This project is carried out as a part of the NSF Research Centers - Small Firms Collaborative R&D initiative, under the leadership of the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center, an S/IUCRC established by the National Science Foundation.
This project is a collaborative research and development program between Binghamton University and Rainbow Displays Inc. (RDI). The latter is a small start-up enterprise located in Endicott, NY, whose goal is to produce at a competitive cost, a large screen active matrix liquid crystal display (LCD) by tiling four small LCD's to produce a single, large area, seamless (to the human eye) display. The project will address two different problems associated with liquid crystal display technology as previously demonstrated, with prototype hardware, by RDI. The first is related to the reliability of the interconnection between the flex circuitry which carries the driver device (which actuates the pixels on the screen) and the Indium - Tin Oxide (ITO) metallization on the glass display screen. University researchers and RDI bonding engineers will jointly develop a reliable, optimum bonding process.
The second problem involves the assembly of the tiles in a composite lamination. The tiled LCDs are almost butted together and may have slightly different thickness. The present method of assembly uses liquid adhesive to take up any differences in height and to fill the cavity between the panels. RDI will butt the LCD panels together and use a polymer film type adhesive between the LCDs and the protective glass cover plate. This will provide improved resolution, minimize panel alignment requirements and reduce the cost of assembly. This study will use existing codes to model the proposed structure and to evaluate the interaction between the film material properties, film thickness and LCD panel thickness with the assembly parameters; roller speed, pressure, curvature, width etc.
