As previously reported in Display Daily, one of the more interesting AMOLED-related developments seen at the SID show in June was the impressive evolution of Corning Incorporated’s silicon-on-glass (SiOG) technology for making glass coated with a film of single-crystal silicon. Such a product has the potential for making AMOLED displays with higher yield, greater uniformity, and integrated high-speed circuitry on the display glass. It also transfers value from the display-maker to the glass-supplier. According to Corning, this relieves the display maker of troublesome processes and improves quality at no increase in overall cost, which could be a win for the display makers as well as for Corning.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor

But Corning’s x-Si transfer process is painstaking, and is done from 300-mm silicon wafers. That means a Gen 2 substrate has its film applied in 4 sections, with alleys running between the sections.

Today, Corning and the Soitec Group (Bernin, France) announced an agreement to work together on the development of high-performance SiOG substrates for the mobile-display market. The two companies said they will focus their efforts on high-performance backplane substrate technology for OLED mobile displays.

Soitec’s Smart Cut technology transfers ultra-thin single-crystal layers of wafer substrate material onto another surface. This proven technique is used to fabricate more than 90 percent of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) production wafers in the semiconductor industry. The partners anticipate that Soitec’s expertise and industrial capabilities, along with its continuous product and process improvements, will accelerate the development of SiOG technology. Soitec currently has two high-volume production units in Bernin, France, and one in Singapore, as well as offices in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan.

Corning’s and Soitec’s co-development work will address key challenges to the broad commercialization of the high-quality, cost-effective displays promised by AMOLED technology, including electron mobility and uniformity, and lower total system cost. The outstanding electrical backplane performance promised by this work should enable display manufacturers to achieve complex circuit integration and simplified processing.

"This cooperative effort…is a natural extension of both companies’ core competencies," said Soitec president André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé. "Together we hope to create low-cost, high-performance substrates for the mobile flat-panel market. In addition to the focus on mobile-display substrates, the co-development work can explore alternative applications for engineered substrates using glass and semiconductor thin films, which could significantly enlarge our portfolio of applications."

As we learn more about the developing Corning/Soitec process, we will share our insights with you.