Plastic Logic Limited

Flexenable Limited

Hitachi, Ltd.

Cambridge Enterprise Limited

Paul A Cain

Henning Sirringhaus

Carl Martin Hayton

Thomas Meredith Brown

Anoop Menon

David Arfon Williams

Tim Von Werne

Nicholas Jim Stone

Yong-Young Noh

Catherine Ramsdale

Duncan Barclay

Anusha Nirmalananthan

James Watts

Steven Paul Farmer

Andrew Ferguson

Tim Yeoh

Simon Joines

Barry Merrick

Jim Watts

Mike J Banach

Nicholas J Stone

Thomas M Brown

Di Ying

Thomas M Universita Degli Studi Di Roma Brown

Carl Plastic Logic Limited Hayton

James D Watts

Simon Jones

Steve Farmer

A technique, comprising: producing at least first and second individual liquid crystal cells, wherein the first and second individual liquid crystal cells each comprise liquid crystal material between a respective pair of support components, and electrical circuitry operable to generate a refractive index pattern in the liquid crystal material; the method comprising adhering together at least the first and second liquid crystal cells to form a stack of liquid crystal cells; wherein the electrical circuitry of the first and second liquid crystal cells is operable together to generate a stack of refractive index patterns in the liquid crystal material of the stack of liquid crystal cells.

Device comprising a stack of individual liquid crystal cells having electrical circuitry operable to generate a stack of refractive index patterns and method of producing the same

A technique of producing a control component for a reflective display device, comprising: forming an array of electronic switching devices; forming over said array of electronic switching devices an insulator region defining a controlled surface topography; and forming on the patterned surface of the insulator region by a conformal deposition technique a substantially planar array of reflective pixel conductors each independently controllable via a respective one of the array of electronic switching devices, wherein each pixel conductor exhibits specular reflection at a range of reflection angles relative to the plane of the array of pixel conductors for a given incident angle relative to the plane of the array of pixel conductors.

Reflective display devices

A method of producing plural pixellated display devices, each having a first component comprising an array of independently controllable pixel electrodes; and a second component comprising an array of pixel filters comprising different types of pixel filters of differing optical transmission characteristics, each pixel filter being associated with a respective one of said pixel electrodes. The first component has some distortion within the array of pixel electrodes causing a variation in pixel electrode pitch between different regions of the array. The second component is applied to the first component to provide misalignment between an alignment reference position on the first component and an alignment reference position on the second component. An array of pixel filters is formed in a neutral framework having a separation distance between each pixel filter that prevents any pixel filter of the array of pixel filters overlapping with more than one of said pixel electrodes.

Pixellated display devices

An integrated circuit (IC) for driving a flexible display includes a first layer including spatially non-repetitive features, the first layer deposited on a flexible substrate, the spatially non-repetitive features not substantially regularly repeating in both of two orthogonal directions (x,y) in the plane of the substrate. The IC further includes a second layer including spatially repetitive features with the second layer being deposited on said first layer. The first and second layers are aligned to one another so as to allow electrical coupling between said non-repetitive and said repetitive features, and wherein distortion compensation is applied during deposition of said repetitive features to enable said alignment.

Distortion tolerant processing

A method of fabricating an electronic device, the device including a plurality of layers on a substrate, the layers including an upper conductive layer and at least one patterned underlying layer between said conductive layer and said substrate. The method includes patterning said underlying layer, and patterning said upper conductive layer by laser ablation using a stepwise process in which successive areas of said upper conductive layer are ablated by successively applied laser patterns. The successively applied laser patterns overlap one another in an overlap region. The method further includes configuring a said laser pattern and said patterned underlying layer with respect to one another such that in a said overlap region said patterned underlying layer is substantially undamaged by said stepwise laser ablation.

Laser ablation of electronic devices

A method of fabricating an organic electronic device is provided. The organic electronic device has a structure including an upper conductive layer and an underlying layer immediately beneath said upper conducting layer and having at least one solution process able semiconducting layer. The upper conducting layer preferably has a thickness of between 10 nm and 200 nm. The method includes patterning said upper conductive layer of said structure by: laser ablating said upper conductive layer using a pulsed laser to remove regions of upper conductive layer from said underlying layer for said patterning; and wherein said laser ablating uses a single pulse of said laser to substantially completely remove a said region of said upper conductive layer to expose said underlying layer beneath.

Layer-selective laser ablation patterning

A method of producing a metal element of an electronic device on a substrate, including the steps of: forming a mixture of a material comprising metal atoms with a liquid, depositing the material from the liquid mixture onto a substrate, and then irradiating at least part of the deposited material with light to increase the electrical conductivity of the deposited material. A method of producing one or more elements of an electronic device, including the steps of: providing a substrate including one or more underlying elements of the electronic device and a thermally patternable layer overlying said one or more underlying elements; and using said one or more underlying elements to locally generate heat and thereby selectively induce a change in corresponding portions of said thermally patternable layer; and wherein either the change selectively induced in said corresponding portions directly results in the definition of one or more elements of the electronic device in a position determined by that of said one or more underlying elements, or alternatively including the additional step of using the change selectively induced in said one or more corresponding portions to facilitate the formation of one or more elements of the electronic device in a position determined by that of said one or more underlying elements. A method of producing an element of an electronic device, including the steps of: (a) providing a substrate; (b) depositing on said substrate a layer of a switchable material, which changes its physical or chemical properties upon irradiation with light or heating causing a change of its surface energy properties; (c) irradiatively inducing at selected regions of a layer of switchable material a change in physical or chemical properties that alters the surface energy of said selected regions and thereby forming a surface energy pattern on its surface; and (d) without removing said layer of switchable material in either irradiated selected regions or non-irradiated regions from the substrate depositing over the surface energy pattern produced in step (c) a material for forming an element of the electronic device such that the surface energy pattern controls the deposition of said material.

Production of electronic devices

An electronic device comprising an optically transparent substrate, a first electrode structure incorporating a channel, said channel being optically transparent and said electrode structure being optically opaque, at least one intermediate layer, and a photosensitive dielectric layer disposed above the at least one intermediate layer, the photosensitive dielectric layer incorporating a trench in a region essentially over said channel, the electronic device further comprising a further electrode, wherein the further electrode is located partially in the trench and partially beyond the trench such that portions of the further electrode that extend beyond the trench are separated from the at least one intermediate layer by the photosensitive dielectric layer.

Thin film transistor with accurately aligned electrode patterns and electronic device(s) that include same

An electronic device including at least first and second transistors integrated together on a substrate and each including an organic semiconductor region, wherein the first and second transistors are either both n-type or both p-type but wherein one of the first and second transistors is a normally-ON transistor and the other of the first and second transistors is a normally-OFF transistor.

Organic electronic devices

Thin film transistor device with accurately aligned electrode patterns

A method of manufacturing an integrated circuit (IC) for driving a flexible display includes depositing a pattern of spatially non-repetitive features in a first layer on a flexible substrate, said pattern of spatially non-repetitive features not substantially regularly repeating in both of two orthogonal directions (x,y) in the plane of the substrate; depositing a pattern of spatially repetitive features in a second layer on said first layer; aligning said second layer and said first layer so as to allow electrical coupling between said non-repetitive features and said repetitive features, wherein distortion compensation is applied during deposition of said repetitive features to enable said alignment.

We describe a method of displaying a document page with a predetermined size using a display device having edges defining lateral dimensions not substantially larger than said predetermined size and having a central re-writable display portion and a non-re-writable border, said document page comprising a central, foreground portion bearing one or both of text and graphics, a background having a background color and at least one margin having said background color, the method comprising: inputting page data defining a page for display; processing said page data to crop margins of said page such that, when displayed on said re-writable display portion, said non-re-writable border gives the appearance of said cropped margins, said processing generating cropped page data; and outputting said cropped page data for display on said re-writable display portion of said display.

Electronic document reader

A method of selectively eliminating electrical shorts and other electrical defects from specific layers of a multilayer electronic device without damaging underlying layers. The method is based on a combination of an automated detection of the defects and selective laser ablation patterning (SLAP).

Elimination of short circuits between conductors by laser ablation

An electronic document reading device includes an electronic page having at least one display surface and a page support. The page is attached to the page support such that the page is physically turnable. The device also includes a memory to store at least part of a document to be read and a page driver coupled to the memory, to drive the page display surface to display a first stored portion of the document. The device further includes a sensing system to sense turning of the page and an update control system coupled to the sensing system to control update of the display surface with a second stored portion of the document responsive to sensing of the page turning. The update control system is configured to control the updating such that the updating is at least partially hidden from a viewpoint of a user of the device.

Electronic document reading device

A method of producing a plurality of transistors each including a source/drain electrode pair comprising a conductor material and a channel comprising semiconductor material between the source and drain electrodes of said source/drain electrode pair; the method comprising (i) forming over a substrate at least a first layer of said conductor material or a precursor thereto and a second layer of said semiconductor material or a precursor thereto; and (ii) thereafter removing selected portions of at least said first and second layers so as to define at least two adjacent source/drain electrode pairs that are unconnected to each other within said first and second layers.

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Paul A Cain