Companies collaborate on flexible displays

A group of 20 top European companies, research institutes and universities has announced plan dot collaborate on a Euro 26 million project that will develop high performance flexible displays. Participants in the three year FlexiDis project include the University of Cambridge, BMW, Nokia Research Centre, Philips Research and STMicroelectronics.

 

FlexiDis, which is being partially funded under the European Union's 6th Framework Program as part of the Information Society Technologies initiative, has set itself two goals. The first is to develop a flexible and low-power 'electronic paper' display that enables mobile access to newspapers, email and maps, and could eventually be rolled up to fit inside a tubular container. The second is to develop a 'video-photograph' - a paper-thing robust flexible display that will enable users to view full-colour video as well as still images.

 

Both will be pixel-based active-matrix displays with a backplane incorporating thin film transistors. The bendable e-paper display will initially be based on electrophoretic materials laminated onto plastic substrates incorporating organic TFTs, while the video-photograph will be based on organic LED materials deposited on metal or plastic foils, driven using inorganic TFTs.

 

Participants believe that the most significant of the project's several work packages will involve basic research into the materials and processes needed for fabricating organic and inorganic TFTs and complete displays. Other elements will look at the mechanical properties and reliability of devices and displays and improvements to the hermeticity and process compatibility of plastic and metal foil substrates, stable and accurate patterning of flexible substrates using ink-jet printing and photolithography; test methodologies, benchmarking and market/application studies.