At CES we reported on seeing the new tablet from Hearst Publishing spin-off, Skiff, a 10-inch EBR that uses LGs flexible e-paper display (TFT on metal foil). Now LGD is showing off the goods in its newest flex display with a whopping 19-inch flexible display on metal foil. How big is 19-inch you may ask? Open a Time Magazine (or other standard format publication) and hold it vertical from the top-that’s 19-inches with front cover and back cover, open and exposed. And even more impressive, the new LG display flexes-perhaps not quite as much as the flimsy Time (about 50 pages this week), but there is little rigidity in this "now you’re talking e-paper display." Still no word on color, but the size and 0.3mm thickness means things are getting very exciting.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

The company is confident that its new flexible technology will be a hit with OEMs and will open up the new e-paper market, calling it, "…the next-generation display sector of e-paper," according to VP of LG Display Dr. In Jae Chung.

And this is no one-off prototype device. The company is planning the launch of a slightly downsized 11.5-inch (standard notebook paper size) flexible e-paper display production line, sometime before the end of June-2010.

Not many details were released on just how LGD got there, but the LG Display R&D Center described a "robust backplane process" in a paper co-authored by Chun, et al., and delivered at the last SID in May-09 by Chung’s colleague, Chang-Dong Kim. The invited paper is titled: Development of TFT Process and Circuit Integration on the Flexible Substrate to Enhance Flexibility of the Display. Here’s an excerpt:

"We have set up single STS plate process (short for stainless steel substrate) based on conventional a-Si backplane process and used a relatively thick STS (SUS430) materials instead of a thin sheet as a substrate to adopt simple processes without any carrier glasses and additional adhesive layer. …This process technology is very useful for adopting current equipments for mass production." The paper went on to say the a-Si TFTs are back channel etched.

Digitimes reported on another aspect of the new LG flex technology saying that, "…to help facilitate flexibility, LG uses a "gate in panel" (GIP for short) approach that integrates the gate driver IC onto the flexible substrate. To save space, this component is usually attached to the side of the more rigid glass substrate panels, but would prevent flexing if side mounted here.

Chung has worked in this field of LCD for almost 30 years and spent the last 20 at LGP (LG and Philips) and now LG Display. At an earlier presentation given on flexible displays Chung once said: "…It is expected that the remarkable development of the printing technologies and the organic electronics can realize the rollable, extremely low price, and even disposable displays." And while the industry is still working on a couple of those dreams (larger-sized disposable organics as in OLED), we do see the fruits of a lifetime of work in displays coming to light in the new LG Display 19-inch panel. We look forward to a variety of new larger EPH displays coming out this year, including flexible substrate mounted, like this new LG. - Steve Sechrist