Posts

FlexiGO, developed the durability test equipment capable of accurate evaluation for foldable materials

/0 Comments/in /by

With the recent announcement that Samsung Electronics and Huawei are aiming to launch smart phones with foldable OLED, folder-type smartphones are drawing attention.

 Display companies are converting glass materials used in the existing substrates and cover windows into plastic materials. Consequently, the durability of plastic materials is becoming an important issue.

There are various types of durability tests, but the most typical durability inspection is the folding test. The folding test is an experiment that repeatedly bends and unfolds the foldable materials including plastic. Typically, a mechanical device is used for pivoting the rotating plate after fixing some part of the foldable material to the fixed plate and fixing the other remaining part to the rotating plate. However, in the conventional devices, the axis of foldable material is different with that of the rotating plate, the foldable material moves along the rotation path of the rotating plate, not the original rotation path of the material. Thus, there is a possibility that a tensile force acts on the folder material. To solve this problem, FlexiGO recently developed Foldy series, new durability test equipment to test foldable materials.

<FlexiGO’s folding test equipment, Source: flexigo.co.kr>

In addition to the conventional fixed plate and rotating plate, the Foldy series adds a motion controller that supports the fixed plate to move forward and backward for the foldable to be moved only through the original rotation path, so that no other stress is applied to the material. As a sliding device is mounted on the motion controller, the fixed plate moves forward and backward, and the rotating plate performs a rotary motion so that the foldable material can slide on the rotating plate.

The Foldy series includes micro vision, surface profiling, and colorimeter. Foldy-10 and Foldy-100 products can be adopted for the durability test in different test environments. In addition, it is possible to mount an additional inspection system, so it is expected that the accurate durability test of various accurate foldable materials is to be possible.

AOI equipment market for OLED mobile devices is expected to reach US $ 23.3 billion by 2021

/in , /by

AOI equipment used for small and medium-sized OLED inspection is non-contact inspection equipment that analyzes the presence of defects by irradiating the product with light and measuring the difference in the amount of the reflected light. The AOI equipment detects not only pattern defects by recognizing the difference through comparison of repeated patterns but also foreign objects on mask and substrate before and after LLO process.

As a result, AOI equipment is used in almost all OLED processes such as TFT pattern inspection, mask particle inspection, OLED pixel inspection, encapsulation inspection, and pre-and after LLO substrate inspection.

HB Technology, DIT, and LG PRI are major AOI equipment manufacturers. HB Technology, DIT and LG PRI produce almost all AOI equipment used for OLED process, whereas HIMS mainly produces AOI for mask foreign object inspection.

According to the ‘2017 Inspection and Measuring Equipment Report for OLED Mobile Device’ recently published by UBi Research, the market for inspection and measuring equipment in the entire OLED equipment market is estimated to be US $ 6.63 billion (about KRW 7.3 trillion) from 2017 to 2021. Among them, AOI equipment market is expected to be US $ 2.33 billion.

When it comes to processes, the AOI equipment market for TFT process is expected to create the biggest market of US $ 1.36 billion, and the AOI market for OLED pixel process, encapsulation and cell process will be US $ 430 million, US $ 390 million and US $ 160 million, respectively.

UBi’s Researcher, Yoon Dae Jeong said, “We can discover the added value of AOI equipment in that AOI equipment can improve yield by detecting and repairing defects during the OLED process and reduce the quality cost by preventing the further process of defective products.“ “With the technological development of AOI equipment, panel manufacturers are also actively introducing AOI equipment, and the AOI market is expected to grow even larger, as the inspection items are increasingly being strengthened.”

<2017 ~ 2021 OLED Mobile AOI Equipment Market Forecast>