Tag Archives: flexible electronics

LOPEC 2016 Review

April 18, 2016, by Jennifer Colegrove Ph.D.

LOPEC 2016 (Large area organic printed electronic conference) was hosted by oe-a (organic electronic association) on April 5-7, 2016, at Munich, Germany.

There were over 140 exhibitors at this event, which is the record high according the organizer. There were also business conference, technical presentations and posters.

On behalf of Touch Display Research, I gave an invited presentation about printed display and touch panel market on April 5th.

Figure: Dr. Colegrove gave presentation at LOPEC 2016

Jenny 2016 LOPEC speak

Photo credit: Dr. Maksimenko at Elantas

I have been attending the LOPEC exhibition and conference for over 3 years, and my company had an exhibition booth at this conference this year. This is a very good event focusing on flexible and printed displays, sensors, photovoltaic, equipment and market trends. I’m always glad to network with old industry friends and meet new friends at this event.

More review of LOPEC 2016 will be found in the Touch and Emerging Display monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Plastic Logic and Novaled OTFT backplane AMOLED

February 10, 2014

I just came back from the 2014 FLEX conference and the SID LA Symposium. There are many highlights in these 2 conferences. One of the exciting news is about the Organic TFT (OTFT) backplane AMOLED.

On Feb 6th, 2014, Plastic Logic’s director of research and partnerships, Mr. Mike Banach gave a presentation titled “A New Frontier for Flexible Displays”. At the same day, both Plastic Logic and Novaled announced their partnership and their demo of OTFT backplane AMOLED.

Their demo is a monochrome flexible AMOLED, targeting for wearable applications. Plastic Logic’s CEO, Indro Mukerjee, said, “2014 will be the year that wearable technology starts to go mainstream.”

Touch Display Research analyst agrees with that. Touch Display Research forecasts 30 million units flexible and curved displays will be shipped for smart watch application by 2023. Overall flexible and curved display market will reach $27 Billion by 2023.

Figure: Flexible and curved displays for smart watch application forecast to 2023

flexible curved smart watch

Source: Touch Display Research. “Flexible and Curved Display and Lighting Technologies and Market Forecast” report. September, 2013.

It is said Merck’s organic semiconductor material was used in the OTFT prototype.

As we covered in our “Flexible and Curved Display and Lighting Technologies and Market Forecast” report, Sony has demonstrated OTFT backplane AMOLED before.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Possibilities for Samsung’s Curved-Display Technology

September 27, 2013

This week Samsung’s head of mobile business marketing, Mr. Lee, announced they are planning to launch a mobile phone with a curved display in October, but gave no specifics on the display. Touch Display Research believes that three types of display are suitable for flexible/curved display on mobile phones: curved AMOLED, curved LCD, and curved electrophoretic active matrix.

Figure. Flexible and Curved Display Suitable for Mobile Phone Main Display

Curved display for mobile phone

Source: Touch Display Research, Flexible and curved display technologies and market forecast, September, 2013

Samsung has registered the trade mark “YOUM” for its flexible AMOLED. Rumors floated around before the release of the Galaxy Note III that it would be the first device with a flexible AMOLED, but that didn’t happen. Samsung also demonstrated a flexible LCD several years ago.

Touch Display Research believes the eco-system for flexible and curved displays is maturing. We forecast that the flexible and curved display market will reach $27 Billion by 2023, which is about 16% market share of the global display revenue in 2023. More analysis of curved display and curved touch panel can be found in our newly published Flexible and Curved Display Technologies and Market Forecast 2013 report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Plastic Logic Shows Flexible Displays, Video, and Watch

plasticlogic01

February 9, 2013

At FlexTech’s 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics conference, Plastic Logic demonstrated several flexible electrophoretic display products, including a flexible active matrix display for watches. Here are two video clips I produced about Plastic Logic demos. The first features Daniel Baum, Application Engineer at Plastic Logic, who introduced to me the large-sized flexible products and a 12 fps animated video. The second is Rachel Lichten, Head of Marketing Communications at Plastic Logic who introduces the flexible display watch.

Video: Plastic Logic large displays at 2013 FlexTech Conference. Produced by Jennifer Colegrove.

Video: Plastic Logic flexible display watch at 2013 FlexTech Conference. Produced by Jennifer Colegrove

What’s the comparison between flexible display watches on the market or coming in the future? What’s Plastic Logic’s manufacturing status? What’s the flexible active matrix display roadmap till 2014? Detailed analysis can be found in the Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, February 2013 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Plastic Logic: www.plasticlogic.com

Flexible LED Lighting at 2013 FlexTech

Screen Shot 2013-02-05 at 3.12.08 PMFebruary 5, 2013

At FlexTech’s 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics conference, Nth Degree Technology demonstrated several types of printed LED lighting. Here is a video I took with their creative director, Andrew Dennis.

Source: Jennifer Colegrove

The flexible blue LED lighting is built on a plastic substrate, then a phosphor layer is added on top of the blue LED lighting to achieve a white light.

What kind of application will this flexible LED lighting be used for? When will this lighting be in the market? What’s the comparison of printed LED lighting vs. OLED lighting vs. EL lighting? A detailed analysis will be in the upcoming issue of Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, February 2013.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Flexible LED Lighting at the 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics Conference

Jan 30th, 2013

Today is the second day of FlexTech’s 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics Conference. It’s very popular with about five hundred attendees and sixty exhibition booths (flexconference.org).

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At Nth Degree Technology’s booth they demonstrated several types of printed LED lighting. One is a transparent blue LED light, two are flexible white LEDs (see image below), another is used as a signage.

jan30_2013

Source: Nth Degree Technology, photo by Jennifer Colegrove

The construction process for the printed LED lighting:

  1. First, tiny blue LEDs were built using traditional wafer fabrication technologies.
  2. Then the tiny LEDs were mixed into a special ink.
  3. The ink was applied using a high-speed printing method onto conductive substrates (plastic or glass).
  4. If there is a need to change colors,  a phosphor layer is added on top of the blue LED lighting.

What kind of application will this flexible LED lighting be used for? What is the time-frame for this this lighting to come to market?  What’s the comparison of printed LED lighting vs. OLED lighting vs. EL lighting? A detailed analysis will be in the upcoming Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, Feb 2013 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team