John F. L. Schmidt

Active matrix OLED using 150ºC a-Si TFT backplane built on flexible plastic substrate

Flexible displays fabricated using plastic substrates have a potential for being very thin, light weight, highly rugged with greatly minimized propensity for breakage, roll-to-roll manufacturing and lower cost. The emerging OLED display media offers the advantage of being a solid state and rugged structure for flexible displays in addition to the many potential advantages of an AM OLED over the currently dominant AM LCD. The current high level of interest in flexible displays is facilitating the development of the required enabling technologies which include development of plastic substrates, low temperature active matrix device and backplane fabrication, and display packaging. In the following we will first discuss our development efforts in the PEN based plastic substrates, active matrix backplane technology, low temperature (150°C) a-Si TFT devices and an AM OLED test chip used for evaluating various candidate designs. We will then describe the design, fabrication and successful evaluation and demonstration of a 64x64 pixel AM OLED test display using a-Si TFT backplane fabricated at 150°C on the flexible plastic substrate.

AM OLED using a-Si TFT backplane on flexible plastic substrate

Amorphous silicon TFT technology continues to show promise for fabricating large area high resolution flexible AM OLED displays. This paper describes the recent progress in the flexible AM OLED development efforts at Honeywell since our publication in this conferences proceedings in 2003, describing the feasibility of fabricating a 64x64 pixel AM OLED on a flexible plastic substrate. In this paper we describe the design, and fabrication of a 160x160(x3) pixel AM OLED on a flexible plastic substrate with an equivalent 80cgpi resolution. Flexibility characteristics of the fabricated displays are discussed. Further advances and improvements required for extending the size and resolution of flexible AM OLED displays are discussed.

Current assessment of AM OLED technology for avionics applications

AM OLED continues to show promise for being the next generation display technology capable of replacing AM LCD in several of its present applications, including displays for aerospace applications. Commercial products such as DSCs (digital still cameras) and PDAs (personal digital assistants) using AM OLED displays have already been introduced. Technology demonstrators as large as 40-in diagonal AM OLED displays have been shown. We evaluated the performance of present COTS AM OLEDs with respect to avionics display requirements. In this paper we will review the current status of AM OLED technology by considering the performance capabilities of COTS and technology demonstration displays, and recent OLED device research results and make an assessment of AM OLED technology towards meeting the performance requirements of avionics displays. The technology gaps for achieving the desired performance for avionics display applications are identified.

On-demand stereoscopic 3D displays for avionic and military applications

High speed AM LCD flat panels are evaluated for use in Field Sequential Stereoscopic (FSS) 3D displays for military and avionic applications. A 120 Hz AM LCD is used in field-sequential mode for constructing eyewear-based as well as autostereoscopic 3D display demonstrators for test and evaluation. The COTS eyewear-based system uses shutter glasses to control left-eye/right-eye images. The autostereoscopic system uses a custom backlight to generate illuminating pupils for left and right eyes. It is driven in synchronization with the images on the LCD. Both displays provide 3D effect in full-color and full-resolution in the AM LCD flat panel. We have realized luminance greater than 200 fL in 3D mode with the autostereoscopic system for sunlight readability. The characterization results and performance attributes of both systems are described.

FSC LCD technology for military and avionics applications

Field sequential color (FSC) liquid crystal displays (LCD) using a high speed LCD mode and an R, G, B LED backlight, offers a significant potential for lower power consumption, higher resolution, higher brightness and lower cost compared to the conventional R, G, B color filter based LCD, and thus is of interest to various military and avionic display applications. While the DLP projection TVs, and Camcorder LCD view finder type displays using the FSC technology have been introduced in the consumer market, large area direct view LCD displays based on the FSC technology have not reached the commercial market yet. Further, large area FSC LCDs can present unique operational issues in avionic and military environments particularly for operation in a broad temperature range and with respect to its susceptibility for the color breakup image artifact. In this paper we will review the current status of the FSC LCD technology and then discuss the results of our efforts on the FSC LCD technology evaluation for the avionic applications.