Plastic Logic developing cheap printable backplane for displaysHarry YeatesCambridge organic electronics company Plastic Logic, which is developing techniques to deposit polymeric materials with sub-micron resolution to enable printable, flexible circuits, is focusing on providing a low-cost printable backplane for flat-panel displays.
"The exciting things about the displays market is that it grew by 30 per cent
last year, even in downturn," said Cranch Lamble, Plastic Logic's marketing executive. The company, which now employs 45 people on the Cambridge Science Park, is also developing printable logic devices for smart packaging and RFID systems.
The firm is working with Xerox spin out Gyricon, which has a monochrome electronic paper technology, to provide it with a flexible active matrix backplane.
"In the short term we'll very much focus on low-complexity
applications," said Lamble. "It's hard to imagine us producing plastic Pentiums. I think what's holding back electronic paper is the availability of a low-cost, high performance active matrix backplane."
Plastic Logic's process rests on a direct-write laser technique for improving the accuracy with which patterns can be laid down from standard inkjet printing machines.
An inkjet droplet is around 25µm across, but using its standard process the company can achieve a 5µm gate length, from which it produces 60x80 pixel displays with a resolution of 50 dots per inch.