Roll-to-Roll Processing Inflections for the Display & IoT Industry

Presented by Neil A. Morrison, Applied Materials Web Coating GmbH

Next generation consumer electronic devices, including wearables are placing an ever increasing emphasis on form factor. This has resulted in an increase in the number of polymeric films used in their construction. As most of these polymeric materials are initially manufactured in the form of a roll, there has been a drive towards the utilization of so called roll-to-roll processing (R2R) in order to reduce both manufacturing line setup, cleanroom and materials costs. The work presented in this paper will summarize Applied Materials development activities for next generation large area flexible electronics applications. Focus will be given on large area deposition of silicon based layer systems using a front surface contact free R2R CVD processing platform for barrier applications. Further developments will also be discussed in terms of infrastructure & process development for patterning of micron level features and devices.