Smart in-line metrology and control for boosting the yield and quality of high-volume manufacturing of Organic Electronics

Project Information

SmartLine

Grant agreement ID: 768707

DOI

10.3030/768707

Project closed

EC signature date 14 July 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 30 November 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Advanced manufacturing and processing

Total cost

€ 5 424 875,00

EU contribution

€ 4 262 637,50

Coordinated by

ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SmartLine (Smart in-line metrology and control for boosting the yield and quality of high-volume manufacturing of Organic Electronics)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2020-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SmartLine addresses the challenges that are faced by Europe’s industrial stakeholders that aim to bring the innovations in Organic and Large Area Electronics (OLAE) to the market, by the cost-effective manufacturing of advanced OLAE-enabled products in the application areas of energy, lighting, displays and surfaces, electronic circuits, all (bio) sensors, wearables, ICT, IoT, etc. OLAE combines organic, polymer, inorganic and hybrid nano-materials in multilayer nano-structures that can be combined by large-scale manufacturing to conformable & lightweight devices with main applications for energy harvesting by sunlight (Organic Photovoltaic -OPVs) and light emission (Organic Light Emission Diodes - OLED for lighting), to name just a few.

However, until now, the faced bottlenecks and challenges to enable fast OLAE-enabled product commercialization include the insufficient control of the properties of materials and devices, inhomogeneities in their thickness, structure over large areas, low process yield, limited reliability and high consumption of resources, batch-to-batch and run-to-run variations in properties and performance, increased waste and high costs. These delay significantly the market acceptance of OLAE-enabled products.
SmartLine addressed successfully the above challenges and provided efficient metrology solutions to industry in order to achieve a strong productivity improvement for the fabrication of flexible OLAE devices (such as OPVs, OLEDs). During its implementation, SmartLine developed sophisticated non-destructive and robust in-line metrology and control solutions for R2R printing and OVPD processes for traceable measurement of properties and quality of highly integrated nano-layers and devices during their fabrication. This will enable real-time control on the process stability, properties homogeneity, material/device quality and performance reliability.

The objectives of the project are the following:

O1: Development of robust non-destructive metrology tools and methodologies (acquisition, modelling, reference), for the monitoring of properties (optical, electrical, etc.), structure (surface patterns), and quality of OLAE nanolayers in complex & highly integrated nano-scale architectures with high precision. These in-line metrology tools include: a) Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (SE), b) Raman Spectroscopy (RS), c) In-line Reflectometry (REF), d) Wavelength Scanning Interferometry (WSI) for surface features, and e) Eddy Current (EC) measurement system.
O2: Integration of in-line metrology tools in specific parts of unique R2R printing and OVPD pilot to production lines to enable closed-loop fabrication of OPV and OLED devices, that will enable better resource efficiency and increased device reproducibility, yield and productivity
O3: Development of robust feedback and control Platform (MCP) to connect the in-line metrology tools with the R2R and OVPD processes to achieve autonomous control of the manufacturing process and predictive/preventive corrections to the R2R printing and OVPD processes
O4: Optimization of manufacturing processes for OPVs and OLEDs and boost of process yield and device quality, in combination to reduced waste and process time. Validation of the reliability and quality of devices by demonstration to automotive applications (exterior, interior).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SmartLine has been a huge success in achieving all its objectives and impacts.

The main results achieved so far, include the following:
- Successful development of novel optical sensing tools and methodologies (SE, RS, Ref, EC, WSI) that are fully integrated on R2R & OVPD pilot to production lines for Organic Electronics manufacturing
- Solution Addressed Several Challenges related to measurement stability and accuracy from OE devices
- Development of novel methodologies for measurement of OE nanomaterials and theoretical analysis to extract information on thickness, optical properties, morphology, surface and interface roughness, quality).
- Development of a novel Metrology Control Platform that will interconnect the metrology tools under a common platform to receive information from the metrology tools and communicate with the process control of the pilot line
- Development of effective communication protocols between different tools and the newly developed Metrology Control Platforms of the pilot lines to enable rapid feedback during the process
- Closed Loop and Semi-Closed Loop Manufacturing using the in-line metrology tools in R2R & OVPD pilot to production lines
- Increase of the yield of the manufacturing (printing) process for Organic Electronics from 73.2% to 89.6%
- Implementation of the in-line metrology tools for the increase of the power conversion efficiency of polymer based OPV modules from 3.5% to 6.8%, and OPV panels from 2% to 4.6%
- Successful demonstration of high performance OPV-powered solar roof and lit sill plate demonstrator in commercial automobiles

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The SmartLine project proved that in-line metrology is a crucial component for the reliable, cost-effective and high quality manufacturing of complex OE-based materials, devices and products that consist of complicated architectures of sensitive nano-layers to build highly efficient devices. The progress beyond the current state-of-the-art brought by the project can be summarized on the overcoming of all the technical and scientific challenges to develop and integrate sophisticated metrology tools (with the capability to measure and model in an accurate and robust manner) in large scale manufacturing, without affecting the process.
SmartLine has a significant continuous impact in Europe’s manufacturing industry, in the following parts:
- Improvement of the technical knowledge of industrial (large scale, SME) entities and actors on the implementation of the in-line metrology tools and control Platform in the high volume manufacturing processes.
- Improvement of the production yield, the resource waste management and product reliability.
- Providing robust solutions to identify defected parts of printing layers that result to defected OPV and OLED devices. In addition, it has allowed the correlation of inhomogeneities in the physical properties across the printed web with malfunctioned or failed devices. These capabilities allow the early removal of the defected parts before the encapsulation and finalization of the OPV panels and OLED devices.
- Optimization of the OLAE manufacturing processes by adjusting key experimental parameters based on the feedback from the in-line metrology tools. This will benefit the manufacturing processes by strongly reducing batch rejections, waste of materials, used resources as well as the trial-cases for new material batches and formulations.
Finally, SmartLine will have a huge impact and will transform the manufacturing processes for Organic Electronics Industry and for other Industries as Thin Films, Electronics, Wearables, Energy, Automotive, Transport, Space, Health, etc., and incorporate them towards the Factory of the Future.
The project results will unleash the huge potential of OPVs and OLEDs in consumer applications and will enable Industrial Growth in Europe. Also, such manufacturing processes will demonstrate a strong productivity improvement in regards to conventional processes that will enable them to remain commercially competitive for multiple application areas.

SmartLine consortium at the M12 Consortium Meeting