A 13.5‐in. Quad‐FHD flexible CAAC‐OS AMOLED display with long‐life OLED device structure

In this study, the device structure of a white tandem organic light‐emitting diode (OLED) was changed to control the emission area and thereby achieve less luminance decay. A long‐life 13.5‐inch 4 K flexible c‐axis‐aligned crystal oxide semiconductor (CAAC‐OS) active‐matrix OLED with less color shift and high resolution was fabricated using this long‐life white OLED, transfer technology, and a CAAC‐OS field‐effect transistor.     

Relationship between crystallinity and device characteristics of In‐Sn‐Zn oxide

We have reported that the transistors having the c‐axis‐aligned crystalline (CAAC) In‐Ga‐Zn oxide (IGZO) show good performance. Recently, In‐Sn‐Zn Oxide (ITZO) has attracted much attention because of its high electron mobility, as well as IGZO. However, it has been reported that ITZO field effect transistors (FET) tend to have positive Vth (normally‐on characteristics) and poor reliability compared with IGZO‐FETs. We have reported that high‐performance and high‐reliability OS‐FETs can be fabricated by using CAAC‐IGZO, which has high crystallinity and has no clear grain boundaries, as an active layer. Therefore, we have fabricated CAAC‐ITZO thin films to improve performance of ITZO‐FETs by using CAAC‐ITZO as an active layer. In addition, FETs employing CAAC‐ITZO have better characteristics and reliability than FETs using nano‐crystal ITZO. Furthermore, constant photocurrent method (CPM) measurement was carried out in order to estimate density of deep‐level defect states caused by oxygen vacancies in oxide semiconductors. The results show that CAAC‐ITZO has lower density of deep‐level defect states than nano‐crystal ITZO. We attribute the improvement in reliability of ITZO‐FETs to a decrease in deep‐level defect states of an ITZO active layer, as is the case with IGZO.     

Back‐channel‐etched thin‐film transistor using c‐axis‐aligned crystal In–Ga–Zn oxide

Our crystalline In–Ga–Zn oxide (IGZO) thin film has a c‐axis‐aligned crystal (CAAC) structure and maintains crystallinity even on an amorphous base layer. Although the crystal has c‐axis alignment, its a‐axis and b‐axis have random arrangement; moreover, a clear grain boundary is not observed. We fabricated a back‐channel‐etched thin‐film transistor (TFT) using the CAAC‐IGZO film. Using the CAAC‐IGZO film, more stable TFT characteristics, even with a short channel length, can be obtained, and the instability of the back channel, which is one of the biggest problems of IGZO TFTs, is solved. As a result, we improved the process of manufacturing back‐channel‐etched TFTs.     

The new route for realization of 1‐μm‐pixel‐pitch high‐resolution displays

A new pixel structure for the realization of a 1‐μm‐pixel‐pitch display was developed. This structure, named vertically stacked thin‐film transistor (VST), was based on the conventional back‐channel etched thin‐film transistor (TFT), but all the layers except the horizontal gate line were vertically stacked on the embedded data line, enabling the implementation of high‐resolution display panels. The VST device with a channel length of 1 μm showed a high field effect mobility of more than 50 cm²/Vs and low subthreshold slope of 78 mV per decade. It also shows a high uniform electrical characteristic over the entire 6‐in. wafer. The development of a new pixel architecture is expected to enable the implementation of 1‐μm‐pixel‐pitch high‐resolution displays such as spatial light modulators for digital holograms.     

Memory Effect Canceling and Novel Driving Scheme of Twisting‐ball Display via Space‐charge Polarization

In this paper, characteristics of memory effect cancelling method for twisting‐ball display utilizing space‐charge polarization were examined. Response speed of the display to voltage removal became slow with increasing resistance value of resistors connected in parallel to the display. Memory effect canceling was effective with the resistance value at least up to 1 GΩ. Polarization and depolarization of space‐charges in a twisting‐ball display were completed in 60 s at 50 V and space‐charge polarization was induced under 1 Hz. The strength of space‐charge polarization can be controlled by the extent of progress of polymerization of the silicone rubber sheet, which means unpolymerized silicone rubber molecules or cross‐linker molecules can be charge careers in the display. Also, we proposed and demonstrated a novel driving scheme for the twisting‐ball display utilizing space‐charge polarization, which achieved simple structure, fast response and low energy consumption.     

Multioutputs single‐stage gate driver on array with wide temperature operable thin‐film‐transistor liquid‐crystal display for high resolution application

A hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a‐Si:H) thin‐film transistor (TFT) gate driver with multioutputs (eight outputs per stage) for high reliability, 10.7‐inch automotive display has been proposed. The driver circuit is composed of one SR controller, eight driving TFTs (one stage to eight outputs) with bridging TFTs. The SR controller, which starts up the driving TFTs, could also prevent the noise of gate line for nonworking period. The bridging TFT, using width decreasing which connects between the SR controller and the driving TFT, could produce the floating state which is beneficial to couple the gate voltage, improves the driving ability of output, and reaches consistent rising time in high temperature and low temperature environment. Moreover, 8‐phase clocks with 75% overlapping and dual‐side driving scheme are also used in the circuit design to ensure enough charging time and reduce the loading of each gate line. According to lifetime test results, the proposed gate driver of 720 stages pass the extreme temperature range test (90°C and ?40°C) for simulation, and operates stably over 800 hours at 90°C for measurement. Besides, this design is successfully demonstrated in a 10.7‐inch full HD (1080 × RGB×1920) TFT‐liquid‐crystal display (LCD) panel.     

Motion‐blur‐free LCD for high‐resolution virtual reality displays

A new liquid crystal display device with fast response time, high transmittance, and low voltage for virtual reality is reported. When driven at 90 Hz with 17% duty ratio, the motion picture response time is 1.5 ms, which is comparable with cathode‐ray tube, leading to indistinguishable motion blur. Moreover, this device enables high‐resolution density because only one thin‐film transistor per pixel is needed and it has a built‐in storage capacitor.     

High‐quality direct‐view display combining multiple integral 3D images

This paper proposes a method for combining multiple integral three‐dimensional (3D) images using direct‐view displays to obtain high‐quality results. A multi‐image combining optical system (MICOS) is used to enlarge and combine multiple integral 3D images without gaps. An optical design with a simple lens configuration that does not require a diffuser plate prevents the deterioration in resolution resulting from lens arrangement errors and the diffuser plate. An experiment was performed to compare a previously developed method with the proposed method, and the latter showed a significant improvement in image quality. A method for expanding the effective viewing angle of the proposed optical design was also developed, and its effectiveness was confirmed experimentally. A prototype device of the proposed optical design was constructed using a high‐density organic light‐emitting diode (OLED) panel with 8K resolution and 1058 ppi pixel density to achieve 311 (H) × 175 (V) elemental images, a viewing angle of 20.6° in both the horizontal and vertical directions, and a display size of 9.1 in. In addition, the proposed optical design enabled making device considerably thinner, ie, with a thickness of only 47 mm.     

FFS‐mode OS‐LCD for reducing eye strain

In order to reduce eye strain, a driving method for reducing flickers of liquid crystal display (LCD) is devised. For this driving, an oxide semiconductor (OS) is used in a backplane, liquid crystal and alignment layer materials are optimized, and a fringe field switching (FFS) mode with a structurally formed storage capacitor is used. This work reveals that suitable usages of positive and negative liquid crystals differ from each other according to their characteristics. This work also describes an OS‐LCD with a touch sensor we fabricated for mobile devices, which proves the possibility of reducing‐eye‐strain technology (REST) with reduced flickers.     

Solution‐processed oxide semiconductors for low‐cost and high‐performance thin‐film transistors and fabrication of organic light‐emitting‐diode displays

Abstract— High‐performance solution‐processed oxide‐semiconductor (OS) thin‐film transistors (TFTs) and their application to a TFT backplane for active‐matrix organic light‐emitting‐diode (AMOLED) displays are reported. For this work, bottom‐gated TFTs having spin‐coated amorphous In‐Zn‐O (IZO) active layers formed at 450°C have been fabricated. A mobility (μ) as high as 5.0 cm²/V‐sec, ?0.5 V of threshold voltage (VT), 0.7 V/dec of subthreshold swing (SS), and 6.9 × 10⁸ of on‐off current ratio were obtained by using an etch‐stopper (ES) structure TFT. TFTs exhibited uniform characteristics within 150 × 150‐mm² substrates. Based on these results, a 2.2‐in. AMOLED display driven by spin‐coated IZO TFTs have also been fabricated. In order to investigate operation instability, a negative‐bias‐temperature‐stress (NBTS) test was carried out at 60°C in ambient air. The IZO‐TFT showed ?2.5 V of threshold‐voltage shift (ΔVT) after 10,800 sec of stress time, comparable with the level (ΔVT = ?1.96 V) of conventional vacuum‐deposited a‐Si TFTs. Also, other issues regarding solution‐processed OS technology, including the instability, lowering process temperature, and printable devices are discussed.     

Ultra‐high‐resolution 1058‐ppi OLED displays with 2.78‐in size using CAAC‐IGZO FETs with tandem OLED device and single OLED device

We fabricated new 2.78‐in 1058‐ppi organic light‐emitting diode (OLED) displays. The displays used OLED devices with a tandem structure and a single structure and a field effect transistor (FET) using c‐axis aligned crystalline In–Ga–Zn–O (CAAC‐IGZO) for an active layer and employing the 1.5‐µm rule over a glass substrate. Even in the displays with such high resolution exceeding 1000 ppi, crosstalk that was observed in the lower luminance region was suppressed. The displays achieved high color reproducibility and reduced viewing angle dependence.     

Influence of depth and 3D crosstalk on blur in multi‐view 3D displays

Current 3D crosstalk equation was defined from the characteristics of 3D display using glasses. This equation is not suitable for multi‐view 3D display with larger view number as it gives the inappropriately large value. In 3D display using eyeglass, double images occur at large depth. But, in multi‐view 3D display with larger view number, blur occurs to larger width for the larger depth. Hence, blur phenomenon of multi‐view 3D display was investigated to understand the unique characteristics of multi‐view 3D display. For this purpose, ray tracing S/W was used to simulate 3D display image seen at the designed viewing distance, to calculate the relative luminance distribution, and to quantify the relation between blur and depth. Calculated results showed that incomplete image separation caused the overlap of multiple view images and the blur. Blur edge width (BEW) was proportional to the horizontal disparity and related to the depth. BEWR = (BEW) / (binocular disparity) was newly defined, and its usefulness for 3D characterization was investigated. BEW and BEWR might be useful as new measuring items to characterize multi‐view 3D display regarding 3D crosstalk.     

Toward sub‐micron oxide thin‐film transistors for digital holography

High‐performance 2‐μm‐channel oxide thin‐film transistors (TFT) on glass substrate for a 7‐μm‐pixel‐pitch spatial light modulator panel for digital holography applications were fabricated using a two‐step source/drain etching process. It showed a μ_FE of 45.5 cm²/Vs, SS of 0.10 V/dec, and Von of near zero voltage. Furthermore, we succeeded in the demonstration of sub‐micron TFTs, which is an indispensable route to next‐generation spatial light modulation devices with near 1‐μm pixel pitch. The issue of short‐channel transistors for display applications is also introduced. Finally, the digital holographic demonstration results based on the fabricated backplane are presented.     

Large‐area spatial atomic layer deposition of amorphous oxide semiconductors at atmospheric pressure

Indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) is deposited using plasma‐enhanced spatial atomic layer deposition (sALD) on substrates as large as 32 × 35 cm². Excellent uniformity and thickness control leads to high‐performing and stable coplanar top‐gate self‐aligned (SA) thin‐film transistors (TFTs). The integration of a sALD‐deposited aluminum oxide buffer layer into the TFT stack further improves uniformity and stability. The results demonstrate the viability of atmospheric sALD as a novel deposition technique for the flat‐panel display industry.     

A 5.5‐inch full HD foldable AMOLED display based on neutral‐plane splitting concept

Splitting of the mechanical neutral plane is a promising concept for foldable displays because it reduces the folding stress in each layer of the display. We verified the splitting concept experimentally and revealed a linear relation between the relative position of the neutral plane and the logarithm of the adhesive's elastic modulus. As the modulus decreased, the position of the neutral plane approached that of perfect splitting. On the basis of the neutral‐plane splitting concept, we developed 5.5‐inch full high‐definition foldable active matrix organic light‐emitting diode (AMOLED) displays, which endured 150 k inward folding cycles and 150 k outward folding cycles with folding radii of 3 and 5 mm, respectively. This study is expected to improve the flexibility of designing foldable AMOLED displays, enabling better balance of the portability versus practicality trade‐off in mobile displays.     

4032 ppi High‐resolution OLED microdisplay

A 0.5‐inch Ultra Extended Graphics Array (UXGA) organic light‐emitting diodes microdisplay has been developed with 6.3 μm pixel pitch. Not only 4032 ppi high resolution but high frame rate, low power consumption, wide viewing angle, and high luminance have been achieved. This newly developed organic light‐emitting diodes microdisplay is suitable for Near‐to‐Eye display applications, especially electronic viewfinders.     

Full color quantum dot light‐emitting diodes patterned by photolithography technology

Quantum dot light‐emitting diodes are promising candidates for next generation displays. For display application, a pixel consists of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) side‐by‐side sub‐pixels, which thereby requires a high resolution patterning of the light‐emission layers. In this work, the quantum dot (QD) light‐emitting layers are fine patterned by using the photolithography and the lift‐off techniques. To facilitate the lift‐off process, reverse photoresist AZ5214E is used because of its special inverted trapezoidal structure after developing. To prevent the QDs being washed off during the lift‐off process, the ZnMgO layer is treated by the hydrophobic material hexamethyldisilazane. With hexamethyldisilazane treatment, the adhesion between the QDs and the ZnMgO is effectively improved. As a result, side‐by‐side R/G/B QD with pixel size of 30 μm × 120 μm is successfully achieved. After patterning, the R, G, and B‐quantum dot light‐emitting diodes exhibit a maximum current efficiency of 11.6 cd/A, 29.7 cd/A, and 1.5 cd/A, respectively. This work confirms the feasibility of patterning QDs by using the photolithography and the lift‐off techniques.     

Power saving through state retention in IGZO‐TFT AMOLED displays for wearable applications

We present a qHD (960 × 540 with three sub‐pixels) top‐emitting active‐matrix organic light‐emitting diode display with a 340‐ppi resolution using a self‐aligned IGZO thin‐film transistor backplane on polyimide foil with a humidity barrier. The back plane process flow is based on a seven‐layer photolithography process with a CD = 4 μm. We implement a 2T1C pixel engine and use a commercial source driver IC made for low‐temperature polycrystalline silicon. By using an IGZO thin‐film transistor and leveraging the extremely low off current, we can switch off the power to the source and gate driver while maintaining the image unchanged for several minutes. We demonstrate that, depending on the image content, low‐refresh operation yields reduction in power consumption of up to 50% compared with normal (continuous) operation. We show that with the further increase in resolution, the power saving through state retention will be even more significant.     

Bezel free design of organic light emitting diode display via a‐InGaZnO gate driver circuit integration within active array

In this article, we described an innovative design technology of active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display, to provide a bezel free design. We designed gate driver circuit of amorphous indium‐gallium‐zinc oxide thin‐film transistors (TFTs) not on the bezel area but within the active array. Although we applied challengeable design, no degradation of electrical/optical properties of panel was observed. Because we effectively prevented capacitive coupling and interference between the emission circuit and integrated gate driver circuit in active array, finally, we successfully demonstrated a bezel free designed AMOLED display of 18.3″ HD (1366 × 768) driven by a‐InGaZnO TFTs.     

High‐resolution and compact virtual mouse using lens arrays to capture finger images on light sensors

To realize a finger positioning device, as called “virtual mouse,” to replace a touchpad, touchscreen, or even real mouse, current positioning technologies cannot achieve a sufficient resolution, a compact volume, and a simple detection algorithm simultaneously. For this problem, using a light‐emitting diode source, two lens arrays, and two light sensors, we design and implement a virtual mouse prototype. The optical architecture is carefully determined for a compact volume, a sufficient resolution, and a high detection accuracy. Corresponding to a compact system volume of 3.1 mm (thickness) × 4.5 mm (length) × 2, a theoretical resolution higher than 25 pixels per inch (ppi) can be obtained over a working area of 10 cm × 10 cm. Experiments are also implemented, in which a mean detection error of 0.24 cm that corresponds to approximately two distinguishable points, and a minimal resolution of 26 ppi over the whole working area are verified. If the system thickness is relaxed to 25 mm, a resolution higher than 200 ppi can be achieved. The proposed virtual mouse, which is simple enough and potential to be extended for three‐dimensional position detection, can be integrated with a flat panel display to achieve a compact display application that can interact with users.