TCZ, a joint venture of Cymer, Inc. and Carl Zeiss SMT AG, announced today that the company has received its first order from a large Korean display maker (LG-Display of Samsung?) for the TCZ-900A TCZ’s production tool for OLED and LCD fabrication. The TCZ-900A is designed to manufacture both advanced LCD and OLED displays.
TCZ, using Cymer’s industry-leading light source technology and the innovative optics expertise of Carl Zeiss SMT, has developed a patented laser crystallization technology which improves uniformity, while increasing throughput and reducing the cost of crystallization by up to 50 percent compared to current industry standards.
“With their dynamic colors and ultra thin-screens, OLED displays are forecasted to be the next big growth engine for the FPD industry,” said David Knowles, president and chief executive officer of TCZ. “Our first order, from a market leader in OLED manufacturing, validates the unique enabling technology of our product.”
TCZ’s unique ability to support many different display sizes while significantly increasing panel throughput was a driving factor in the Korean display maker’s selection of the new technology, which will enable the production of the industry’s most visually appealing and cost-effective displays in the years to come.
“With their dynamic colors and ultra thin-screens, OLED displays are forecasted to be the next big growth engine for the FPD industry,” said David Knowles, president and chief executive officer of TCZ. “Our first order, from a market leader in OLED manufacturing, validates the unique enabling technology of our product.”
Laser crystallization is a key step in the manufacturing process for many types of LCD and OLED displays. A glass plate, coated with a thin film of amorphous silicon, is exposed to a high-power laser that converts the silicon into a poly-crystalline form, which is then used to create the pixel control circuit. The TCZ Crystallization System uses a 600W laser, twice the power of current systems, to form a very narrow line focus that is 730 mm long, allowing a gen 4 size glass plate (730mm x 920mm) to be processed in a single pass. This approach produces very uniform crystalline silicon material across the entire glass plate, which is needed to support the high-performance OLED pixel circuits.
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