The CDT Technology Development Centre is well equipped with state-of-the-art equipment designed to provide a flexible PLED proving ground for CDT and its license partners. The equipment provides a realistic environment for simulation of high volume display manufacturing plants.

Facilities

600m2 clean room
350m2 test and assembly area
44 people - engineers and support staff

• Photolithography

Clean substrates & masks
Coat photoresist, bank cathode separator
Align & Expose to ± 3um
Pattern Develop
Etch MoCr, Al and ITO
Strip
Particle and defect mapping for sizes down to 1um
Pattern recognition software for patterning defect detection
Cassette to Cassette robotic handling of 356mm x 356mm (14”x14”) substrates 1.1mm, 0.7mm and 0.55mm thick

• Polymer deposition

Spin coating:
Thin layers from 400A to several um
Surface treatment system
Spin coating  <5% non-uniformity across plate
Layer thickness repeatability ± 5%
Enclosed hotplate – proximity or contact heating up to 200 ± 2degC
Laser ablation features down to 50um with alignment accuracy of <50um

Ink jet printing:
Polymer solution formulation
Surface treatment for ink containment
Printing with 5* Litrex 140P printers - drop placement accuracy <15um, drop volume down <10pl, drop deviation <10mrad
Film drying to give flatness of ±5%
Viscosity measurement to ~ 50,000 s-1 shear rate
Advancing / receding contact angle rig
Ardeje jetting characterisation rig
Zygo white light interferometer – 0.1nm vertical resolution

• Cathode Deposition and Encapsulation

Cluster 1 Cathode
E-beam and/or thermal evaporation
In situ film thickness measurement
Shadow mask alignment to < ±20 µm

Cluster 2 Encapsulation
Stainless steel lid or glass sheet
Robotic adhesive dispense
Lid-substrate alignment accuracy <±100µm
Dynamic pressure control during encapsulation
UV exposure system

• Assembly and test

Scribe and break: 14” plates, plates with metal cans or glass sheet
Device cleaning: Cleaning of scribed displays
Interconnection: Tab bonding, chamfering, pinning
Polariser lamination
Visual defect detection
Current, voltage Luminance measurements
Reverse leakage current measurements
Accelerated humidity operating and storage tests
Thermal shock testing
High / low temperature operating and storage tests
Lifetime testing DC and pulsed (>1000 channels) temperature and/or current acceleration
Failure analysis (optional pic - failure analysis)

Additional facilities

A sophisticated data collection system is employed as part of the manufacturing control software, which ensures full traceability and control of trials. As all reliability and product performance data is also gathered, it is possible to correlate large amounts of process data with display results, to find optimum process windows and ensure high yield and capable processes.