Plastic Logic, the OTFT backplane developer and EPD producer has split into two companies. Plastic Logic will remain as an EPD developer and producer (based in Dresden, Germany) while FlexEnable (based in Cambridge, UK) will handle the OTFT backplane development and offer technology licenses to display makers.

In 2014 Plastic Logic (in collaboration with Novaled) demonstrated a monochrome 4" 360x128 (95 PPI) flexible AMOLED prototype. This fully-organic AMOLED panel uses Plastic Logic's flexible OTFT backplane and the whole panel can be bent and rolled and still show the image.

UK's SmartKem, a developer of high-performance organic backplanes for flexible displays, opened a new OTFT fabrication facility in Manchester. The company expands to support "significant customer product development agreements". SmartKem will also increase the size of its team by 30%.

SmartKem's new facility will enable its partners to co-develop flexible TDT-based products - in the display and sensor industries. The centre offers complete turn-key support for SmartKem's tru-FLEXTM technology platform, in addition to device modelling, device stack design and a complete TFT fabrication suite.

In June 2013, Cambridge University and Plastic Logic announced a research collaboration that aimed to develop transparent graphene-based backplanes for flexible displays. Now, following this collaboration, Plastic Logic demonstrated the world's first flexible display that uses a graphene backplane.

The first prototype is a 150 PPI active-matrix E Ink display, in which the electrodes were made from solution-processed graphene (patterned after deposition) in a low-temperature (less than 100 degrees Celsius) process. The UK Technology Strategy Board recently gave a grant towards this research, with an aim to develop full-color OLED displays within the next 12 months.

UK's SmartKem, a developer of high-performance organic backplanes for flexible displays, announced that they completed a 3 Euro million series A funding round from BASF Venture Capital, Octopus Investments, Entrepreneurs Fund and Finance Wales.

SmartKem plans to use those funds to further develop their organic material range and accelerate their technology towards commercialization.

A couple of months ago, Plastic Logic showed a monochrome (256 gray levels) 4" 360x128 (95 PPI) flexible AMOLED prototype. This is a fully-organic AMOLED panel that uses Plastic Logic's flexible OTFT backplane.

Now the company published the somewhat annoying video you see above that details the company's OLED efforts and business development goals. During the video they also show the flexible AMOLED in action.

Back in February, Plastic Logic and Novaled (owned by Samsung) announced that throughout 2014 they will demonstrate truly flexible, plastic, full-organic AMOLED displays. The first demo in February was of a monochrome (red) display - and actually it was only shown on a presentation slide. But Plastic Logic promised us that they will show better prototypes as the year progresses.

True to their word, last week, at the Printed Electronics Europe event, plastic logic showed a monochrome 4" 360x128 (95 PPI) flexible AMOLED prototype. This time it was a real demo, as you can see from the photo above. This full-organic AMOLED panel uses Plastic Logic's flexible OTFT backplane and the whole panel can be bent and rolled and still show the image.

A few weeks ago I posted about Plastic Logic's OTFT-based AMOLED demonstration. While the company's current demo is a simple display (monochrome white), it seems that Plastic Logic believes that OTFT technology is now reaching a performance level for adoption in AMOLED displays.

I discussed this with Mike Banach, Plastic Logic's Research Director. Mike (and the rest of the team at PL too, of course) says that organic semiconducting materials have reached a "tipping point" in electrical performance that makes them viable to drive flexible OLED displays. Couple this with the industrial and flexibility benefits of using solution-based organic materials makes it a compelling technology option for display makers looking to establish a position in the flexible display market.

Update: It turns out that Plastic Logic didn't actually demonstrate the flexible OLED prototype. They did show a presentation, in which they revealed that the current first-gen prototype is monochrome (red) and quite simple. They do intend to keep producing new demonstrators throughout 2014.

Novaled (owned by Samsung) and Plastic Logic announced that during 2014 they will demonstrate truly flexible, plastic, full-organic AMOLED displays. The first-gen display was demonstrated at the FlexTech conference in Phoenix last week. Plastic Logic hopes that the technology will be ready for adoption by display makers towards the end of 2014.

The two companies say that this is the first time an all-plastic AMOLED produced in a low-temperature manufacturing process is demonstrated. The display uses Novaled's PIN OLED materials and Plastic Logic's OTFT backplane. The display also used organic materials from Merck (probably the emitters).

The UK's' Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) developed new backplane fabrication processes to allow the bending of Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFT) arrays to small radii (1 mm) without a significant reduction in device performance. In the video below you can see a bending test of the OTFT array produced on a 50-micron thick PEN film. Those arrays can be bent up to 10,000 times.

The CPI hopes that these new processes will eventually lead to the adoption of such organic backplanes in OLED displays, and they say that the OTFTs feature a charge mobility that is "suitable" for OLED driving (although it was only 2 cm2/Vs. They have since upgraded it to 4 cm2/Vs) and they managed to fabricate display pixel-sized OTFTs.

UK's SmartKem announced that they signed a joint-development agreement with a major Asian display OEM. Under the agreement, SmartKem and the display maker will customize Smartkem's p-FLEX organic semiconductor inks for solution-based flexible TFT backplane technology.

SmartKem will formulate, transfer and supply p-FLEX materials to the display maker which will enable production of high-performance TFTs onto plastic substrates through low-temperature processing.