Liquid crystals for microwave components are sought by established material and display industries, along with companies in the satellite and telecommunications fields, driven by the need for new data communication technologies. Here, the authors detail promising applications that could go mainstream, including tunable microwave filters, beam‐steering antenna systems, and millimeter‐wave communication.

The mobility needs of modern societies, cities and users are different from the past. Consequently, the dynamic changes of the automotive industry trigger both challenges and opportunities. The presentation will discuss these trends and plausible future scenarios. In order to facilitate these positive changes, we recognised the potential of innovative technologies, including the liquid crystal displays. As the display is the key interface between users and devices/ vehicles, key industry players have acknowledged its significant role in attaining users' satisfaction. The presentation will outline several initiatives driving technology developments to fulfil the emerging needs. In the open innovation era, few companies can claim to possess all future technologies in-house. Therefore, collaborations among players with complementary technologies are especially essential to accelerate new product/ service/ solution development. New industry formation also requires new quality of communication among key value chain players to learn industry insight and to establish mutually beneficial partnerships. The rationale and the objectives of our automotive platform will be introduced.

Recently, there has been a renewed interest in using liquid crystal devices for lighting applications. The applications include car headlamps as well as indoor architectural lighting. In this paper we will present the status of liquid crystal mixtures that are suitable for these applications. or automotive applications, the properties of the liquid crystal mixtures are expected to include robustness towards extreme environmental conditions as well as robustness towards extreme light load. For architectural application, the liquid crystals mixtures are expected to have the highest possible birefringence whilst still having good light stability.

Driven by the need for new low-cost data communication technologies, liquid crystals are used not only by the display industry but also by companies in the satellite and telecommunications area. Recent developments in liquid crystal mixtures for tunable microwave components have led to material classes with substantially increased performance. High performance materials provide a high tunability with low associated dielectric losses meeting requirements of commercial applications. This presentation gives an overview about the state-of-the-art in liquid crystal materials for microwave applications, future development targets as well as emerging fields of applications.

Flexible and foldable or even stretchable OLED displays entering the market and are expected to grow 50% or more. This is requiring the display panel to become thinner and thinner while maintaining the robustness and reliability. This challenges existing material systems and require optimizing the whole system and not just individual layers. We are developing multiple solutions for cover film, encapsulation, and other leveraging expertise from our semiconductor technologies. Challenges to reach a combination of glass and rubber performance using Ultra‐Thin Glass (UTG), PET, Colorless PI (CPI), … in combination with hardcoat solutions and state‐of‐the‐art performance of hardcoat‐solutions will be discussed.