In layman’s terms, the innovation arrives thanks to a liquid semiconducting layer that potentially bends and flexes more reliably than the “vacuum thermal evaporation” technique employed by Samsung.

In the researchers’ case, the liquid, officially known as ethylhexyl carbazole (EHCz), will constantly deliver a fresh supply of semiconductors to the emitting layer. To you and me that means better, more flexible screens that might not degrade as quickly as once thought, if and when they arrive in the (near?) future. Just don’t try and drink one. [PhysOrg via OLED Info - Thanks, Ron]

The chip (see it in action here), of unspecified capacity, actually uses transparencies like your grampa used to use with his overhead projectors. This clear plastic is flexible, unlike silicon chips. We’ve been seeing flexible components lately, most notably displays, but memory is tiny and has to be inside the gadget anyway. I’ve been thinking for at least a minute and a half and I can’t figure out a circumstance in which flexible memory would be preferable, besides maybe a gadget that isn’t so much folded as rolled like a poster. So give me a hand: What’s the point of all this? [Wired]d

It’s simpler than the crazy ion blaster technique Samsung used to produce their flexible OLED display, adapting the “traditional” process of manufacturing OLED displays (UDC uses vacuum thermal evaporation) in a more “benign” way so that it can be implemented directly on a soft piece of plastic, hence the potential for mass production. Essentially, the plastic substrate is glued to a piece of glass while they process it, and then it’s carefully peeled off. What you end up with is an OLED implemented directly on plastic.

That said, while FDC believes “most of the key manufacturing roadblocks have been addressed and it’s time to start thinking seriously about commercial production,” commercial gadgets with flexible OLED displays are still a few years away. And we’re talking like 4-6 inches, not even 8-10 for a bendy tablet thing. On the upside, they think they can get the price premiums down to “no more than 10 percent” above existing display prices within the first 5 years of commercial production. We’ll see.

FDC and Universal Display Corporation Make Breakthrough in Flexible Display Manufacturing Process; Advance Flexible OLEDs Closer to Mass Market

TEMPE, Ariz. – June 1, 2009 – The Flexible Display Centre (FDC) at Arizona State University and Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ: PANL), today introduced the first a-Si:H active matrix flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display to be manufactured directly on DuPont Teijin’s polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate. Implementing Universal Display Corporation’s phosphorescent organic light-emitting diode (PHOLED) technology and materials and the FDC’s proprietary bond-debond manufacturing technology, the 4.1-inch monochrome quarter video graphics array (QVGA) display represents a significant milestone towards achieving a manufacturable solution for flexible OLEDs.

Flexible OLEDs are designed to target a number of military and commercial applications that require more rugged displays. With Universal Display’s PHOLED technology and materials, the new display achieves the same brightness as traditional displays with extremely low power consumption. Additional advantages of the technology include lower operating temperature due to less heat being generated, easier to drive, longer battery life, and more stable transistors.

“Being a founding member of the Flexible Display Centre, Universal Display is pleased to see the significant progress enabled by our cooperation,” said Mike Hack, Vice President of Strategic Product Development at Universal Display. “Together, the FDC and Universal Display have demonstrated technology paths which will accelerate the introduction of exciting new flexible OLED displays on plastic substrates.”

“This development of flexible AMOLED technology gives the industry a solid starting point towards manufacturing, mass production and commercialization of flexible OLEDs,” said Shawn O’Rourke, director of engineering for the FDC. “The fact that we have achieved a functional flexible OLED manufactured directly on plastic using the Center’s manufacturing process represents a significant achievement, and continued developments over the next few years will lead to full colour, full motion video flexible displays.”

The flexible backplane display was manufactured at the Flexible Display Centre utilizing a 180°C thin film transistor process. The FDC’s facility implements traditional flat panel and semiconductor tools and processes to achieve flexible displays, enabled by its proprietary bond-debond technology to secure the plastic substrate to a rigid carrier during manufacture.

The integration of Universal Display’s PHOLED frontplane delivers a key enabling technology for the flexible OLED. The PHOLED materials allow the OLED to convert up to 100 percent of the electrical energy into light, as opposed to traditional fluorescent OLEDs which convert only 25 percent, providing up to four times more energy efficiency. Universal Display integrated the FDC backplane designed for its PHOLED frontplane to produce the display.
The FDC and Universal Display will present a paper discussing the active matrix flexible OLED on Friday June 5th in session 65.4 at SID 2009. Additionally, the FDC will demonstrate this device and other flexible display technologies in booth # 523 at the show. Universal Display, located at booth #676 at the show, and DuPont Teijin are members of the Flexible Display Center.

About the Flexible Display Centre at Arizona State University
The FDC is a government – industry – academia partnership that’s advancing full-colour flexible display technology and fostering development of a manufacturing ecosystem to support the rapidly growing market for flexible electronic displays. FDC partners include many of the world’s leading providers of advanced display technology, materials and process equipment. The FDC is unique among the U.S. Army’s University centres, having been formed through a 10-year cooperative agreement with Arizona State University in 2004. This adaptable agreement has enabled the FDC to create and implement a proven collaborative partnership model with over 20 engaged industry members, and to successfully deploy world class wafer-scale R&D and GEN-II display-scale pilot production lines for rapid flexible display technology development and manufacturing supply chain commercialization. More information on the Flexible Display Centre can be found at www.flexdisplay.asu.edu.

About Universal Display Corporation

Universal Display Corporation is a world leader in developing and commercializing innovative OLED technologies and materials for use in flat panel displays, solid-state lighting products, electronic communications and other opto-electronic devices. Universal Display is working with a network of world-class organizations, including Princeton University, the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan, and PPG Industries, Inc. Universal Display has also established numerous commercial relationships with companies such as Chi Mei EL Corporation, DuPont Displays, Inc., Konica Minolta Technology Centre, Inc., LG Display Co., Ltd., Samsung SMD Co., Ltd., Seiko Epson Corporation, Sony Corporation, Tohoku Pioneer Corporation and Toyota Industries Corporation. Universal Display currently owns or has exclusive, co-exclusive or sole licence rights with respect to more than 940 issued and pending patents worldwide.

Instead of using solid glass for the touchscreen, the device incorporates special material from DuPont Tijin Films in order for the paper-thin display to bend or roll up without damaging the gadget. The device also uses technology from E-ink Corp, allowing users to write, store and erase their own content on the displays; eventually, they will also be available in full colour. Although it sounds pretty cool, don’t get your hopes up: The Flexible Display Centre estimates that this flexible touchscreen display won’t be available for another 18 months. [EETimes via Electronista]

As you can see, the 4-inch screen looks a bit too unwieldy for practical use in the field, but the UDC believes that this technology will find a home with our military forces some time in the not to distant future (and in our mobile phones and other devices beyond that). In the meantime, they plan to bring a working model to CES, so at least a few lucky attendees will get a taste of our OLED future. [OLED Display]

Samsung couldn’t accomplish this with a normal glass substrate for obvious reasons, so they pioneered a new “sputtering” technique to coat the panel with a flexible membrane. Here’s how it goes: a block of the coating material is blasted with an ion gun, causing it to eject bits of itself into an thermodynamically unbalanced cloud of atoms, which then cling to and form a film on anything else in the vacuum chamber — namely, this floppety panel.

This looks like it is just a one-off, unpriced expo unit, but at least we know it’s possible. This tech come interesting close in capability to Samsung’s other recently demonstrated ultra-thin colour display, so we might have the beginning of an confusing display tech overlap. Cool, Samsung. Please sort that out, and wake me up when my shirt is a TV. [TechOn via OLED Display]

Details such as resolution and actual power consumption are thin, but the Telegraph is reporting that power draw is “extremely low” and that the viewing angle is nearly infinite. Sony had help from scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany to develop the screen, which should give you an indication of what goes into a flexible OLED of this size. Pretty amazing stuff. [AVING, Telegraph]

Professor Vertegaal forsees drink cans with RSS feeds or movie trailers, and touch-sensitive computers that change shape when you need them for different purposes. It’s a combination of three-dimensional multi-touch, flexible display technology and smart materials like e-ink. Vertegaal even compares our use of current “flat” computer technology to life in the novel Flatland, and argues that the future is going to be about 3D computing and displays.

To this end, his Human Media Laboratory at Queens University is working on projects and prototypes of these things for real. There’s a Coke can with RSS feed; a completely foldable paper computer, which lets you navigate an ebook much more “naturally” by turning the pages; and a workbench that simulates a display on any object, using front-projection for now, but with the aim of having stand-alone devices when the technology catches up.

This last sort of multi-shaped, smart material computer “would be a final frontier in the design of computer interfaces that turn the natural world into software, and software into the natural world” he says, in an upcoming publication in the Communications of Association of Computing Machinery. And yes, it all seems very neat, but do we really want animated movie clips on our morning box of Cheerios? What do you think, guys? [Physorg via ]