Date: 07/03/2011

New LTPS LCD display manufacturing equipment from Applied Materials

Semiconductor equipment vendor Applied Materials has announced its new LCD display manufacturing equipment AKT-20K PX PECVD for making low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) type active matrix OLED and TFT-LCD displays. The LTPS based LCD displays pack more dots/pixels with in square mm to provide higher resolution and also integrates some of the LCD driver semiconductors in the display panel itself. LTPS is most preferred LCD diplay panel for smart books and tablet computers. AMOLED based LCDs are only possible due to LTPS technology.

DisplaySearch has estimated spending on LTPS-equipment to reach $2.4 billion in 2011.
It can be approximately estimated the total market for LTPS displays in the range of 15 - 20 billion US$ in 2011, growing at 30%, again approximate figures.

The highlights of AKT-20K PX PECVD include:

1. Deposits highly-uniform films on 1.95m2 glass sheets that are three times larger than the previous standard size.
2. AKT-20K PX system enables ultra-high definition TFT-LCD screens with more closely-packed pixels, resulting in brighter, sharper, lower energy displays.

Applied said it has shipped nearly 100 systems worldwide for depositing LTPS films on smaller substrates.