The selling price of Fortrend's OGS is the cost of others

It takes more than six hundreds of days for Fortrend Taiwan Scientific Corp. to invent its unique technique, materials and equipment and created the miracle of OGS TP. The quality of its OGS TP is the best of the world and it is the only manufacturer that can produce different colors of frames of OGS. Moreover, the selling price of the TP is the cost of the same products manufactured by conventional process.

A large number of orders have been placed by numerous of world famous manufacturers. Even some of the well-known manufacturers, who are the top-ten companies in the world, endeavor to have the authority to manufacture its OGS TP. There have been several manufacturers obtaining the license to proceed.

The smart technical products have changed the way of our lives and the human-machine surface is touch panel. The market demand of TP has expanded tremendously. The global annual demand has reached two billions and more. Nevertheless, the price of TP has been too high to expand. Thus, it is the time to make a breakthrough on the price of TP now.

The conventional process of TP continues the LCD process. This kind of technical process is old, the yield rate is low and a great amount of materials has been wasted. The investment of equipment can be more than tens of billions of dollar, yet the capacity is low. The cost is affordable for producing 7" TP and smaller size under this conventional process; however, it will be too high for producing 10" TP and larger sizes. The monthly capacity of 27" of a five-generation production line is two hundred thousand pieces and the cost of each piece could be more than one hundred US dollars. The cost of the Fortend's equipment is approximately one seventh of a five-generation production line, yet the capacity is five hundred thousand pieces. The selling price is much lower than the panel cost of a five-generation production line.

The size of the glass used for conventional process is fixed. The glass has to be strengthened ahead of all the processes and to be cut after the whole processes are accomplished. Therefore, it results in the massive waste of glass and damages the strength of glass as well as increasing the costs. Moreover, the glass needs to be re-strengthened by soaking the glass into high temperature potassium nitrateacid. In the meantime, the sodium ion on the surface of the glass exchanges with the potassium ion of nitric acid. The glass can be strengthened due to the difference of the rate of shrink after cooling. Nevertheless, the glass with ITO layer cannot be heat resisted after strengthened and release the sodium ion and potassium ion to exchange. Thus, it can only be soaked into hydrofluoric acid at the room temperature to erode the rough parts. Meanwhile, there will be SiF6 left in spacing to create similar strengthening effect. However, SiF6 is actually an unstable ion. SiF6 and water will recover hydrofluoric acid. Hydrofluoric acid is severe poison; as little as 1.5g of it can be killing while 2% of human body is exposed to it, it can be deadly.

The chemical reaction equation is as follows:

SiO₂(glass)+6HF(hydrofluoric acid)→H₂[SiF₆](unstable)+2H₂O

H₂[SiF₆] (unstable)+2H₂O(water) →6HF(hydrofluoric acid)+SiO₂

Fortrend's process is to have the glass cutting and grinding and tempered treatment before ITO sputtering and other processes. After the process, there is no need to cut the glass and the process of soaking the glass into hydrofluoric acid. The strength of Fortrend's glass is three times stronger than others. Consequently, Fortrend's TP and LCD does not need to be bonded completely by OCA, which can reduce the cost approximately US$1~US$2 per inch.

Conventional OGS's BM is made by Photo Resistive and the color is black only. Yet, Fortrend do it with printing and any color is workable. It will not be carbonized in high temperature and discolored. The thickness of printed BM is two hundreds to 6 hundreds times as thick as ITO layer. With Fortrend's unique equipment, the ITO layer can work for eight hundreds high.

The ITO layer of conventional OGS process is single layer plus bridge. There is not only the concern of patent violations but also the difficulty to build the bridges which results in low yield rate. There are one thousand and one hundred bridges on a piece of 10" TP and eight thousand eight hundred and fifty four bridges on a piece of 24" TP. Before building the bridges, tiny isolator need to be produced in advance. Sizes of both are much thinner than hair and cannot be seen by eyes. The process is extremely complicated. Neither a tiny isolator or a bridge can be broken. As long as one of each is broken, the whole TP will be rejected. The yield rate is only 36. The bigger size the more bridges. And the yield rate will be lower. There is no room for improvement since it is drawback of the basic structure of bridges. Even though many manufacturers declare that the yield rate can be raised to 80%, it is only to milk the bull.

Fortrend's patent of conductive layer is multiple layer structure and bridges are not needed. Without the drawback of bridges, the process is simple. The equipment is well-developed and it takes only four months to establish a plant. Within 6 months after contracted, the mass production can be ready and yield rate can be 80%.

Some manufacturers replace ITO glass with ITO PET. ITO is indium-tin oxide. The electric conduction is worked by tin. The permutation of tin and indium construct the coefficient of electric conduction. After ITO is electrified, tin and indium element will repeat arranging in order continuously and change the electric conduction and resistance. The sensitivity of touch is based on the computation of capacitance multiplied by resistance. The smaller computation the better and it has to be stable without changing. Otherwise, the touch function will be terrible. When the size is bigger, the request of changing resistance is more severe. In order to keep the tin and indium element from changing the permutation after electrifying, the ITO needs to be crystallized by high-temperature sputter. Without crystallizing, the resistance will keep raising up after electrifying. Although the temper can speed up the aging of ITO, the temper is in low-temperature and cannot have the ITO crystallized. The changes after electrifying will be the same. In the meantime, the price of ITO PET remains high. Per low-resistance ITO PET suitable for large size of TP, the cost is as high as US$60/m2. Consequently, some manufacturers use ITO glass to stick on ITO PET in order to lower the cost. Nevertheless, one ITO is crystallitic and the other ITO does not. It leads to the difference of resistance between two ITO after electrifying and results in the device crashed.

Another issue is about lamination. Some manufacturers use glass laminated with glass and some others use glass or plastic laminated with one or two layers PET. Besides the low yield rate, delayed bubbles are also a problem which cannot be solved due to the lamination with OCA glue. The material of OCA glue is PVA. It will bring bubbles when PVA is baked with 37 degrees C and higher. The bubbles will cause the touch failed. The temperature of LCD reaches to 42 degrees C, thus the bubbles will increase gradually after TP is used. The touch function will disappear gradually as well. One of the international manufacturers produced ITO PET, OCA and control IC by themselves. Besides the material cost was high, they still could not solve the problem of the increase of ITO's resistance after electrifying and the problem of the delayed bubble. Moreover, the yield rate of lamination was not able to increase. Thus, they ended up with closing. There are still massive manufacturers striving in this field. There is still small market for 10" and small TP as well as replicate devices due to low requirements. Nevertheless, most of the manufacturers fail for producing the TP size above 10". Thus, many TP manufacturers in Taiwan, Korea and China change to work with Fortrend's OGS process.

It is the initial stage of touch technique and only few people have the knowledge of touch technique. Most of the manufacturers are using the wrong equipment, technique and material which lead to a great loss. Fortrend has invented its own technique, material and equipment with unique vision. Thus, the quality of its TP is high and cost is friendlier. The selling price of TP is the cost of what a five-generation production line produced. The demands are more than the supply of Fortrend's TP. Moreover, the manufacturers come to require for licensing the production in a continuous line.

The selling price of Fortrend's OGS is the cost of others