New low cost high-resolution flat panel display technology. If it is priced right, this technology would be great for portable DVD players and digital TVs.........................
techweb.cmp.com
Posted: 3:00 p.m. EST, 2/25/98
Startup preps 'FED-like' integrated display technology
By David Lieberman
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Advanced Vision Technologies Inc., a
four-year-old startup, has emerged with a new display technology that it
claims will beat the competition in image quality while vastly simplifying
manufacturing.
Described by Scott Arrington, chief executive officer, as an "integrated
FED-like" technology, it can be constructed in relatively low-tech
semiconductor fabs and "eliminates the complex alignment, assembly and
sealing processes of competitive displays, making it inexpensive to
manufacture and easy to control product quality," he said. Manufacturing
cost, he said, "is anticipated to be significantly less than competitive
displays."
While conventional FEDs fashion their emitters on one substrate, their
phosphors on another and then assemble the two, the AVT display uses a
"monolithic" structure that forms all the components of the display as
sequential thin-film layers on a single substrate. What's more, each pixel is
individually encapsulated, even including its own gettering material.
"We lay down the phosphor, then the spacers, emitters and controls,"
Arrington explained, "and then we drill through-actually, trench out-holes
down to the phosphor to form the pixels." The pixels can be of any size, he
said, depending on the size of the "drill," and the displays are capable of
resolutions from 50 pixels/inch all the way up to 6,000 pixels/inch,
constructed at a semiconductor fab that's capable of handling a 1- to
2-micron feature size.
Once the display pixels are formed, each pixel is then "plugged, evacuated,
gettered and encapsulated," said Arrington, "sort of like a bubble pack.
Because each pixel is encapsulated, we don't need a separate assembly
process, alignment, sealing and all that. Because of the proximity of the
emitter to the phosphor, we may not even need a vacuum," he noted, "but
we haven't done enough testing to make sure."
The straightforward thin-film construction of the display results in a "very
simple and robust structure," Arrington said. It requires about one-quarter
as many layers as a DRAM, he explained, or "just a couple more layers
than just the TFT [thin-film transistor] of an [active-matrix] LCD." The
company, established by "old timers from the semiconductor industry," has
built displays on both glass and silicon substrates, but ceramic substrates
could also be used.
The resulting displays will be "thinner and brighter than traditional displays
on the market today," Arrington claimed, "with wider viewing angles,
insensitivity to temperature and decreased power consumption." But the
"most distinguishing characteristic" of the technology comes from its very
high-resolution capabilities, he said, yielding "the ability to create digital
images that appear lifelike."
AVT has 23 patents on its technology issued or applied for, many covering
its proprietary low-voltage, thin-film phosphor, which Arrington declined to
describe in much detail. "It's a new material we've discovered; there's been
nothing like this found before," he claimed, adding only that it does not
contain sulfur, has no light-trapping properties and has shown no aging
characteristics. The thin-film phosphors used in electroluminescent displays,
he said, are much more complex and require substantially more power.
Privately funded, the company has been using the fab at the
microelectronics center of the Rochester Institute of Technology for its
development work. With the basic development of its technology
completed, AVT is now looking for strategic partners to help
commercialize its displays. |
