A project that last winter earned a cool $2 million grant will heat up again this summer as Binghamton University’s Integrated Electronics Engineering Center helps an Endicott-based flat-panel display manufacturer boost production of bigger, clearer and cheaper television display screens.

Rainbow Displays, Inc. (RDI) of Endicott is teaming up with BU, Cornell University and Kaiser Electronics of San Jose, California, to develop large, “tiled” liquid crystal displays. The displays will be used in a variety of next-generation consumer and business applications. The partnerships were formalized this past winter when Rainbow Displays was awarded a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Advanced Technology Program.

“Competition for these grants is always fierce,” said Bahgat Sammakia, director of the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center. More than 400 proposals ranging from pharmaceutical design, tissue engineering and electronics manufacturing were reviewed by the program in 2000. Awards are based on scientific and technical merit as well as potential benefits to the U.S. economy, he added.

“The fact that our project was recognized as a potential contributor to future U.S. technological advances is a real honor,” Sammakia said.

The company-University partnership began more than two years ago when researchers James Constable, professor of electrical engineering, and Gary Lehman and James Pitarresi, associate professors of mechanical engineering, began working together to develop a procedure for bonding circuitry to glass panels of large display screens.

“This first collaboration allowed us to prove the quality and resourcefulness of our research capabilities,” said Sammakia. “The recent grant will allow us to move forward with our on-going relationship with RDI and build upon the work we have already accomplished together.”

The advanced technology program grant advances the partners‘ efforts to tile silicon microdisplay chips seamlessly to form larger, inexpensive displays for the high definition television market and other high-resolution display applications.

Cornell will develop liquid crystal chips to accommodate the large displays, while BU’s team works on the physical package. Sammakia, Pitaressi, Constable and D.C. Sun, professor of mechanical engineering, will work with a team of Binghamton graduate students over a three-year period to complete the research.
Donald Seraphim, RDI’s senior vice president and chief technical officer says that BU’s input has been key to his company’s success.

“The critical thinking skills of the University, harnessed in our first collaboration, allowed us to go to market with a 38-inch flat-panel display, an industry first,” Seraphim said.

“We obviously have the experience in seamless tiling of conventional liquid-crystal displays, but large microdisplays introduce significant technical challenges. With IEEC’s help, we hope to leverage our existing technologies to solve these problems.”

If successful, the project will give U.S. microdisplay manufacturers a cost-effective approach to the growing projection high definition television market, as well as many other niche applications, Seraphim added.