Smartkem Ltd. (Manchester, England), the operating subsidiary of Smartkem Inc., has partnered with Taiwan display manufacturer AUO to develop a rollable, transparent microLED display.
The partnership and accompanying grant support is much-needed by Smartkem, which posted financial results recently. In those the company stated that it had incurred net losses of US$7.6 million on revenue of US$40,000 over the first nine months of 2024. The company’s cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2024 was US$1.8 million, which it said would not be sufficient to fund its operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements for the next 12 months.
The financial report concluded that the company will require additional capital funding to continue its operations and R&D activity.
Using its Truflex semiconductor and dielectric inks, or electronic polymers, Smartkem has developed a six-layer transistor stack design and process. Smartkem’s core chemistry involves its electronic polymers being processed at of 80 degrees C and solution deposited, onto low-cost substrates of either plastic or glass.
The project with AUO is due to start on January 1, 2025 and has been awarded a grant by the Taiwan-UK R&D Collaboration supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs and by Innovate UK.
The size of the award was not disclosed but SmartKem said the 2024 UK-Taiwan R&D Collaboration has invested more than £10 million in 2024 in nine projects to promote bilateral industrial technology R&D cooperation suggesting an average value of about £1 million per project.
Because Smartkem’s OTFTs are processed at low temperature they can be processed directly on top of microLEDs in the manufacturing of microLED displays, eliminating the need for mass transfer and laser welding processes required by existing technology, the company said.
This will enable the introduction of a “Chip-First” display architecture. Additionally, it enables processing of Smartkem’s OTFTs on plastic substrates, rather than glass, allowing for microLED displays that are low-cost, thin, transparent, flexible and lightweight.