The display industry is currently the home of some of the most intriguing technical innovations. New opportunities, from flexible screens and OLEDs to LEDs and quantum dots, are drawing attention at exhibitions globally.

The annual Society for Information Display (SID) Display Week trade show is always a highlight for the industry, and Display Week 2015 was no exception.  Held in San Jose, CA from May 31-June 5, Display Week 2015 offered a wide range of talks, including wearables, curved and high-resolution displays, as well as 70 technical sessions with approximately 400 presentations.

Many companies in the printed electronics space were on hand to show their latest developments. Here are a few of the highlights from the show.

Quantum Dots
Quantum dots are one of the most promising display technologies, and materials manufacturers are coming up with new developments for the field. Quantum Materials, which is working on inkjetting its materials, launched its QDX class of cadmium-free quantum dots at Display Week 2015.

QDX quantum dots are already under trials at potential customers, and offer excellent resistance to heat (up to 150°C for four hours), oxidation and moisture, according to the company. Quantum Materials CEO Stephen Squires spoke of QDX’s stability under high heat.

“Our QDX Quantum Dots represent a game-changing development in advancing next generation display and lighting applications,” said Squires. “Their stability under high heat allows for more effective high temperature dispersion onto LCD display thin-film.”

QD Vision and Hisense, China’s largest manufacturer of TVs, introduced K7100, a 55-inch curved quantum dot TV that will be available at retailers in China this month. K7100 is the first curved television to utilize QD Vision’s Color IQ optics.
 
“Its application of quantum dot technology and perfect curved screen has allowed users to be immersed in a cinematically phenomenal audio-visual experience,” said Jianwei Cao, vice GM, Hisense Electric Company Ltd. “Moreover, this product also has an economic benefit for customers.”

3M was active throughout Display Week 2015, showing solutions for automotive displays among others. In the area of quantum dots, 3M’s collaboration with Nanosys on high color gamut performance for Rec 2020 standard in UHD TV and monitor solutions using 3M Quantum Dot Enhancement Film was among the highlights.

New Materials
Material manufacturers were active at SID Display Week 2015. SmartKem Ltd., which manufacturers tru-FLEX flexible semiconductor platform for high performance ultra-flexible thin film transistors, was a sponsor of the show. FlexEnable showed its breakthrough for manufacturing full color, glass-free flexible organic liquid crystal displays (OLCD).

Merck received the 2015 SID Display Component of the Year Award in Gold for UB-FFS (Ultra-Brightness Fringe Field Switching) liquid crystal technology. UB-FFS is utilized for  energy-efficient liquid crystal touchscreens for smartphones and tablet PCs.

Full-color OLEDs were the subject of a collaborative effort by Fujifilm and imec, who showed their photoresist technology for organic semiconductors. This will allow submicron patterning, cost-competitive manufacturing and producing high-resolution and large organic electroluminescent (EL) displays for TVs, smartphones and wearables.

Canatu, which makes transparent conductive films and touch sensors, showed its CNB Flex Film, which can be used to make a complete One-Plastic-Solution (OPS), including the thin, flexible display window, touch sensor and decoration for wearables.

Universal Display highlighted prototypes using its OLED UniversalPHOLED materials.
 
“It is an exciting time for the OLED market as leading smartphone, tablet, wearable and television makers introduce new OLED displays into the marketplace,” said Steven Abramson, president and CEO of Universal Display. “We are also seeing new form factors, driven by OLED innovation, such as transparent, flexible and plastic-based products, usher further opportunities in the OLED display and lighting industries.”