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Flexible OLED displays made with the EPLaR process

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 Flexible OLED Displays Made with the EPLaR Process
C. Prat5 , E.I. Haskal 1, I. D. French 2, H. Lifka1, R. Sanders3, P. Bouten1, T. Kretz4, E. Chuiton4, G. Gomez4, F. Mazel4,
F. Templier5, M.D. Campo6, F. Stahr 7, J. Bühler8, S. Weitbruch8
1
Philips Research, High Tech Campus 34 (MS31), 5656AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands, +31-40-2747888, eliav.haskal@philips.com
2
Philips Research Laboratories, Cross Oak Lane, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 5HA, United Kingdom
3
Philips Applied Technologies, High Tech Campus 7, 5656AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands
4
Thales Avionics LCD, Z.I. Centr'Alp, 38430 Moirans, France
5
CEA-LETI-MINATEC, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble, France
6
Applied Materials, Siemensstr. 100, 63755 Alzenau, Germany
7
FAP GmbH Dresden, Gostritzerstr. 61-63, 01217 Dresden, Germany
8
Deutsche Thomson OHG, Hermann-Schwer-Str. 3, 78048 Villingen, Germany

Abstract: Flexible displays offer significant advantages due to their light weight, thin form factor, robustness and conformal shape.
OLED (“organic light-emitting device”) displays can be especially attractive when made flexible, as the single-substrate, emissive
display effect has a wide viewing-angle and good video reproduction. In previous work, the EPLaR (“Electronics on Plastic by
Laser Release”) process for making flexible displays in standard amorphous Si-TFT based active-matrix display factories was
described for electrophoretic displays. This paper reports on recent results on the world’s-first, flexible active-matrix OLED on
plastic made with the EPLaR process.

Key Words: Flexible display, OLED, organic light-emitting device, active matrix.

1 Introduction 2 Flexible Flat Panel Displays

There is a great deal of interest in flexible displays as the next
trend for flat panel display (FPD) applications. This trend is
motivated by the fact that flexible FPDs should have
significant advantages vs. existing glass-based FPDs in
ruggedness, form factor (reduced thickness), enhanced design
opportunities for conformal, bendable and rollable applications,
light weight, and potentially lower cost with the envisioned
shift to roll-to-roll manufacturing. The technological
development of flexible FPDs has therefore sped up
dramatically in the last few years, with many demonstrators
being presented [1-3].
Since the flexible FPD is a combination of a flexible (a)
substrate, (b) backplane (passive or active matrix) and (c)
display effect, there have been multiple combinations to
demonstrate novel technological solutions. However, for
flexible FPDs to appear in the market, a fabrication method
which can run in actual production facilities needed to be
developed. This paper will therefore discuss and compare the
different substrates, backplanes and display effects for flexible
FPDs, and ultimately present a flexible active-matrix (a-Si
TFT based) OLED display on plastic fabricated in standard
production facilities.
2.1 Substrates and EPLaR
Flexible substrates that have been used for FPDs can be
divided into three groups: Plastic, metal and ultrathin glass.
Each of these substrates has certain advantages and
disadvantages for flexible displays. For example, glass is a
transparent, high-temperature-stable material which is an
excellent water barrier. However, the handling and cutting of
expensive ultrathin glass in production facilities is complex,
while its low fracture strain, sensitivity to defects, and high
bending radius to fracture limits its use in many applications.
Some of the relevant characteristics are shown in Table I for
the main substrate materials used to date, with glass transition
temperature (Tg), coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), and
water vapor transmission rate (WVTR).
The minimum bending radius shown in the table has been
taken from several literature sources: For the plastic materials,
this value is related to the adhesion and/or integrity of
inorganic films deposited on the foils (typically ITO, SiOx and
SiNx) [4]. For the 150µm metal (SS304) foils, the minimum
radius of 63mm is determined by the yielding of the metal foil,
and not of the layers atop it [5].

Table I: Properties of flexible substrate materials

Property PET PEN PI Metal Glass

Thickness (µm) 125 125 100 150 50
Tg (ºC) 78 120 ~350 >900 >900
CTE (ppm/ºC) 15 13 ~50 15-20 3.2
Transmission (%) 91 87 ~30 0 92
Min. bend radius (mm) ~5 ~5 ~5 63 [5] 35 [6]
WVTR (g/m²-day at RT) 3.9-17 7.3 0.4-21 ~0 (eff.) ~0 (eff.)
Cost (relative)* Very low Low Medium High High

1

However, only thin metal foil can be used in a straightforward
fashion in production, due to its stiffness and similarity to glass
vis-à-vis processing temperatures and robotic substrate
handling. Furthermore, the need to chemically-mechanically
polish the metal foil and insulate it with a dielectric coating [7]
adds enormous cost, while the yielding of the metal at ~63 mm
radius implies a significant limitation in the application choice.
Plastic foils, on the other hand, would seem amenable for use
in a wide variety of applications, but have high CTE and
WVTR, and only certain high-cost polymers such as
polynorbornene (PNB), polyarylate (PAR) and polyimide (PI)
can withstand the high temperatures of Si-based thin-film
transistor (TFT) production. In addition, handling of thin,
flexible plastic foils in a factory is still an unsolved issue,
although certain groups are making significant progress [8].
Our substrate solution for balancing (a) the ease of handling of
metal foils, (b) the high-temperature processing of glass, metal,
and certain plastics,, and (c) the flexibility in applications, is
based on a technology called EPLaR (Electronics on Plastic by
Laser Release), developed for manufacturing flexible displays
and electronics in existing Active Matrix (AM) LCD factories.
In previous publications, we described the EPLaR process and
gave initial display results for electrophoretic displays [9].
For the EPLaR process, a polyimide layer is spin-coated onto
the glass substrate before (TFT) array fabrication. This
polyimide will ultimately become the plastic substrate of the
EPLaR display. We typically use a polyimide layer that is
approximately 10 μm thick. As long as the correct substrate
pre-treatments are used, in conjunction with the correct
polyimide type and post-spinning treatments, then the
polyimide will be well-attached to the glass. The polyimide
can then withstand process temperatures in excess of what is
required for standard TFT fabrication. Finally, the polyimide is
highly resistant to most chemicals used in TFT fabrication, and
is further protected by a SiNx passivation layer.
For the display demonstrators discussed here, standard factory
robotics and handling equipment were used for the backplane
fabrication. With these tools, flexible TFT arrays were
successfully made without any need to modify the standard
process for making a-Si TFT arrays on glass substrates.
Finally, for the laser release process a laser beam incident
through the back of the glass was used to decouple the
polyimide layer from the glass substrate.
2.2 Active-Matrix Backplane
The switching of individual pixels of flexible FPDs can be
done with either direct driving, passive-matrix or active-matrix
addressing. Direct-drive (or segment displays) is limited to
simple low-resolution because of the complexity and cost of
individual wiring. Similarly, passive-matrix addressing can be
used for graphics displays but is limited in the number of rows
by (a) the persistence of the pixel’s display effect and (b) the
overall cost of interconnecting all of the lines with drivers.
The active-matrix (AM) is a pixellated matrix of TFTs at every
pixel location suitable for superior-quality graphics and high-
resolution image display. The TFT is used to hold the
electrical charge needed to drive the pixel for the entire frame.
Over 95% of all graphics displays are active-matrix.
2
For the AM array, flexible TFTs fabricated from a-Si
[1,3,9,10] low-temperature poly-Si (LTPS)[1,11] and organic
TFTs (OTFTs) [2,13] have been demonstrated. All of these
have been used for flexible FPD demonstrators to drive a
manifold of display effects. As was discussed in the previous
section, each of the fabrication recipes places a limitation on
the substrate choice; e.g., a typical processing temperature for
gate nitride deposition for a-Si TFTs is 280ºC. For example,
organic TFTs do not require the high-temperature stability of
PI as is used in EPLaR, and can therefore compete in
technology development with low-cost substrates such as PET
and PEN. However, the poor stability, relatively small
knowledge base, and absence of production-ready equipment
for specialized processing steps for OTFTs is a hindrance to
production which will take some time to overcome. In the
meantime, we expect that the production-ready EPLaR method
will open up new application markets for flexible FPDs.
2.3 Organic LED Display Effect
An optimal display effect for a flexible FPD should have an
excellent viewing angle, a simple fabrication methodology
(such as layer coating) and some degree of robustness to
bending. While LCDs make up the bulk of the FPD market,
the need for multiple (thick) compensation films for
improvement of the inherently poor viewing angle and double-
substrate solution do not make an optimal choice for flexible
displays. Hence, electrophoretic displays with (reflective)
monochrome will appear on the market first [10]. However,
the slow refresh rate and monochromaticity limit the
applications to e-book, smart-card and signage types of
applications.
OLEDs have been discussed generally for more than ten years
as the next generation of high-quality video displays. Based
on emissive light generation from organic materials, with a
nearly-Lambertian viewing angle and high pixel switching
speed coupled with high electricity-to-light conversion
efficacy, OLEDs have been touted as the main challenger to
LCDs. Of course, OLED’s replacement of LCDs in its main
markets has proven to be quite challenging, although its
situation seems to be improving. The development of flexible
OLEDs offers a disruptive advantage; flexible LCDs are
difficult to manufacture, and the need for multiple thick
compensation films for improving the inherently small viewing
angle limits either the overall viewability or the flexibility of a
curved LCD display. OLEDs, on the other hand, can be made
flexible in standard production facilities using the EPLaR
process described here and provide an excellent image. To
show that OLEDs are compatible with the EPLaR process, we
have recently demonstrated an OLED “single-pixel” described
in [13]. This is shown in Figure 1.
The key issue in fabricating flexible OLEDs is how to protect
them from moisture and oxygen [14]. Permeation barriers are
required because OLEDs fail in the presence of these gases
through degradation of the typically reactive low work
function metal cathode (such as Ba, Ca, ...) and also that
certain organic materials form quenching sites upon exposure
to water. The “rule of thumb” for the maximum water vapor
transmission rate (WVTR) for an OLED lifetime of 10000 hrs
is 10-6 g/m²/day [14]. Plastic substrates which can meet this
requirement do not exist, and therefore inorganic barrier layers
on the plastic substrate are required. This reveals a
fundamental advantage of using glass or metal substrates for
OLED flexible displays; since glass and metal are
impermeable to water (see Table I), a top thin film
encapsulation barrier is required, while for plastic substrates,
both a barrier layer on the substrate AND a top thin film
encapsulation are required.
Figure 1: 18-μm thick, 6-cm×8-cm OLED fabricated using
the EPLaR process. From [13].
Thin film encapsulation consists of either a (high-quality)
inorganic layer or inorganic/organic multi-layer stack. The
requirements for top thin film encapsulation of the OLEDs are
low water and oxygen permeability, low deposition
temperature since OLEDs cannot withstand high processing
temperatures, and a low encapsulation film stress or the thin
film encapsulation. At high (compressive) film stresses the
applied film might release from the substrate (buckling).
3 Flexible Active-Matrix OLED
The combination of (a) flexible active-matrix a-Si TFT
backplanes in a standard display production facility with
EPLaR at Thales Avionics LCD [3], and (b) flexible single
pixel OLED devices with EPLaR fabricated at Philips
Research [13], (c) high-performance, long-lifetime OLED
devices using non-inverted structures at Thomson Research /
CEA-LETI [15,16], and (d) a high-quality thin film OLED
encapsulation at Applied Materials, was the motivation for this
work.
The process flow of the fabrication of the flexible active-
matrix OLED (or FLAMOLED) is shown in Table II.
In step 2, the PI layer is cured at temperatures over 350°C; i.e.,
at temperatures significantly higher than conventional BCE a-
Si:H TFT process temperatures. This limits the chemical
contamination coming from eventual exodiffusion of the PI
layer during the TFT process.
Figure 2 shows a schematic cross-section of the Thales
Avionics LCD TFTs on polyimide for EPLaR. The
passivation layer shown is a set of SiNx/SiOx layers. These
high-temperature-deposited layers form the bottom-side OLED
encapsulation after laser release.
3
Table II: Process sequence for making flexible
FLAMOLED displays using EPLaR.
1 Clean the glass substrate.
2 Spin-coat a 10-µm thick polyimide layer on the glass
substrate. Fully cure it and passivate with a set of thin
layers of SiNx and SiOx (for passivation and barrier).
3 Make a set of TFT arrays on the large glass substrate.
4 Cut the large glass substrate to individual displays.
5 Deposit non-inverted OLED and cathode.
6 Deposit a top thin film encapsulation layer on the
OLED, and an organic protection layer.
7 Laminate plastic foils onto the display edges to increase
the display rigidity after laser release.
8 Attach driver electronics to the glass substrate.
9 Test the fully working display.
10 Laser release the polyimide from the glass substrate.
11 Package the display in a display module.
n+ SiN
a-Si passivation ITO
Gate metal a-Si SD
pixel
metal
SiN gate
Polyimide film (10µm) Passivation
Glass 1.1mm
Glass (1.1mm)
Figure 2: Cross-section of an a-Si TFT array on
polyimide/glass.
For the FLAMOLED device, standard Thales Avionics LCD a-
Si TFT structures and processing conditions were used in Step
3; including a maximum process temperature of 280ºC. The
backplane has been made on a plastic coated glass substrate,
according to the EPLaR process, using an a-Si:H TFT BCE
process with 7 masks steps. The additional step compared to a
conventional 6 mask steps process, concerns the patterning of
the light blocking layer (LBL). This layer is a polyimide
material with a black dye. It is displayed on the top of the
active matrix and is used to avoid photoconductivity problems
on the a-Si:H TFT exposed to the OLED emission. The figures
3 and 4 show views of the pixel respectively before and after
the LBL protection. According to the top emission
configuration chosen for the display, the pixel electrodes are
reflective and made with the source and drain molybdenum
metal layer. The ITO metal layer was used only in the
periphery of the display in the flex bonding areas.
 Figure 3: View of the pixel before LBL deposition
Figure 4: View of the pixel after LBL patterning
A basic AMOLED pixel design with 2 TFT and 1 capacitance
has been adopted for this display without compensation circuit
to avoid the threshold voltage drift of the a-Si:H TFT and the
OLED differential drift, because the goal of this work was not
to demonstrate life time on a-Si:H TFT AMOLED displays but
moreover a flexible AMOLED display with a good uniformity
thanks to the amorphous silicon material and using the EPLaR
process.
The sub pixel pitch is 360µm by 120µm. It has an open
aperture ratio (emission area) of closely 55%, a drive TFT of
260µm/3µm and a switch TFT of 20µm/4µm.
The average transfer characteristics measured on test
transistors (100 TFTs W=28µm / L = 4µm in parallel) on
polyimide coated glass or directly on glass are presented on the
figure 5.
4
Figure 5: Mean Id=f(Vg) TFT characteristics of test TFTs (100
TFTs 28µm/4µm in parallel) measured on substrate with and
without PI
To simplify the OLED patterning, a monochrome red OLED
structure was deposited. The structures is of non-inverted type
top emitting and comprise five organic layers: a p-type-doped
hole transport layer next to the anode, a first interlayer, the
emitting layer, a second interlayer, and a n-doped electron
transport layer next to the cathode [17] . The operation voltage
of such as structure if of 2.4 V and its efficiency is of 17.4
Cd/A (25 Lm/W @400cd/m²).
For Step 6, a top-side thin film encapsulation (TFE) was
applied, consisting of a layer stack of three alternating 50 nm
thick SiNx and ~25 µm UV-cured lacquer layers, starting with
a SiNx layer . The polymer was applied in liquid form under
inert atmosphere. The deposition of these layers was
performed in a standard parallel plate PE CVD system (figure
6). Special care was taken to keep the substrate temperature
below 70°C. The performance of the barrier stack was tested
with Calcium films. After ~400 h storage in a climate chamber
with 90% relative humidity@60 °C no degradation of the Ca
layers has been observed
In Step 7, several pieces of polyimide foil were laminated to
the display before interconnect bonding to form a frame
around the OLED display to increase its mechanical rigidity.
The overall thickness of the FLAMOLED is mainly
determined by the polyimide substrate (10 µm) and the
inorganic/organic multilayer top thin film encapsulation (~75
µm), for an overall thickness of slightly more than 85 µm in
the display region. Since the thin film encapsulation was not
deposited on the display edges, these regions are <15 µm thick,
and curl easily. To ensure that the display did not curl into the
display region after release or damage the interconnects, the
laminated foils were applied. Further optimisation will be done
to balance the minimum number of process steps with the
desired flexibility and ruggedness.

Row driver
for line
selection
Figure 6: Cross-section of the TFE layer stack: A thin silicon
nitride layer, embedded between two polymer layers.
4 Display Results and Laser Release
The AMOLED display with full video was tested while still on
glass, as listed in Step 9, and then the full display on plastic
was removed from the glass substrate using the Philips laser
release process. It resulted in the world’s first flexible active-
matrix OLED (FLAMOLED) display fabricated in standard
production facilities (Figure 7). The original glass substrate
was kept under the plastic display demonstrator in order to
show the quality of the laser release. The display worked well
after laser release, as shown in Figure 8. One can see the
polyimide curling up from corners of the glass substrate where
no polyimide support foils were laminated.
Figure 7: Flexible AMOLED after laser release using the
EPLaR process.
4 Electronics and Signal Processing
Generally speaking, the electronic structure of AMOLED
displays is made of following components:
- The active matrix itself that contains, for each cell, an
association of several TFTs with a capacitor and connected
to the OLED material.
- Row (gate) driver that selects line by line the cells of the
screen in order to refresh their content.
5
- Column (source) driver that delivers the value (content) to
be stored in each cell of the current selected line.
- Signal Processing Unit (SPU) applying required video and
signal-processing (e.g. image improvement) and that
delivers the required signals to the row and column drivers.
The following figure illustrates this concept:
Signal processing and driving IC for display
controlling and performances optimization
Column driver for data driving
Vertical electrodes
Pixel value
storage Vdd
TFT C D
Horizontal electrodes G
T2 (n-channel)
T1
+ S
Display electrodes
-
OLED stack
Transparent counter electrode
Encapsulation cover
Figure 8: Classical AMOLED electronic chain
For the prototyping, THOMSON has decided to build the SPU
out of FPGAs, which are programmable digital hardware
showing advantages in terms of processing speed compared to
processor and enabling integration of all functions like micro-
controller, image improvement in a single low cost device.
The component used by THOMSON for the current
demonstrators is a Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA, which are,
compared to the capabilities, cheap and powerful. They can be
in-system programmed and therefore always be adapted to the
evolution of the display without any time consuming
modification of the hardware. Displays are usually connected
on at least two sides [18] as illustrated on the figure 8, thus
avoiding a real bending of the system. Therefore, the design of
the active matrix was adapted as illustrated on the figure
below:
Figure 9: Display layout for enhanced bending radius
For the first prototyping, the non availability of specific
AMOLED drivers required the use and adaptation by
THOMSON of classical LCD drivers both for row and column
parts. In the second generation, the external row-driver will be
exchanged by integrated row drivers, thus enabling a gain in
terms of form-factor and flexibility. In this case, the line
selection will be done by transistors integrated in the display
itself whereas the pixel value is still controlled externally
 through column drivers, connected directly to the heart of the
THOMSON electronic: the Signal-Processing Unit (SPU). The
selected column drivers suitable for this application were using
miniLVDS interfacing thus requiring specific driving interface
implemented via the SPU.
THOMSON electronic chain is based on one hardware
platform that is delocalised and connected to the flexible
display through a full-flexible connector (FFC) to ensure
proper bending and insertion of the display as illustrated on the
figure below:
SPU Boards
FFC cables
Connectors
of the most promising candidates for flexible, high-quality
video, flat panel displays (FPDs). The fabrication of a flexible
active-matrix OLED in standard a-Si TFT production facilities
using the EPLaR laser release process is then demonstrated.
6 Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of C. Tanase, D.
McCulloch, P. van de Weijer from Philips Research. This
work is supported by the European Commission under contract
OLED number IST2-2004-004354 (FlexiDis).
display

Hardware Full flexible chain

Figure 10: Thomson electronic chain
Each display technology, even new one, has its strength and
weaknesses. The target of THOMSON, which has a long
experience in picture improvement, was to develop concepts
and solutions for reducing the technology related artefacts.
The following list will give a non-exhaustive overview of such
weaknesses that have been investigated:
- In opposite to LCD, AMOLED brightness is produced on
the a-Si matrix, introducing ageing issues for the driving
pixel transistor: brightness decreases with lifetime.
- The ageing and brightness gain of the three OLED colour
materials (Red, Green and Blue) are different thus
introducing strong colour changes among display lifecycle.
- Whereas CRT provides sharp moving images, new
technologies like LCD or AMOLED (a kind of perfect Figure 12: Flexible monochrome AMOLED after laser
LCD with instant reaction time) are “sample and hold” release, shown in operation. Note the curling of the substrate
driven systems. The fact that the image content is kept edges.
constant during the whole frame duration are introducing
motion blur. This is mainly due to the fact that the
temporal lighting is not reflecting logical motion as
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Figure 11: Sample & Hold motion rendition
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5 Conclusions
Flexible displays are one of the most attractive trends in flat
panel display technology. Active-matrix OLEDs are also one
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