During the manufacturing of OTFT backplanes, defects can occur at a number of different stages and can be caused by anomalies, such as contamination and thickness variations in the conductive and semi conductive layers. Defects are highly detrimental to the performance of the backplanes.
For the mass market adoption of flexible displays used in future consumer devices such as bendy smartwatch displays and foldable mobile phones, there is a need throughout the industry to detect backplane defects at high speed and using roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques. To do this, specialist high speed and high resolution systems are needed. The aim of DigiPRINT was to developing the technologies and software needed for the in-line detection and repair of micro and nano-scale defects on backplanes at proof of concept scale.