LG's new OLED manufacturing tech can make panels bigger and brighter - Engadget

The FLiPP system could be used in products ranging from OLED TVs to VR headset displays. LG has an unveiled a new OLED manufacturing breakthrough that will allow brighter, sharper and longer-lasting panels of nearly any size. Called FLiPP (FMM-less Innovative Pixel Patterning), the new system eliminates the need for the metal masks normally used in fabrication, and shows that innovation is possible even in established tech like OLED panels. Normally, OLED panels are manufactured using metal plates with tiny holes called fine metal masks (FMMs), which allow light to pass through to stencil organic LEDs into a pixel pattern. However, these masks are tricky and expensive to fabricate, and larger ones for TV panels can be difficult to align due to sagging. To counter that, FLiPP fabrication stencils RGB pixels directly onto panels in a precise order, then uses photolithography and UV light to "erase unnecessary areas during OLED pixel patterning," LG explains. That allows OLED panels to be 1.6 times brighter and last 2.4 times as long, while reducing power consumption 13 percent. The technique is also "free from panel size and resolution constraints," so it can be used in products rang