A close-knit relationship between wearable tech and plastic electronics

At the same time as models are strutting their stuff on the catwalk wearing skirts made of smartphones, LED hats and handbags at London Fashion Week, two companies have announced a partnership to develop and demonstrate the very latest technology in flexible plastic displays.

UK-based Plastic Logic, a company that specialises in the development and industrialisation of flexible organic electronics, has joined forces with Novaled, a leading company in organic electronic materials and technology for OLED applications, to create a flexible, plastic, fully organic AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display produced with an industrialised manufacturing process.

Whereas display technology is not new, already proven through the development and manufacture of plastic, bendable displays and sensors, the companies say their demonstrator product, unveiled earlier this month at the Flextech Conference in the US, is set to “transform and accelerate” the market for flexible and wearable displays.

The low temperature manufacturing process used is said to have a number of key industrial benefits, including superior uniformity, yield and, ultimately the companies say, a route to low cost solutions for volume manufacturing in a market segment forecast to be worth over $10 billion by 2020 (IHS 2013 report).

Indro Mukerjee, CEO said: “For the first time a fully organic, plastic, flexible AMOLED demonstration has been achieved with a real industrial fabrication process. This marks the start of a revolution in wearable products, the next frontier in consumer electronics - 2014 will be the year that wearable technology starts to go mainstream.”

The partnership will benefit from Novaled’s PINOLED technology, which enables the use of non-standard electrode materials needed for the flexible AMOLED development, as well as Plastic Logic’s plastic, flexible Organic Thin Film Transistor (OTFT) backplane.