
Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic, acknowledged the scale and relevance of the
breakthrough, saying "Flexible electronics is a reality, already proven through the
development and manufacture of plastic, bendable displays and sensors. For the first time
a fully organic, plastic, flexible AMOLED demonstration has been achieved with a real
industrial fabrication process. This marks the start of a revolution in wearable products,
the next frontier in consumer electronics - 2014 will be the year that wearable technology
starts to go mainstream."
"Novaled has been developing its leadership in the doping of OLED devices," says
Gildas Sorin, CEO Novaled GmbH. "When applied to the OTFT Novaled technologies and
materials will play a driving role in fully organic displays as well as in opening the
fields of new organic devices."
