According to The Verge, Korean news site DDaily says Samsung is set to begin manufacturing its long-rumored "Youm" displays -- a new type of ultra-thin AMOLED panel which is bendable, stretchable, rollable and possibly even foldable. This jibes with rumors we heard in 2011 that Samsung may have been planning to mass produce these very interesting displays in Q2 2012.
Samsung May Begin Producing Flexible AMOLED Displays
Before anyone gets too excited though, Samsung is curiously expected to ship these flexible displays affixed to a rigid sheet of "protective" glass, initially. Clearly, this dampens some of the excitement surrounding the rumor. However, DDaily's sources claim Samsung has an internal goal of mass-producing fully flexible screens by 2014.
This is purely speculation, but one reason for the delay may be a lack of devices which could properly house a flexible display. By manufacturing these screens now, Samsung gains experience mass producing them for traditional, rigid devices (phones, tablets and so on). When OEMs begin contemplating flexible gadgets though, Samsung will be ready to supply.
Although the upcoming Youm displays aren't expected to be flexible at first, what they will be is thin -- really thin. Even while married to a glass panel, the displays should measure 1mm in thickness. Without the glass layer, the screens boast a thickness of just 0.6mm. It is possible that this glass could be substituted with a material like Willow Glass or plastic in the future though, freeing the panel from its inflexible constraints.
LG Display announced that it decided to build a new 6-Gen (1500x1850 mm) flexible OLED fab in a KRW1.05 trillion ($900 million) investment. The new E5 line will be located at LGD's Gumi Plant and will have a capacity of 7,500 monthly substrates - or 1.5 million 5.5" panels. The new fab is scheduled to begin mass production in the first half of 2017.
LGD has been internally discussing a new flexible OLED fab for quite a while, and it's great to see that they finally made an official decision. The flexible OLED market is expected to grow quickly in the near future as these displays unlock new applications and are very competitive in the wearable, automotive and mobile devices markets.
LG currently produces plastic-based OLEDs in its Gen-4.5 fab, with a monthly capacity of 14,000 substrates (more than double its capacity in the beginning of 2014). LG Display's flexible AMOLEDs are used in LG's mobile phones (the G Flex 2), wearable devices (such as the Watch Urbane) and in Apple's Watch.
Apple seem to be debating whether to retain LGD as the exclusive supplier for the upcoming Watch 2 or to contract Samsung Display to become a second supplier. It may be that Apple decided to keep LGD as the exclusive OLED supplier and so it made LG's investment decision easier. Samsung's GS6 Edge success may also be behind LGD's flexible OLED expansion. It may be that LG Electronics is planning their own curved-edge phone (they already shown a prototype device a few months ago) and they will need LGD's flexible OLED capacity to support this. Of course the new fab will only start producing panels in 2017, so it won't be ready for the Watch 2 or an imminent curved phone...
Sony, historically a leader in AMOLED-display production, previously produced AMOLED displays for its Clie PDAs, as well as the first AMOLED TVs. Sony has maintained its facilities and integrated into Sony Semiconductor and is currently producing very-high-end AMOLED monitors for master video and medical applications.
A different approach to the production of AMOLED displays could be in flexible displays. It is extremely difficult for LCDs to be made in fully flexible, or even curved, formats, due to challenges with cell-gap maintenance and backlighting optics. Technologies such as electrophoretic technology are very amenable to flexibleformats, but do not have the visual performance required for video and other key applications. AMOLED-display technology is one of the few display technologies that has demonstrated the ability to be made in thin, flexible formats with little diminution of display performance.
TFT backplane technology is crucial in the fabrication of AMOLED displays. In AMOLEDs, the two primary TFT backplane technologies, polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) and amorphous silicon (a-Si), are currently used offering the potential for directly fabricating the active-matrix backplanes at low temperatures (below 150 C) onto flexible plastic substrates for producing flexible AMOLED displays.[7]
Future displays exhibited from 2011 to 2013 by Samsung have shown flexible, 3D, transparent Super AMOLED Plus displays using very high resolutions and in varying sizes for phones. These unreleased prototypes use a polymer as a substrate removing the need for glass cover, a metal backing, and touch matrix, combining them into one integrated layer.[28]
If all goes well, Samsung plans to expand the idea of foldable displays to its other products. Since the Consumer Electronics Show in 2011, Samsung has been talking about creating a bendable display. Then again in 2013, when they named the flexible display "Youm." Recently, there was talk that Samsung would release its foldable smartphone as a Galaxy X.
While this design was a boon for ergonomics, its price and limited availability prevented it from becoming popular. But its true mission was different, anyway, it announced the arrival of flexible AMOLED displays.
Buoyed by the prospects, companies are already scaling up capacities in segments like flexible screens used for mobile devices and smart wearables, according to industry sources. These include active matrix/organic light-emitting diodes or AMOLEDs and organic light-emitting diodes used for displays.
Apple is set to surpass Samsung as the largest purchaser of AMOLED displays for smartphones later this year following the release of the iPhone 13 lineup, which will push the adoption of flexible AMOLED displays in iPhones to 80%, according to a new report from DigiTimes.
Apple adopted flexible AMOLED displays for its entire iPhone 12 lineup and is expected to continue doing so for the 2021 iPhones. According to today's report, which cites estimation numbers from research firm Omdia, Apple is expected to purchase 169 million display panels for the iPhone this year, compared to last year's order of 114.5 million.
Electronic paper displays are the oldest type of flexible display. They differ in that they reflect light and have a wider viewing angle. E-paper is used predominately in E-readers and signage because text can be read in direct sunlight without fading. Similar to flexible OLED and LCD, it also uses plastic substrates, allowing display to bend like paper. E-paper displays are not ideal for phones and tablets because they have a very low refresh rate, ghosting problems, and are yet to be mass-produced in color.
Some benefits of flexible displays are better durability, lighter weight, thinner dimensions, and unique software commands. The use of a plastic substrate and the ability to flex locally when dropped makes the device less likely to crack, saving the users the trouble of having their screen replaced or being forced to buy a new device. Flexible devices will also be lighter and thinner than their rigid counterparts because they use plastic instead of glass. The ability to deform the device may allow the user to access a set of commands in their devices user interface. For example, when the device is folded it will go into sleep mode.
The search was started by locating as many Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes that referred to flexible displays.. A sample of highly relevant documents were used to cross-reference and make sure that no CPC codes were left out.. The codes used were are:
The objective of preforming this research is to complete an analysis of the Flexible Display IP landscape and assess the position of leading display manufacturers. According to the total number of applications by publication year, the patent filings for flexible displays are increasing at an exponential rate. They increased from 48 publications in 2010 to 566 in 2014/2015. This represents more than a 100% increase on average each year. Even more impressive is that almost 60% of the filings between 2010 and 2015 have came in the past 18 months. An initial look at the top companies by publications shows Samsung with the most at 271, LG with 97, and SEL with 85. Trailing behind are Creator Technology, Nokia, Apple, and Blackberry. Samsung and LG are likely to have the most filings because they are the only companies on this list that manufacturers portable devices and displays. Flexible displays are a relatively new technological field and because of this, the majority of the publications have not gone on to grant yet. It remains to be seen how much legal coverage will be given to these companies. The requirements for protection may still be uncertain and this could lead to lawsuits down the road.
LG showed one of its 6 inch flexible prototypes in June of 2013 at the Society for information Display (SID). They then announced the release of the G Flex, a curved phone, shortly after CES in January 2014. The new and improved G Flex 2 would be released a year later at CES. In a private showroom at CES 2015, LG unveiled a prototype phone with a dual edge display, similar to the Galaxy S6 edge, which was released a few months later. In June 2015, at SID, LG released an 18 inch rollable display prototype at SID. LG has plans to make a 60 inch version by 2017. In July 2015, LG announced that it was investing $905 million into a 6th generation flexible OLED production line in South Korea. The project is said to finish in 2017 and will allow LG to meet the increasing demand for flexible displays in phones and wearable devices.
Originally a spin off from Philips Electronics, Polymer Vision was acquired by Wilstron Corp in 2009. The original Polymer Vision patent portfolio is now owned by the Netherlands company Creator Technology. Polymer Vision was trying to release a product called the readius which is essentially an E-reader with a 5 inch roll out display. Creator Technology may become a force in the flexible display industry, especially in regards to roll out displays. -reportedly-closes-polymer-vision/ 2ff7e9595c
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