1. ALD for Industry Workshop
Opportunities, Challenges and Solutions for ALD Encapsulation in Flexible Electronics Applications
Dr. Mikko Söderlund
ALD for Industry Workshop
, Dresden, Germany

2. ALD for Industry, Dresden 17.-18.1.2017
Home of ALD
Beneq has three main business areas:
Development & Coating Services
Thin film equipment
Electroluminescent displays
Thin film expertise is the common denominator of everything we do.
The Beneq factory is where atomic layer deposition was applied in industrial production for the first time.
It is the largest ALD-dedicated production facility in the world.
Over 30 years of thin film experience is at your service.
Beneq is 120 people strong
ALD for Industry, Dresden

3. ALD for Industry, Dresden 17.-18.1.2017
One stop for all ALD
Coating
Services
Development
Services
Industrial
Equipment
Customer
Services
Research
ALD for Industry, Dresden

4. Beneq equipment platforms
TFS 200 & T2S
Up to 8’’ wafers
Automation & low particle
20 50 nm
TFS 500
Batch ALD
Up to 300 x 420 mm
P400A/P800
Large batch ALD
Up to 250 L chambers
e.g. 300 wafers/PCBs/frames
R11
Rotary spatial ALD
Plasma enhanced
1 µm (SiO2)/hour
WCS 600
Roll-to-Roll ALD (spatial)
500 mm wide web
1 m/min
ALD for Industry, Dresden

5. Flexible electronics FEATURES: new designs & form factors
Source: Hanergy
Source: Samsung
Source: Plastic Logic
FEATURES:
new designs & form factors
no glass –> unbreakable
conformal/bendable/rollable...
ultra-light weigth & flat
edgeless
Source: FlexEnable
Source: LG
Source: Microsoft
Source: BMW
Source: Konica Minolta
Source: Samsung
ALD for Industry, Dresden

6. Flexible encapsulation approaches
Type
Barrier component
Deposition method
Thickness
Glass
Borosilicate
Frit sealing + dessicant
<200 µm
Inorg./org. Multilayer
Al2O3
CVD
3-5 µm
Inorganic
SiNx
PECVD
<1 µm
ALD
10-30 nm
Flexible glass does not apprear to be a robust solution
Commercial inorg./org. multilayer requires thick stack, sells for a prohibitively high price
PECVD + organic currently applied, but not flexible enough
ALD value proposition: ultra-thin, flexible and low cost of ownership
ALD for Industry, Dresden

7. ALD barrier WVTR and Flexiblity
ALD metal oxide barrrier on a low-cost PET film
*D.C. Miller et al, J Appl. Phys. 105, , 2009.
WVTR ≤ 10-4 g/(m2 10 nm, critical curvature radius in mm’s
ALD for Industry, Dresden

8. Size and form factor challenge
Source: AUO
Requirement (Industrial)
Sheet format
Roll format
Scalability
Gen 5.5 (Gen 8.5)
Up to 1600 mm
Productivity
1-2 min TACT
≥0.5 m/min
Mean-time-to-clean
≥ two weeks
Process monitoring
In-line (by sheet)
Continuous
+high uptime, low particle, low CoO, system integration...
Very difficult to map these requirements onto pulsed ALD aproach
ALD for Industry, Dresden

9. Spatial ALD method as enabler
1. Throughput: faster ALD cycle
By rapid substrate translation
1-15 seconds
< 1 second
3. Insitu monitoring possibilities
+ Thickness measurement (inline/in-head)
+ Accurate MFC control of precursor feed
+ Exhaust monitoring by RGA
2. Scale-up in size
+Injector scales modularly in width & length
+high uniformity in ”machine/movement direction” -> focus on transverse injector design
Spatially separated precursor ”zones”
Continuous (not pulsed) flows through injector
Gap control
4. Low maintenance requirement
+ only the substrate ”sees” the two precursors
+ no parasitic deposition in chamber
ALD for Industry, Dresden

10. ALD for Industry, Dresden 17.-18.1.2017
WCS 600 roll-to-roll ALD
Ultra-barrier film deposition on flexible substrates (e.g. PET)
Web width 500 mm
Uniform coating along & across
MD: < 1%, across < 5%
WVTR <10-4 g/(m2 day) on PEN, with 20 nm 0.5 m/min demonstrated reproducibly
Very low maintenance req.
First maintenance check after 2 years of operation & 450 runs
Total ~85 µm of deposited Al2O3
No/low parasitic coating
Very attractive CoO e.g. for flexible PV applications
WCS 600 at CPI, Sedgefield, UK
ALD for Industry, Dresden

11. SCS 1000 sheet-by-sheet ALD
Fast sheet-based spatial ALD system for direct encapsulation
Substrate size 1500 x 640 mm
Effective coating area equal to Gen2.5 (400 x 500 mm)
Non-uniformity < 4 % Al2O3)
Al2O3 deposition speed up to 21 m/min demonstrated
50 nm Al2O3 deposition takes roughly 6 minutes
Again, low maintenance reqmt.
Inline monitoring capability
Optical reflectance meas.
Maps very well to flexible AMOLED manufacturing reqmts.
2.6 m
1.1 m
ALD for Industry, Dresden

12. ALD for Industry, Dresden 17.-18.1.2017
Summary
Flexible electronics market drives a transition from glass to polymer-based devices
Opportunity for ALD, especially for low temperature processes
Thin-film encapsulation is the driving application
Challenging to map the mass production requirements onto conventional pulsed ALD method
Trade-off between speed / quality / maintainability
Spatial ALD is disruptive method, enabling simultaneously
High depostion rate
Scalability
In-situ monitoring
Low maintenance
Beneq WCS 600, SCS 1000 and R11 spatial ALD systems are at the forefront of this exciting transition
ALD for Industry, Dresden

13. ALD for Industry, Dresden 17.-18.1.2017
Thank you!
ALD for Industry, Dresden