Session 17: Substrates

Flexible Glass Applications & Process Scaling
Thursday, February 15, 2018
10:15 AM - 10:40 AM

Substrate choice is critical for overall flexible electronic device and process optimization. Flexible glass, ≤200mm thick, offers several advantages for web manufacturing of electronic devices. Compared to alternatives, glass substrates offer advantages of dimensional and thermal stability, hermeticity, transparency, and surface quality. Similar to other web materials, flexible glass is appropriately conveyed through fabrication equipment using roller systems. This paper discusses flexible glass properties that enable high-performance devices using roll-to-roll (R2R) processes. With a specific focus on mechanical reliability, use of glass web has been demonstrated in key R2R building block processes such as: vacuum deposition, lamination, laser patterning, printing, photolithography, and solution coating. A disruptive ecosystem for flexible glass manufacturing is emerging with new equipment sets being specifically optimized for glass R2R processing. This paper provides specific examples of scaled-up glass web processing at manufacturing widths, lengths, and conveyance speeds for glass web. New demonstrations of flexible glass R2R microreplication, flexographic printing, and high temperature vacuum deposition are discussed. These processes go beyond the previous lab scale activities and highlight glass web R2R processing at 1m-width, 100m-length, and 30m/min conveyance speed. These capabilities are directly applicable to manufacturing of flexible glass smart surfaces, OLED lighting, photovoltaics, and transparent antennas.