Electronics on Plastic by Laser Release (EPLaR) is a method for manufacturing flexible
electrophoretic displays using conventional
AM-LCD manufacturing equipment, avoiding the need to build new factories. The technology can also be used to manufacture flexible
OLED
An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic LED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light i ...
displays using standard OLED fabrication facilities.
The technology was developed by
Philips Research
The Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (English translation: ''Philips Physics Laboratory'') or NatLab was the Dutch section of the Philips research department, which did research for the product divisions of that company. Originally located in the ...
and uses standard display glass as used in
TFT-LCD
A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a variant of a liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in con ...
processing plants. It is coated with a layer of polyimide using a standard
spin-coating
Spin coating is a procedure used to deposit uniform thin films onto flat substrates. Usually a small amount of coating material is applied on the center of the substrate, which is either spinning at low speed or not spinning at all. The substrate ...
procedure used in the production of AM-LCD displays. This polyimide coating can now have a regular TFT matrix formed on top of it in a standard TFT processing plant to form the plastic display, which can then be removed using a laser to finish the display and the glass reused, thus lowering the total cost of manufacture.
The EPLaR process is licensed by Philips for use by Taiwan's Prime View International in its TFT manufacturing plants for manufacture of flexible plastic displays.
References
Display technology
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