Paul Alan McConnelee

Transparent hybrid inorganic/organic barrier coatings for plastic organic light-emitting diode substrates

We have developed a coating technology to reduce the moisture permeation rate through a polycarbonate plastic film substrate to below 1×10−5g∕m2∕day using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Unlike other ultrahigh barrier (UHB) coatings comprised of inorganic and organic multilayers, our UHB coating comprises a graded single hybrid layer of inorganic and organic materials. Hardness and modulus of the inorganic and the organic materials are tailored such that they are similar to those of typical glass-like materials and thermoplastics, respectively. In this barrier structure, the composition is periodically modulated between the inorganic and the organic materials, but instead of having distinctive interfaces between two materials, there are “transitional” zones where the coating composition changes continuously from one material to another. Our UHB coating also has superior visible light transmittance and color neutrality suitable for the use of display and lighting device substrates.

Ultrahigh barrier coating deposition on polycarbonate substrates

The use of polycarbonate film substrates enables fabrication of applications, such as flexible display devices, lighting devices, and other flexible electro-optical devices, using low cost, roll-to-roll fabrication technologies. One of the limitations of bare polycarbonate material in these applications is that oxygen and moisture rapidly diffuse through the material and subsequently degrade the electro-optical devices. This article summarizes recent results obtained at GE Global Research to solve the oxygen and moisture diffusion issue. It will be shown that through the application of thin, dense, plasma-based inorganic coatings one can significantly reduce the oxygen and moisture permeation rate through polycarbonate films. However, as a result of defects that are commonly present in these inorganic coatings there is a limit to the performance of such barrier coatings. To further improve the barrier performance, advanced barrier coatings comprising both inorganic and organic materials have been developed. Both modeling and experimental results will be presented that explain why these hybrid material barrier coatings are capable of reaching ultrahigh barrier performance.

A Transparent, High Barrier, and High Heat Substrate for Organic Electronics

The use of plastic film substrates for organic electronic devices promises to enable new applications, such as flexible displays and conformal lighting, and a new low-cost paradigm through high-volume roll-to-roll fabrication. Unfortunately, presently available substrates cannot yet deliver this promise because of the challenge in achieving the required combination of optical transparency, impermeability to water and oxygen, mechanical flexibility, high-temperature capability, and chemical resistance. Here, we describe the development and performance of a plastic substrate comprising a high heat polycarbonate film combined with a unique transparent coating package that is aimed at meeting this challenge.

Component embedding platform for thin profile SiP, POP and fan-out WLP

While component embedding technologies have reached maturity and are used for high volume manufacturing, the industry is looking for new ways to exploit the possibilities it enables. Growing interest in embedding is introducing new challenges, requiring further innovation and pushing development of solutions that offer cost efficient and robust manufacturing processes for novel product designs. High quality and high yield production processes are essential for all embedding technologies, but it is equally important to have a flexible supply solution, which lowers the barrier for adoption and enables short cycle time from early product concept to prototyping and manufacturing. The Power Overlay (POL) technology has been developed to improve product performance and miniaturization using a direct microvia and polyimide (PI) based interconnection technology. The POL is a platform of packaging technology solutions for wide application area. Different POL adaptations and target applications will be briefly reviewed in this paper. A new Ultra-Thin WLPOL process has been developed and will be presented in the paper. The technology feasibility for sub 200μm fan-out WLP package has been demonstrated using 6×6mm, 90×9mm, 10×10mm, and 12×12mm package configurations.