New PVD and PECVD MO depositing equipments for display panel production

Applied Materials has announced the availability of its vapour deposition equipments AKT-PiVot 55K DT PVD (physical vapour deposition), Applied AKT-PiVot 25K DT PVD and Applied AKT 55KS PECVD (plasma etched chemical vapour deposition systems) for manufacturing of large size and ultra-high definition (UHD) LCD and OLED display panels based on Metal Oxide (MO) base Thin-Film Transistors(TFT).

MO-based TFT based display panels are used in high-resolution smart phones and tablets as well as some OLED TV technologies. Future 4K TVs are also expected to adopt MO TFTs. Applied's PVD and CVD systems are designed to support high yield in mass production.

"Our new PVD and PECVD systems will accelerate display industry roadmaps by enabling customers to transition to MO materials using proven technologies," said Ali Salehpour, senior vice president and general manager, Applied Global Services and Growth Markets. "We worked closely with customers to develop these solutions to address their critical uniformity, particle control and stability challenges, clearing major implementation hurdles, especially with regard to OLED. We can support the various product strategies of our customers by expanding these solutions to different substrate sizes, allowing for multiple technology paths for manufacturing large-area TVs or energy-efficient screens for mobile devices."

Applied says its AKT-PiVot DT PVD systems (55K for 2200mm x 2500mm and 25K for 1500mm x 1850mm substrates) extend the company's proprietary rotary cathode array technology to deliver proven highly uniform, homogeneous and low-defect, active-layer deposition for MO (e.g. IGZO), as well as interconnect metals and pixel electrodes. Applied explains enabling high TFT stability with uniform PiVot-deposited IGZO films is critical for display quality, and is key to realizing MO backplanes for small- and large-area OLEDs. Applied equipments feature self-cleaning rotary targets with directional plasma control to achieve uniformity compared to conventional planar targets. They have independent dual processing tracks on a single platform to provide high production capacity in a small footprint. These equipments can deposit mura-free IGZO films, , low defect metals, pixel electrodes and new integrated passivation layers (AlOx).

Applied's new AKT 55KS PECVD system supports 2200mm x 2500mm size substrates and then deposit dielectric-layer interface for MO transistors with a new advanced-quality silicon oxide (SiO2) process that minimizes hydrogen impurities to improve long-term transistor stability and optimize screen performance.