Production Technology Is Complicated, Expensive, and Error-Prone

The growth in the demand for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and monitors in the early 1990s was accompanied by an increasing need to improve manufacturing processes for these products to reduce cost and improve quality. To ensure the clarity and brightness of LCDs, manufacturers must precisely align the crystals within them. Older, less expensive LCDs were often fuzzy and unclear because of improper alignment. Existing LCD technology exhibited high sensitivity to dust, requiring expensive isolation rooms to minimize errors. The industry tried to solve these problems through mechanical buffing, an alignment process that used a polymer film adjoined to the display to align the crystals. Although this process improved the clarity of the LCDs, it produced less-than-perfect results, was expensive, and led to defects in the displays.

Static electricity, for example, caused a problem when the mechanical buffing film touched the liquid crystal medium, thereby creating "dead" crystals. Although LCDs consist of many small crystals, just a few dead crystals can substantially reduce display image quality, forcing the manufacturer to scrap the product. This problem occurred frequently with products that contained a large number of crystals, such as larger laptop monitors, desktop flat-screen displays, and flat-screen televisions. An innovation that could align crystals without making contact with the liquid crystal medium would minimize the risk of damaging the displays. The resultant benefits of this innovation would include reduced scrap waste, tremendous cost savings to the users of LCDs, and greater overall quality of the product.

Before this ATP project, alignment techniques for LCD production relied on a process that created "alignment masters" that had limited reuse capabilities. Attempts to increase the number of times a master could be reused proved unsuccessful. Consequently, despite large-scale production of LCDs, the production costs remained high. If an alignment process could be created that eliminated the need for these expensive masters, manufacturers could reduce production costs and improve LCD quality.

ATP Funding Crucial to Enabling Generic LCD Technology

Hercules proposed a sound research plan that they would follow to create a new generic LCD manufacturing technology. However, as a small company, it could not take on the risks of this endeavor alone. Therefore, Hercules submitted a proposal to ATP in 1993 and in 1994 was awarded $1.67 million to conduct its proposed research.

New Technology Promises Lower Costs and Higher Quality

The goal of this ATP project was to develop an optical alignment technique to be used in the production of LCDs that would incorporate a noncontact process to eliminate the static electricity problem associated with the existing mechanical buffing process and to improve display quality. The company projected that the use of an optical alignment technique would be less expensive, less prone to display errors, and more suitable for mass production than the existing buffing process. Optical alignment equipment is much smaller and less expensive to transport. Moreover, the use of this noncontact technique would also eliminate the need for expensive isolation rooms. In addition, the optical alignment technique would provide cost savings by eliminating the need for expensive masters, thereby reducing overhead costs.

Researchers Achieve Technical Innovations

During the project, the researchers achieved their technical goals and successfully developed the materials and processes required for the optical alignment of LCDs. Technical accomplishments that resulted from this project included the following:

• Creation of a colorless optical alignment material
• Introduction of an optical alignment material with pre-tilts for both homogeneous and homeotropic alignment configurations
• Development of materials with good dielectric properties measured by voltage-holding ratio and residual DC voltage
• Demonstration of thermal and optical stability
• Development of a process to use an ultraviolet lamp as a light source with acceptable throughput
• Establishment of testing capabilities to characterize electrical, optical, and electro-optical properties of optical alignment materials and liquid crystal test cells
• Fabrication of liquid crystal test cells with nonrubbing optical alignment technology

Hercules conceived of an optical productiontechnique that had the potential to enhance LCD
quality and improve the economies of scale in LCD production.

The company continued to search for new applications that could benefit from this technique. Toward the end of the project, they performed research to develop technology solutions for the most important new modes of flat displays with wide viewing angles.

Hercules Evolves from Research to Product Development

In 1995, partway through the ATP project, Alliant Techsystems (a U.S. aerospace and defense company) acquired the aerospace portion of Hercules, including its LCD-related technology. Although the LCD products fell outside the scope of Alliant's strategic focus, the company recognized the business potential of the ATP-funded project and helped to form a separate business unit to focus on the project's goals. As the ATP project came to a close in 1997, the optical technology developed at Hercules and Alliant Techsystems was divested and sold to privately held Elsicon. Elsicon has continued to develop the ATP-funded technologies, including a pre-tilt analysis system for LCDs, which reduces the risk of defects in the orientation of the liquid crystals, and a research and development tool that enables identification of the process parameters for the optical alignment of LCDs and devices. Elsicon also sells a measurement system for the voltage-holding ratio, a critical electrical parameter for LCDs. Finally, the company offers the materials that support the optical alignment of LCDs. Elsicon sells and markets these products through a Japanese partner, Japan Storage Battery Company, because LCD manufacturers are located predominantly in East Asia. Today, Elsicon generates revenue from contracts, licenses, and consulting assignments that are related to the technology developed during the ATP project.

Project Benefits Elsicon and Creates Economic Spillover

In June 1997, Elsicon received a $1.65 million contract to develop new materials and processes for optical alignment from the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC), a public-private partnership based in San Jose, CA, which aims to establish a U.S. infrastructure to support high-definition display manufacturing.

The USDC, which has 130 corporate members and also receives support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S. Department of Defense, paid 50 percent of the $3.3 million cost to develop a scaled-up manufacturing process, with Elsicon funding the other half. According to Dr. Robert Pinnel, the Chief Technical Officer of USDC, Elsicon "...built upon a strong foundation of intellectual property in patents and know-how that were developed under a prior grant in the NIST-ATP program. The research and proof of feasibility developed under the ATP grant will now be supported toward practical realization in fulfillment of the USDC mission."

The alignment process has appeared in several prototype LCDs from various global manufacturers, but none of these manufacturers has brought its prototype into mass production. LCD manufacturers worldwide are evaluating the products commercialized from this project. Although the products have not yet been fully incorporated into manufacturing processes for mass production and large-scale sales, initial results from the products are positive.

Elsicon continues to sell and seek licensing for the products and processes developed during the ATP project, creating a sound foundation for its future. Benefits for Elsicon, however, represent only a fraction of the broader economic benefits that may be provided by optical alignment LCD technology. Current and future benefits include more efficient manufacturing processes, higher quality displays, lower cost to users, and a larger knowledge base for the development of future technologies. In 2000, the LCD market was $20 billion worldwide for laptops, personal digital assistants, and other technologies that rely on flat displays. With the demand for these products increasing rapidly, the high cost of LCD monitors represents a burden on the economy as well as on consumers. As the enhanced production technology spreads in the industry, the cost advantages are expected to translate into lower prices for the displays, benefiting American businesses and consumers.

ATP Award Sustained the Project and Ensured a Short Development Life Cycle

Had the project not received support and funding from ATP, Alliant Techsystems would likely have abandoned the development of the optical alignment technique because of the lack of funding, preventing the important innovations that occurred as a result of the project. The LCD technologies fell outside the scope of Alliant's strategic focus, and the project could not rely on additional internal funding. Thus, external funding was critical in ensuring the timely completion of the project.

Conclusion

Elsicon is in the process of evaluating its optical alignment technology, known as OptiAlign^TM, in the liquid crystal display (LCD) manufacturing industry. The company has formed strategic partnerships and alliances that provide feedback, allowing researchers to further refine the technology and facilitate its implementation. An evaluation of OptiAlign^TM is currently under way by a number of manufacturers in East Asia, Europe, and North America. The results have been very promising and suggest that the technologies may lead to new and improved flat displays.

Research and data for Status Report 93-01-0091 were collected during October - December 2001.

Return to Table of Contents or go to next section of Status Report No. 3.

Date created: April 4, 2006
Last updated: July 6, 2006

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