Luc Yao is from Merck and he talked about ‘Free form LCDs as strategic interface in cities’. He had three purposes in his talk to explain the role of Merck to identify opportunities for free form LCDs and to explain the technology.
Merck is in pharmaceuticals, life sciences and speciality chemicals. He focused on the chemicals, especially the liquid crystal mixtures, where the company has had more than 50% of the market for more than twenty years. He said that there are three levels of R&D. “Blue sky research looks five years out, while other development is defined as three to five years, while topics of less than three years are considere as “day to day business”. Yao explained the development of the LCD market, and said that Merck supplies a different LC formulation to each company in the industry. Good LC material reduces the manufacturing cost in a variety of ways – for example by improving transmission and reducing the requirement for backlighting. LCD chemistry is complex, so it’s tricky to do, but it also means that there are lots of areas to tune.
Looking at new topics, Merck tries to look at “What does the user want, is it feasible as technology, and is it viable from a business point of view”.
Merck expects non-rectangular, non-flat “Free Form” displays to be significant in the future and LCD can use plastic or glass as a substrate, but it depends on the use case.
Supporting technologies include the developments of the transistor substrates – there’s a lot of interest in low temperature silicon via Flexenable. Quantum Dots and Quantum Rods (which Yao identified as the “next generation” as they can be used to generate highly tuned polarised light) will be important. In flexible displays, Yoa said that cell gap stability can be a challenge. Yao explained the polymer wall supported display that Merck has previously talked about. This technique puts polymers between the two substrates of the LCD, in the LC mixture. The polymers are then cured to give strength. Yao said that it also increases the robustness of the panel which means less mura and problems. It can also reduce the amount of frame needed because the panel is so tightly sealed.
Merck Sees Transport as a key market for “Free Form LCDs”
Yao then talked about advantages of Flexenable’s low temperature transistor technology and showed a short video. He said that the generations are changing – millenials want different things to baby boomers. Merck doesn’t think there will be a big shift to AR. The firm is looking at wearables, transportation and digital signage as opportunities. In automotive – the display is often the only flat square surface so desingers are looking for more freedom in this area and Merck already has partners.
Aircraft companies are already looking planes that have electronic windows. Digital signage could be interesting and Merck is looking for partners to develop new use cases.
Analyst Comment
The comment about the polymer-embedded LC material and its effect on the robustness of the panel and reduced need for framing was interesting. It seems to me that the technology might, feasibly, enable almost completely bezel-less video wall LCDs. The panel itself would be held together by the polymer and the other layers, perhaps, by optical bonding? (BR)
