The International Workshop on Flexible & Printable Electronics (IWFPE) 2009 was held on November 18-19 at Muju Resort in North Jeolla Province, Korea. The event was hosted by the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy and attended by some 500 business leaders and industry figures.

 

In the keynote speech titled 'Printable Displays with Two faces,’ Jun-hyung Seok, managing director of Samsung Electronics, talked about the upsides and downsides of printable display, based on the experience Samsung accumulated for several years in its printing process application efforts.

 

The international workshop consisted of 63 invited talk sessions and 66 poster presentations encompassing areas of printable/flexible electronics, solar cell, organic TFT, e-paper, lighting, and thin film battery. Also, 10 companies, such as LG Display and Unijet, showcased e-paper, flexible AMOLED panels, and inkjet equipment at their exhibition booths.




[Scenes of keynote speech delivery (left) and exhibition booths (right) at IWFPE 2009]

In the area of OLED, professor Kim Jang-ju from Seoul National University and professor Park Jong-uk from Catholic University of Korea gave presentations on soluble materials for printing, and Frounhofer IPMS introduced roll-to-roll process and equipment. IAPP which is in cooperation with Novaled talked about improvement of white device efficiency, and Dr. Jeong-ik Lee from ETRI spoke about development of transparent white OLED devices.

 

Frounhofer IPMS announced a plan to set up roll-to-roll equipment for 30cm-wide metal foil substrate within the fourth quarter of this year. The equipment is top-down linear source (9ea organic, 2ea metal) and allows films to be formed continuously.  However, Frounhofer IPMS does not have encapsulation equipment yet, and thus, the substrates after the film formation process have to be transferred in inert atmosphere shuttle for encapsulation process. It is assumed that Frounhofer IPMS has not yet figured out what is the best encapsulation structure.

                        [Frounhofer IPMS’s roll-to-roll coater for metal strip]

ETRI talked about transparent white OLED device structure. It introduced the results of its research that achieved more than 20lm/W efficiency in the hybrid structure of fluorescent blue and phosphorescent green and red, by inserting an interlayer or optimizing device structure, such as electrode structure.