tft lcd manufacturing process in stock

Actually, the monitors 20 year ago were CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) displays, which requires a large space to run the inner component. And now the screen here in your presence is the LCD(Liquid Crystal Display) screen.

As mentioned above, LCD is the abbreviation of Liquid Crystal Display. It’s a new display technology making use of the optical-electrical characteristic of liquid crystal.

STN LCD: STN is for Super-twisted Nematic. The liquid crystal in STN LCD rotate more angles than that in TN LCD, and have a different electrical feature, allowing STN LCD to display more information. There are many improved version of STN LCD like DSTN LCD (double layer) and CSTN LCD (color). This LCD is used in many early phones, computers and outdoor devices.

TFT LCD: TFT is for Thin Film Transistor. It’s the latest generation of LCD technology and has been applied in all the displaying scenario including electronic devices, motor cars, industrial machines, etc. When you see the word ‘transistor’, you may realize there’s integrated circuits in TFT LCD. That’s correct and the secret that TFT LCD has the advantage of high resolution and full color display.

In a simple way, we can divide TFT LCD into three parts, from bottom to top they are: light system, circuit system and light and color control system.In manufacturing process, we’ll start from inner light and color control system and then stretch out to whole module.

It’s accustomed to divide TFT LCD manufacturing process into three main part: array, cell and module. The former two steps are about the production of light and color control system, which contains TFT, CF (color filter) and LC (liquid crystal), named a cell. And the last step is the assembly of cell, circuit and light system.

Now let’s turn to the production of TFT and CF. Here is a common method called PR (photoresist) method. The whole process of PR method will be demonstrated in TFT production.

This marks the end of this post. If you find it useful or want to know more about TFT LCD, just leave your comment below or contact us. We’re hearing!

Important technical improvements of LCD, such as LED backlighting and wide viewing Angle, are directly related to LCD. And account for an LCD display 80% of the cost of the LCD panel, enough to show that the LCD panel is the core part of the entire display, the quality of the LCD panel, can be said to directly determine the quality of an LCD display.

The production of civil LCD displays is just an assembly process. The LCD panel, the main control circuit, shell, and other parts of the main assembly, basically will not have too complex technical problems.

Does this mean that LCDS are low-tech products? In fact, it is not. The production and manufacturing process of the LCD panels is very complicated, requiring at least 300 process processes. The whole process needs to be carried out in a dust-free environment and with precise technology.

The general structure of the LCD panel is not very complex, now the structure of the LCD panel is divided into two parts: the LCD panel and the backlight system.

Due to the LCD does not shine, so you need to use another light source to illuminate, the function of the backlight system is to this, but currently used CCFL lamp or LED backlight, don’t have the characteristics of the surface light source, so you need to guide plate, spreadsheet components, such as linear or point sources of light evenly across the surface, in order to make the entire LCD panel on the differences of luminous intensity is the same, but it is very difficult, to achieve the ideal state can be to try to reduce brightness non-uniformity, the backlight system has a lot to the test of design and workmanship.

In addition, there is a driving IC and printed circuit board beside the LCD panel, which is mainly used to control the rotation of LCD molecules in the LCD panel and the transmission of display signals. The LCD plate is thin and translucent without electricity. It is roughly shaped like a sandwich, with an LCD sandwiched between a layer of TFT glass and a layer of colored filters.

LCD with light refraction properties of solid crystals, with fluid flow characteristics at the same time, under the drive of the electrode, can be arranged in a way that, in accordance with the master want to control the strength of the light through, and then on the color filter, through the red, green, blue three colors of each pixel toning, eventually get the full-screen image.

According to the functional division, the LCD panel can be divided into the LCD panel and the backlight system. However, to produce an LCD panel, it needs to go through three complicated processes, namely, the manufacturing process of the front segment Array,the manufacturing process of the middle segment Cell, and the assembly of the rear segment module. Today we will be here, for you in detail to introduce the production of the LCD panel manufacturing process.

The manufacturing process of the LCD panel Array is mainly composed of four parts: film, yellow light, etch and peel film. If we just look at it in this way, many netizens do not understand the specific meaning of these four steps and why they do so.

First of all, the motion and arrangement of LCD molecules need electrons to drive them. Therefore, on the TFT glass, the carrier of LCD, there must be conductive parts to control the motion of LCD. In this case, we use ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) to do this.ITO is transparent and also acts as a thin-film conductive crystal so that it doesn’t block the backlight.

The different arrangement of LCD molecules and the rapid motion change can ensure that each pixel displays the corresponding color accurately and the image changes accurately and quickly, which requires the precision of LCD molecule control.ITO film needs special treatment, just like printing the circuit on the PCB board, drawing the conductive circuit on the whole LCD board.

First, the ITO film layer needs to be deposited on the TFT glass, so that there is a smooth and uniform ITO film on the whole TFT glass. Then, using ionized water, the ITO glass is cleaned and ready for the next step.

Rinse the basic label of glass with an organic solution and remove the photolithographic tape after reaction to keep the glass clean. This completes the first thin-film conductive crystal process, which generally requires at least five identical processes to form a complex and sophisticated pattern of electrodes on the glass.

This completes the previous Array process. It is not difficult to see from the whole process that ITO film is deposited, photoresist coated, exposed, developed, and etched on TFT glass, and finally, ITO electrode pattern designed in the early stage is formed on TFT glass to control the movement of LCD molecules on the glass. The general steps of the whole production process are not complicated, but the technical details and precautions are very complicated, so we will not introduce them here. Interested friends can consult relevant materials by themselves.

The glass that the LCD board uses makes a craft also very exquisite. (The manufacturing process flow of the LCD display screen)At present, the world’s largest LCD panel glass, mainly by the United States Corning, Japan Asahi glass manufacturers, located in the upstream of the production of LCD panel, these manufacturers have mastered the glass production technology patents. A few months ago, the earthquake caused a corning glass furnace shutdown incident, which has caused a certain impact on the LCD panel industry, you can see its position in the industry.

As mentioned earlier, the LCD panel is structured like a sandwich, with an LCD sandwiched between the lower TFT glass and the upper color filter. The terminal Cell process in LCD panel manufacturing involves the TFT glass being glued to the top and bottom of a colored filter, but this is not a simple bonding process that requires a lot of technical detail.

As you can see from the figure above, the glass is divided into 6 pieces of the same size. In other words, the LCD made from this glass is finally cut into 6 pieces, and the size of each piece is the final size. When the glass is cast, the specifications and sizes of each glass have been designed in advance.

Directional friction:Flannelette material is used to rub the surface of the layer in a specific direction so that the LCD molecules can be arranged along the friction direction of the aligned layer in the future to ensure the consistency of the arrangement of LCD molecules. After the alignment friction, there will be some contaminants such as flannelette thread, which need to be washed away through a special cleaning process.

After the TFT glass substrate is cleaned, a sealant coating is applied to allow the TFT glass substrate to be bonded to the color filter and to prevent LCD outflow.

Finally, the conductive adhesive is applied to the frame in the bonding direction of the glass of the color filter to ensure that external electrons can flow into the LCD layer. Then, according to the bonding mark on the TFT glass substrate and the color filter, two pieces of glass are bonded together, and the bonding material is solidified at high temperatures to make the upper and lower glasses fit statically.

Color filters are very important components of LCD panels. Manufacturers of color filters, like glass substrate manufacturers, are upstream of LCD panel manufacturers. Their oversupply or undersupply can directly affect the production schedule of LCD panels and indirectly affect the end market.

As can be seen from the above figure, each LCD panel is left with two edges after cutting. What is it used for? You can find the answer in the later module process

Finally, a polarizer is placed on both sides of each LCD substrate, with the horizontal polarizer facing outwards and the vertical polarizer facing inwards.

When making LCD panel, must up and down each use one, and presents the alternating direction, when has the electric field and does not have the electric field, causes the light to produce the phase difference and to present the light and dark state, uses in the display subtitle or the pattern.

The rear Module manufacturing process is mainly the integration of the drive IC pressing of the LCD substrate and the printed circuit board. This part can transmit the display signal received from the main control circuit to the drive IC to drive the LCD molecules to rotate and display the image. In addition, the backlight part will be integrated with the LCD substrate at this stage, and the complete LCD panel is completed.

Firstly, the heteroconductive adhesive is pressed on the two edges, which allows external electrons to enter the LCD substrate layer and acts as a bridge for electronic transmission

Next is the drive IC press. The main function of the drive IC is to output the required voltage to each pixel and control the degree of torsion of the LCD molecules. The drive IC is divided into two types. The source drive IC located in the X-axis is responsible for the input of data. It is characterized by high frequency and has an image function. The gate drive IC located in the Y-axis is responsible for the degree and speed of torsion of LCD molecules, which directly affects the response time of the LCD display. However, there are already many LCD panels that only have driving IC in the X-axis direction, perhaps because the Y-axis drive IC function has been integrated and simplified.

The press of the flexible circuit board can transmit data signals and act as the bridge between the external printed circuit and LCD. It can be bent and thus becomes a flexible or flexible circuit board

The manufacturing process of the LCD substrate still has a lot of details and matters needing attention, for example, rinse with clean, dry, dry, dry, ultrasonic cleaning, exposure, development and so on and so on, all have very strict technical details and requirements, so as to produce qualified eyes panel, interested friends can consult relevant technical information by a search engine.

LCD (LC) is a kind of LCD, which has the properties of light transmission and refraction of solid Crystal, as well as the flow property of Liquid. It is because of this property that it will be applied to the display field.

However, LCD does not emit light autonomously, so the display equipment using LCD as the display medium needs to be equipped with another backlight system.

First, a backplate is needed as the carrier of the light source. The common light source for LCD display equipment is CCFL cold cathode backlight, but it has started to switch to an LED backlight, but either one needs a backplate as the carrier.

CCFL backlight has been with LCD for a long time. Compared with LED backlight, CCFL backlight has many defects. However, it has gradually evolved to save 50% of the lamp and enhance the transmittance of the LCD panel, so as to achieve the purpose of energy-saving.

With the rapid development of LED in the field of lighting, the cost has been greatly reduced.LCD panels have also started to use LED as the backlight on a large scale. Currently, in order to control costs, an LED backlight is placed on the side rather than on the backplate, which can reduce the number of LED grains.

At the top of the diffusion plate, there will be 3~4 diffuser pieces, constantly uniform light to the whole surface, improve the uniformity of light, which is directly related to the LCD panel display effect. Professional LCD in order to better control the brightness uniformity of the screen, panel procurement, the later backlight control circuit, will make great efforts to ensure the quality of the panel.

Since the LCD substrate and the backlight system are not fixed by bonding, a metal or rubber frame is needed to be added to the outer layer to fix the LCD substrate and the backlight system.

After the period of the Module, the process is completed in LCM (LCDModule) factory, the core of this part of the basic does not involve the use of LCD manufacturing technology, mainly is some assembly work, so some machine panel factories such as chi mei, Korea department such as Samsung panel factory, all set with LCM factories in mainland China, Duan Mo group after the LCD panel assembly, so that we can convenient mainland area each big monitor procurement contract with LCD TV manufacturers, can reduce the human in the whole manufacturing and transportation costs.

However, neither Taiwan nor Korea has any intention to set up factories in mainland China for the LCD panel front and middle manufacturing process involving core technologies. Therefore, there is still a long way to go for China to have its own LCD panel industry.

At present, the mainstream display on the market is TFT-LCD, that is, thin film transistor liquid crystal display (Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display).

As we mentioned above, people may not think that filtration is so closely connected to the production of TFT-LCD. Below we will explain the importance of filtration in production for flat panel displays.

TFT-LCD combines microelectronics technology with liquid crystal display technology, and its structure is like a “sandwich”. The TFT array is processed on the glass, and the substrate with color filtering film is used to form a liquid crystal box using LCD technology, and then the polarizer is laminated to form a liquid crystal display.

The TFT-LCD array process is similar to that of semiconductors, except that semiconductors use silicon wafers, while thin-film transistors process glass substrates.

In the manufacture of flat panel displays, the glass substrate is first cleaned, and after the film is formed on the surface, the photoresist is evenly coated on the substrate, and after the processes of exposure, development, etching, and stripping, the graphics on the mask plate are transferred to the substrate to form the exact corresponding graphics.

In the TFT-LCD array process, pollutants mainly come from the manufacturing process and the handling, packaging, transportation, and storage of glass substrates, the main pollutants are dust particles, fiber paper dust, mineral oil and grease, and other greases, inorganic particles such as silicon oxide, and residues of the preparation process, water stains, fingerprints, etc.

These contaminants directly affect the quality and economic efficiency of the final product, so the product goes through a complex cleaning process, and after filtration, these cleaning solutions can be discharged or recycled.

For the different manufacturing stages, Brother Filtration offers accordingly filtration solutions. The followings are filtration solutions in detail.

The film-forming process is mainly divided into two ways, one is sputtering metal film deposition, by charged particles bombarding the surface of the material, so that the atoms get enough energy to enter the gas phase, deposited on the surface of the workpiece, and the use of gas is generally inert gas (such as argon);

In the lithography process of thin film transistors, each step may introduce harmful particle contamination, microbubble void defects, and metal contamination on the surface of the glass substrate, so the washing process is essential.

The etching process removes the film layer that is not masked by the photoresist, thus obtaining the exact same pattern on the film as on the photoresist. Etching methods are divided into wet etching, which uses the chemical reaction of the solution, and dry etching, which uses gas and plasma technology to etch the material.

In wet etching, the glass substrate is etched in a special tank and then cleaned in a wash tank, and finally dried, the process, as well as the flying damp solution, is as follows.

In flat panel display manufacturing, the residual photoresist needs to be peeled off after the film formation-lithography-etching process, thus bringing the process of this layer of film to an end.

With years of filtration experience and advanced manufacturing technology, Brother Filtration is able to provide helpful membrane-pleated filter cartridges and gas filter housing in every TFT-LCD production process.

Brother Filtration not only manufactures all kinds of filter products that can be applied in TFT-LCD production but also offers better filtration solutions for panel display manufacturers. If you need more filtration solutions or a better filter cartridge to help your manufacturing, please feel free to contact us directly.

The global TFT LCD panel market size reached US$ 165.0 Billion in 2022. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach US$ 217.2 Billion by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 4.66% during 2023-2028.

TFT (Thin Film Transistor) is an active-matrix LCD along with an improved image quality where one transistor for every pixel controls the illumination of the display enabling an easy view even in bright environments. This technology currently represents the most popular LCD display technology and accounts for the majority of the global display market. Being light in weight, slim in construction, high in resolution with low power consumption, TFT’s are gaining prominence in almost all the industries wherever displays are required. They find applications in various electronic goods such as cell phones, portable video game devices, televisions, laptops, desktops, etc. They are also used in automotive industry, navigation and medical equipment, laser pointer astronomy, SLR cameras and digital photo frames.

IMARC Group provides an analysis of the key trends in each sub-segment of the global TFT LCD panel market report, along with forecasts at the global and regional level from 2023-2028. Our report has categorized the market based on size, technology and application.

This report provides a deep insight into the global TFT LCD panel industry covering all its essential aspects. This ranges from macro overview of the market to micro details of the industry performance, recent trends, key market drivers and challenges, SWOT analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis, value chain analysis, etc. The report also provides a comprehensive analysis for setting up a TFT LCD manufacturing plant. The study analyses the manufacturing requirements, project cost, project funding, project economics, expected returns on investment, profit margins, etc. This report is a must-read for entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, consultants, business strategists, and all those who have any kind of stake or are planning to foray into the TFT LCD panel industry in any manner.

Global TFT LCD Panel Market Report (97 Pages) provides exclusive vital statistics, data, information, trends and competitive landscape details in this niche sector.

This report aims to provide a comprehensive presentation of the global market for TFT LCD Panel, with both quantitative and qualitative analysis, to help readers develop business/growth strategies, assess the market competitive situation, analyze their position in the current marketplace, and make informed business decisions regarding TFT LCD Panel.

The TFT LCD Panel market size, estimations, and forecasts are provided in terms of output/shipments (K Units) and revenue (USD millions), considering 2021 as the base year, with history and forecast data for the period from 2017 to 2027. This report segments the global TFT LCD Panel market comprehensively. Regional market sizes, concerning products by types, by application, and by players, are also provided. The influence of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine War were considered while estimating market sizes.

The TFT LCD Panel market report provides answers to the following key questions: ● What is the global (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) sales value, production value, consumption value, import and export of TFT LCD Panel?

● Who are the global key manufacturers of the TFT LCD Panel Industry? How is their operating situation (capacity, production, sales, price, cost, gross, and revenue)?

Key inclusions of the TFT LCD Panel market report: ● To provide the leading TFT LCD Panel companies, their company profiles, product portfolios, market shares, and revenue analyses.

TFT-LCD Modules range from small to medium sizes, such as 2.4" TFT LCD, 2.8" TFT LCD, 3.2" TFT LCD, 3.5" TFT Display, 4.3 inch TFT LCD, 5 TFT LCD, 5.6 TFT LCD, 5.7 inch Display, 7 " TFT LCD, 8" TFT, 9" TFT, 10.1" TFT LCD, 10.2" TFT LCD, 12.1" TFT LCD , 12.3" TFT LCD (diagonal size of the active area) and so on.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global TFT-LCD Modules market size is estimated to be worth USD million in 2023 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD million by 2028 with a CAGR of % during the forecast period 2023-2028. Fully considering the economic change by this health crisis, 2.4" accounting for % of the TFT-LCD Modules global market in 2022, is projected to value USD million by 2028, growing at a revised % CAGR from 2023 to 2028. While Consumer Electronics segment is altered to an % CAGR throughout this forecast period.

North America TFT-LCD Modules market is estimated at USD million in 2022, while Europe is forecast to reach USD million by 2028. The proportion of the North America is % in 2022, while Europe percentage is %, and it is predicted that Europe share will reach % in 2028, trailing a CAGR of % through the analysis period 2023-2028. As for the Asia, the notable markets are Japan and South Korea, CAGR is % and % respectively for the next 6-year period.

The global major manufacturers of TFT-LCD Modules include Winstar, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Raystar Optronics, Vitek, SUNUL, Visionox, Shenzhen Frida LCD and Shenzhen Visus, etc. In terms of revenue, the global 3 largest players have a % market share of TFT-LCD Modules in 2022.

The Global TFT-LCD Modules market is likely to growth at a substantial rate during the forecast period, between 2023 and 2028. In 2023, the market is growing at a steady rate and with the increasing adoption of tactics by key players, the market is predicted to rise over the projected horizon.

This TFT-LCD Modules Market report offers detailed analysis supported by reliable statistics on sale and revenue by players for the period 2015-2023. The report also includes company description, major business, TFT-LCD Modules product introduction, recent developments and TFT-LCD Modules sales by region, type, application and by sales channel.

Report further studies the market development status and future TFT-LCD Modules Market trend across the world. Also, it splits TFT-LCD Modules market Segmentation by Type and by Applications to fully and deeply research and reveal market profile and prospects.

We have been following the straight effect of COVID-19 on this market, as well as the circuitous effect from different industries. This report investigates the effect of the pandemic on the TFT-LCD Modules market from a Global and Regional point of view. The report frames the market size, market appearances, and market development for TFT-LCD Modules industry, ordered by type, application, and consumer area. Likewise, it gives an extensive examination of perspectives engaged with market improvement when the Covid-19 pandemic. Report likewise directed a PESTEL analysis in the business to concentrate on key influencers and boundaries to entry.

It also provides accurate information and cutting-edge analysis that is necessary to formulate an ideal business plan, and to define the right path for rapid growth for all involved industry players. With this information, stakeholders will be more capable of developing new strategies, which focus on market opportunities that will benefit them, making their business endeavors profitable in the process.

Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share and growth Rate of TFT-LCD Modules in these regions, from 2015 to 2027, covering ● North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

Some of the key questions answered in this report: ● What is the global (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) sales value, production value, consumption value, import and export of TFT-LCD Modules?

● Who are the global key manufacturers of the TFT-LCD Modules Industry? How is their operating situation (capacity, production, sales, price, cost, gross, and revenue)?

Technology trends in backplane technology are driving higher gas demand in display manufacturing. Specific gas requirements of process blocks are discussed, and various supply modes are reviewed.

Since its initial communalization in the 1990s, active matrix thin-film-transistor (TFT) displays have become an essential and indispensable part of modern living. They are much more than just televisions and smartphones; they are the primary communication and information portals for our day-to- day life: watches (wearables), appliances, advertising, signage, automobiles and more.

There are many similarities in the display TFT manufacturing and semiconductor device manufacturing such as the process steps (deposition, etch, cleaning, and doping), the type of gases used in these steps, and the fact that both display and semiconductor manufacturing both heavily use gases.

However, there are technology drivers and manufacturing challenges that differentiate the two. For semiconductor device manufacturing, there are technology limitations in making the device increasingly smaller. For display manufacturing, the challenge is primarily maintaining the uniformity of glass as consumers drive the demand for larger and thinner displays.

As the display mother glass area gets bigger and bigger,so does the equipment used in the display manufacturing process and the volume of gases required. In addition, the consumer’s desire for a better viewing experience such as more vivid color, higher resolution, and lower power consumption has also driven display manufacturers to develop and commercialize active matrix organic light emitting displays (AMOLED).

In general, there are two types of displays in the market today: active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) and AMOLED. In its simplicity, the fundamental components required to make up the display are the same for AMLCD and AMOLED. There are four layers of a display device (FIGURE 1): a light source, switches that are the thin-film-transistor and where the gases are mainly used, a shutter to control the color selection, and the RGB (red, green, blue) color filter.

Technology trends TFT-LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display) is the baseline technology. MO / White OLED (organic light emitting diode) is used for larger screens. LTPS / AMOLED is used for small / medium screens. The challenges for OLED are the effect of < 1 micron particles on yield, much higher cost compared to a-Si due to increased mask steps, and moisture impact to yield for the OLED step.

The challenge to MO is the oxidation after IGZO metalization / moisture prevention after OLED step, which decreases yield. A large volume of N2O (nitrous oxide) is required for manufacturing, which means a shift in the traditional supply mode might need to be considered.

Although AMLCD displays are still dominant in the market today, AMOLED displays are growing quickly. Currently about 25% of smartphones are made with AMOLED displays and this is expected to grow to ~40% by 2021. OLED televisions are also growing rapidly, enjoying double digit growth rate year over year. Based on IHS data, the revenue for display panels with AMOLED technol- ogies is expected to have a CAGR of 18.9% in the next five years while the AMLCD display revenue will have a -2.8% CAGR for the same period with the total display panel revenue CAGR of 2.5%. With the rapid growth of AMOLED display panels, the panel makers have accel- erated their investment in the equipment to produce AMOLED panels.

There are three types of thin-film-transistor devices for display: amorphous silicon (a-Si), low temperature polysilicon (LTPS), and metal oxide (MO), also known as transparent amorphous oxide semiconductor (TAOS). AMLCD panels typically use a-Si for lower-resolution displays and TVs while high-resolution displays use LTPS transistors, but this use is mainly limited to small and medium displays due to its higher costs and scalability limitations. AMOLED panels use LTPS and MO transistors where MO devices are typically used for TV and large displays (FIGURE 3).

This shift in technology also requires a change in the gases used in production of AMOLED panels as compared with the AMLCD panels. As shown in FIGURE 4, display manufacturing today uses a wide variety of gases.

These gases can be categorized into two types: Electronic Specialty gases (ESGs) and Electronic Bulk gases (EBGs) (FIGURE 5). Electronic Specialty gases such as silane, nitrogen trifluoride, fluorine (on-site generation), sulfur hexafluoride, ammonia, and phosphine mixtures make up 52% of the gases used in the manufacture of the displays while the Electronic Bulk gases–nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and argon – make up the remaining 48% of the gases used in the display manufacturing.

The key ga susage driver in the manufacturing of displays is PECVD (plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition), which accounts for 75% of the ESG spending, while dry etch is driving helium usage. LTPS and MO transistor production is driving nitrous oxide usage. The ESG usage for MO transistor production differs from what is shown in FIGURE 4: nitrous oxide makes up 63% of gas spend, nitrogen trifluoride 26%, silane 7%, and sulfur hexafluoride and ammonia together around 4%. Laser gases are used not only for lithography, but also for excimer laser annealing application in LTPS.

Silane: SiH4 is one of the most critical molecules in display manufacturing. It is used in conjunction with ammonia (NH3) to create the silicon nitride layer for a-Si transistor, with nitrogen (N2) to form the pre excimer laser anneal a-Si for the LTPS transistor, or with nitrous oxide (N2O) to form the silicon oxide layer of MO transistor.

Helium: H2 is used for cooling the glass during and after processing. Manufacturers are looking at ways to decrease the usage of helium because of cost and availability issues due it being a non-renewable gas.

The consumer demand for displays that offer increas- ingly vivid color, higher resolution, and lower power consumption will challenge display makers to step up the technologies they employ and to develop newer displays such as flexible and transparent displays. The transistors to support these new displays will either be LTPS and / or MO, which means the gases currently being used in these processes will continue to grow. Considering the current a-Si display production, the gas consumption per area of the glass will increase by 25% for LTPS and ~ 50% for MO productions.

To facilitate these increasing demands, display manufacturers must partner with gas suppliers to identify which can meet their technology needs, globally source electronic materials to provide customers with stable and cost- effective gas solutions, develop local sources of electronic materials, improve productivity, reduce carbon footprint, and increase energy efficiency through on-site gas plants. This is particularly true for the burgeoning China display manufacturing market, which will benefit from investing in on-site bulk gas plants and collaboration with global materials suppliers with local production facilities for high-purity gas and chemical manufacturing.

Luminance is an important quality characteristic of a TFT-LCD display. Consumers prefer to have a TFT-LCD display with enough luminance. Several control factors in manufacturing a TFT-LCD display may affect the luminance of a TFT-LCD display. Tuning the control factors using a trial and error method incurs significant overhead in time and resources such as the material and the workforce. Therefore, a more efficient method is required for tuning the control factors in manufacturing TFT-LCD displays. To fine-tune the control factors, we need to perform experiments to find the luminance of TFT-LCD displays for different settings of the control factors. An experiment to find the luminance for a specific parameter setting of the control factors requires about 1.5 months for the case company. To reduce the time in fine-tuning the control factors, we should not perform too many experiments in a new method. In this paper, we first used the traditional Taguchi method to find a control factors’ setting to enhance the luminance of TFT-LCD displays. However, because the Taguchi method allows only a few fixed levels for each control factor, it usually cannot find the global optimal setting for the control factors. Therefore, this paper proposes to improve the Taguchi method by incorporating the Taguchi method with the neural network and the genetic algorithm. In the proposed method, we used the data collected from the Taguchi method to train a neural network to predict the luminance of a TFT-LCD display for a given control factors’ setting. Then, we used a genetic algorithm to search for the global optimal control factors’ setting using the predicted luminance of a control factors’ setting as the fitness value of the setting.

The case company is a TFT-LCD display manufacturer in Taiwan. In performing the optical film lamination step in the liquid crystal module assembly process (LCM), the case company observed color streaks, as shown in Figure 1, on some of their TFT-LCD displays. The color streaks reduced the luminance of the TFT-LCD displays. Therefore, to enhance the luminance of TFT-LCD displays, the optical film lamination step needs to be optimized. The optical film lamination step consists of five stages: the raw material inspection, the soft-to-hard lamination, the circuit test, the protection film lamination, and the clean process, as shown in Figure 2. According to a failure analysis performed by the case company, the color streaks on a TFT-LCD display were mainly due to improper setting of control factors in the soft-to-hard lamination stage. Therefore, this paper focuses on optimizing the soft-to-hard lamination stage to improve the luminance of TFT-LCD displays.

For the quality improvement purpose, engineers of the case company selected five positions, as shown in Figure 3, on a TFT-LCD substrate to measure their corresponding values of luminance. The luminance of a TFT-LCD display is the average of the five values of luminance of the selected positions. The case company manufactured about 5000 TFT-LCD displays per day. Therefore, the TFT-LCD displays’ average luminance at a specific date was calculated by averaging the luminance of all the TFT-LCD displays made at that particular date. Figure 4 shows the trend chart for the TFT-LCD displays’ average luminance. The average of the average luminance at all dates in a selected time interval is defined as the baseline, the red line shown in Figure 4. Before fine-tuning the control factors in the sot-to-hard lamination stage, the baseline was 17.03, which was less than the required minimum luminance of 25. Thus, to enhance the TFT-LCD display’s luminance, one needs to find a setting of the control factors such that the baseline is larger than the required minimum luminance of 25. Therefore, we propose in this paper a new method that combines the Taguchi method, a neural network, and a genetic algorithm to fine-tune the setting of control factors in the soft-to-hard lamination stage to enhance the TFT-LCD displays’ luminance.

Many researchers have studied the performance of laminated materials. For example, Lee and Kim [1] investigated the influence of mechanical characteristics on the performance of optical laminating materials in automotive applications by varying the H/vinyl ratio and the hydrogen source ratio. Serhat and Basdogan [2] proposed a multi-objective design methodology to set the parameters’ values in a lamination process to optimize the stiffness of the composite plate with dynamic and load-carrying requirements. Ridhuan et al. [3] studied the effect of interconnecting thickness and yield strength to find maximum peak stress in the longitudinal cross-section of a photovoltaic (PV) laminate during the soldering and lamination processes. For determining the accumulated final residual stresses in a PV laminate, Song et al. [4] simulated the stress evolution of solar cells in manufacturing a conventional silicon wafer-based photovoltaic laminate.

Though quality control is implemented at manufacturing side, it is still unavoidable to ship defective products not detected to the customers. When defective products are detected at customer side, the product returning processes will correspondingly activate. However, it leads to the increase of operating costs that manufacturer side should make a certain amount of stock to solve the situation of returning products. Accordingly, the tradeoff is between over-stock and under-stock to balance the cost-cutting and customer satisfaction. The grey models (GMs) are widely applied in short-term time series data prediction; though, the improvement of prediction still exists. Hence, this research reveals a new GM, which employs the mega-trend-diffusion technique, to estimate the background values in the traditional GM. A case is studied from a leading TFT-LCD company in Taiwan. Comparing with two GM models, the proposed model outperformed concerning the case data.

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

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Dublin, May 12, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "TFT LCD Panel Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2021-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com"s offering.

TFT (Thin Film Transistor) is an active-matrix LCD along with an improved image quality where one transistor for every pixel controls the illumination of the display enabling an easy view even in bright environments. This technology currently represents the most popular LCD display technology and accounts for the majority of the global display market. Being light in weight, slim in construction, high in resolution with low power consumption, TFT"s are gaining prominence in almost all the industries wherever displays are required. They find applications in various electronic goods such as cell phones, portable video game devices, televisions, laptops, desktops, etc. They are also used in automotive industry, navigation and medical equipment, laser pointer astronomy, SLR cameras and digital photo frames. According to the publisher, the global TFT LCD panel market reached a value of US$ 150.2 Billion in 2020.

The report titled "TFT LCD Panel Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2021-2026" provides a detailed insight into the global TFT LCD panel market. The report has segmented the market on the basis of size, technology, applications and major regions. On the basis of size, large sized panels dominated the global TFT LCD display market. Large sized panels were followed by the medium and small sized TFT-LCD panels. On the basis of technology, the report found that the 8th generation represented the most popular TFT LCD technology. On the basis of applications, the television industry accounted for the largest share in the global TFT LCD market.

The television industry was followed by mobile phones, mobile PCs, monitors and the automotive industry. Geography-wise, North America represented the largest market accounting for more than one-third of the total global TFT LCD panel sales. North America was followed by Asia-Pacific and Europe. The report has also covered some of the major players operating in this market which include LG, SAMSUNG, INNOLUX, AUO and SHARP. Looking forward, the publisher expects the global TFT LCD panel market to exhibit moderate growth during the next five years.

This report provides a deep insight into the global TFT LCD panel industry covering all its essential aspects. This ranges from macro overview of the market to micro details of the industry performance, recent trends, key market drivers and challenges, SWOT analysis, Porter"s five forces analysis, value chain analysis, etc. The report also provides a comprehensive analysis for setting up a TFT LCD manufacturing plant. The study analyses the manufacturing requirements, project cost, project funding, project economics, expected returns on investment, profit margins, etc. This report is a must-read for entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, consultants, business strategists, and all those who have any kind of stake or are planning to foray into the TFT LCD panel industry in any manner.