Dr. Oliver Haupt

The Future-Proof Laser Technology for GEN8 OLED IT Panel Manufacturing

Today, OLED displays are rarely seen in tablets, laptops, and monitors. A significant adoption of OLED displays is predicted in a relatively stable IT market. This was underlined by several announcements and first invests into new GEN8 fabs for OLED IT panels. For the transition from existing GEN6 to GEN8 manufacturing equipment needs to be ready and available right now.

For several reasons high-resolution state-of-the art mobile devices are based on Low Temperature Polysilicon (LTPS) and in combination with Oxide named LTPO. In fact, today all OLED IT panels are based on LTPS and there are good reasons for it like lower power consumption, smaller TFT´s, brightness, lifetime, and long-term stability if using a tandem OLED structure. The first layer of a complex OLED stack structure builds the foundation of the entire display and therefore is a critical layer that could already determine the later subsequent performance and yield of the entire display. The UV LineBeam systems are proven in mass production for decades and are the “process of record” in the display industry for high resolution OLED displays. Our UV LineBeam systems can already process up to a GEN8.7 OLED panel.

To provide a certain quality of the OLED display for IT panels we believe that Laser Annealing will be required. OLED TVs available today use Oxide backplanes, but Oxide mobility is still a challenge to reach the level of electron mobility and process stability in industrial mass production for smaller displays e.g. tablet size. We remain optimistic that the backplane technology itself and consequently our Laser annealing technology will be used in next GEN 8 fabs.

Director of strategic marketing for the Flat Panel Display (FPD) market at Coherent. Over 20 years experience in general laser applications. Worked as a product line manager for Coherent Excimer laser and FlexOLED LLO systems in Goettingen/Germany, since 2015 focused on laser based µLED applications.