Automotive Display Solutions

To support driver safety while managing a comfortable cabin environment and advanced infotainment systems, automotive display technology became more digitalized and connected. Advanced automotive displays eliminate dials and buttons on a traditional automotive dashboard or instrument panel, and give drivers more intuitive and advanced control over the systems in their vehicle. The development of automotive displays allow for the control of programs such as entertainment systems, safe driving systems, navigational systems, and others. Efficiently manufacturing these increasingly complex automotive displays requires a partner capable of providing materials and finding solutions to help drive advances in this type of technology. 

As the global technology leader in adhesives, sealants and thermal management materials, Henkel has extensive experience in the automotive display industry. With its optical bonding, structural bonding, and thermal management solutions, Henkel has the right portfolio to meet the increasingly important market trends for automotive displays. To enable an efficient manufacturing process, Henkel offers high specification application equipment, which was developed in partnerships with leading global lamination equipment manufacturer. Our innovative design approach towards mass production equipment offers significant benefits in terms of process flexibility and an optimized footprint with a focus on quality and cost-efficient manufacturing.

Contact us today to find out more about Henkel’s Automotive Display Solutions and to arrange an individual expert consultation.

The wide variety of automotive display designs and applications can present challenges for the production of these devices. Manufacturers need to be able to meet different display designs while accounting for factors such as heat dissipation for circuit boards, overall structural strength and integrity of the display housing structure of the automotive dashboard.

Henkel is a leader in helping to develop optical bonding of free-form display designs allowing for innovative display solutions. With our industry experts, Henkel has developed innovative automotive displays adhesive and thermal management solutions:

The sky is the limit when discussing the future of automotive display design. Demands from customers requires continued advancement of housing designs to better use interior space as well as accommodate larger and more responsive screens that deliver higher levels of control. In order to eliminate the use of tradition buttons and create state-of-the-art interior control systems, there is increasing need for advanced optical bonding, structural bonding, thermal management materials and close manufacturing partnerships in order to develop innovative automotive displays. Henkel is here to help meet those challenges and has an eye on the future of innovative automotive displays solutions in the following applications:

Multi-Panel Displays
Multi-panel automotive displays are one of the not so distant advances that are currently being developed. Multi-panel displays combine single displays into one bigger component allowing for cleaner look and fell in the interior of a car. Furthermore it allows for reduced machine production footprint.

Free-formed and Curved Displays
Free-formed and curved displays are the future of automotive displays and are being developed to allow for larger and more attractive display consoles for the automotive dashboard, enabling more features and controls for driver comfort and safety. Free-formed and curved designs of automotive displays dominate the interior of a car while being fully integrated into the overall interior designs.

Contact us today to discover how Henkel is enabling the manufacturing of various automotive display focus components

The design and manufacturing of automotive displays requires a variety of materials that range from ensuring the strength of the display housing structure, to controlling heat dissipation from led circuit boards, to the bonding of the cover lens to the TFT/LCD. Henkel has the material solutions that enable the manufacturing of high-quality automotive displays meeting custom specifications.

Optical Bonding for Automotive Displays 

The optical bonding of the automotive display is necessary for the protection of screens and to ensure their protection from a lot of environmental factors. High performance optical bonding is a requirement for any automotive display since it allows for sensitive touch screen features that provide higher levels of control for interior systems. There are two main types of optical bonding materials: liquid Optically Clear Resin (OCR) and Optically Clear Tape Adhesives (OCA). Henkel is an industry leader in liquid Optically Clear Resin (OCR) technology, which provides numerous benefits for flexible designs, faster cure speeds, and higher optical performance as compared to OCA.

Optical bonding is performed with a combination of coating and lamination processes where the critical optical performance is needed for the display. Henkel has developed liquid optically clear adhesives that enable optical bonding solutions for various display designs and applications.

Liquid Optically Clear Adhesives from Henkel (LOCA) are used to help ensure high optical bonding of the protective screen cover lens to the display. This may include bonding of different substrates such as plastic to plastic, plastic to glass, and glass to glass. Multi-substrate bonding can be applicable for free-formed and design displays, including curved designs. Henkel’s liquid optically clear adhesives (LOCA) can be cured under UV or visible light(1K) or by UV and chemical reaction (2K) and, are available in a low, medium, or high viscosity. The UV or visible light curing capability gives another advantage. Since the liquid adhesive cures instantly to a solid polymer when exposed to UV or visible light, the improved process efficiency can be expected as well.

Using Henkel LOCA for optical bonding, the improved display performance is evident in a 400% better contrast ratio in sunlight, a three times higher impact resistance, lower energy consumption, improved durability to heat and superior impact load absorption enabling thinner and more flexible designs.

Structural Bonding for Automotive Display

Structural bonding for automotive displays is required to attach the display module on to the frame or housing structure to the automotive dashboard or elsewhere in the vehicle. There are several challenges for automotive structural bonding that includes bonding of narrow borders and thin bondlines, quick handling strength, and the need for bonding of multi-substrates materials. For innovative automotive displays, it is also a challenge to create modules that are thinner and lighter in addition to the need to integrate infotainment systems as well as ADAS systems.

Structural bonding adhesives for automotive displays often requires bonding of multiple material substrates and must be flexible for the different thermal expansion of the substrates as well as keeping enough bonding strength for the required small bonding area. In response, Henkel has developed structural bonding solutions tailored for automotive displays that meet these needs.

For manufacturers, current and future space demands that automotive displays to be larger while fitting into more narrow or smaller spaces. This has caused narrow boarder design trends to take hold regarding interior automotive design. Narrow border display solutions come with challenges since they have reduced bonding areas while requiring strong adhesive hold. Henkel has developed narrow bonding solutions that lower costs and save on materials while being able to fit within tighter areas.

System Solutions for Display Bonding with LOCTITE MS 650 using a Sonderhoff Dosing Machine / AQA Process is one of the good examples.

SpeedCure™ technology

Henkel offers an unique special solution that accurately and efficiently cures adhesives in display applications on targeted areas by using customized LED light tooling called SpeedCure^TM.
It is a highly efficient method for curing on demand and to shorten curing times for the adhesive down to 30-60 seconds and to allow for faster handling of the parts in the production process.
This process involves the use of radiation that gives off energy to reduce the required curing times.
Radiation can be applied both directly or indirectly depending upon your equipment and the application area of the adhesive.
With the SpeedCure^TM light and adhesive, we minimize stress and heat to the temperature sensitive components within the display module.

SpeedCure™ is a versatile process that can be applied to multiple substrates such as glass/aluminum, or plastic frames/housing structures, for different designs such as curved and free-formed. Henkel can provide customized SpeedCure™ lights that meet individual specifications.

Automotive Display Thermal Management

There has been rising need for advanced thermal interface materials due to the higher power consumption required by automotive display and infotainment systems. Infotainment system designs are trending towards multi-functional displays with larger sizes, increased power consumption, and manufactured with higher number of circuit and LED chips. For these reasons, thermal Interface materials are essential for any automotive display. Thermal interface materials are designed to transfer heat away from electrical components and carry out key functions such as heat dissipation, stress relief, insulation for electrical circuits, and to ensure continued stability for electrical components. 

With the increase of heat emitted by display components, the development of more advanced gap fillers, and gap pads has become a necessity. Henkel’s BERGQUIST® brand has led the market for years with innovative formulations of thermal management materials to solve toughest thermal control issues involving automotive electronics and displays.

Henkel’s LOCTITE^® and BERQUIST^® brands are designed to meet these needs and offer an extensive line of thermal management materials for automotive displays. This includes higher thermally conductive thermal gap pads and gap fillers that are designed to meet the challenges of automotive display manufacturing. 

Read more about Thermal Management Materials

Resources for Automotive Display Solutions

Want to learn more about the automotive electronics solutions that Henkel offers? Download our brochures below or use our contact form to reach us directly.

Brochure: Henkel Automotive Display Solutions

Brochure: Liquid Optically Clear Adhesive (LOCA): LOCTITE AD 8650

Brochure: Structural Bonding Solutions for Automotive Displays

Brochure :Thermal Interface Materials for Automotive Displays

Brochure : Polyurethane-based reactive (PUR) hotmelt