While the flexible AMOLED display market included equal volumes of flat and curved displays in 2017, foldable displays weren’t expected to be in mass production until a few years later, according to IHS Markit’s David Hsieh.
However, with flexible displays making rapid inroads into the flagship smartphone display market, panel makers showed increasing willingness to supply differentiated products. Innovative form factors would then help to boost profit margins from the sale of premium products.
Fast-forward to this year, and it appears that the first smartphones with foldable AMOLED displays are expected to be introduced before the end of the year.
A foldable display can be tightly folded at 180º on top of itself. Samsung Display, which has demonstrated single and dual-foldable AMOLED displays since 2013, will be mass-producing its first foldable AMOLED displays for Samsung Electronics later this year.
Similarly, China’s BOE has developed a prototype of a 7.56″ 2048 × 1536 foldable AMOLED display with a 5 mm bending radius, which reliably bends 100,000 times without breaking. BOE is looking to supply foldable AMOLED displays to Huawei this year.
Meanwhile, AUO from Taiwan has developed a 5″ 1280 × 720 AMOLED display, with a 4 mm bi-directional bending radius. The company says it will bend more than 1.5 million times without breaking. It includes an integrated touch sensor and 4H cover film. At present, smartphone brands are focused on increasing display size and ratio to maximise smartphone usability.
The new foldable displays will be used primarily in larger-sized premium mobile devices, with transformable displays that combine the usability of smartphones and tablets. However, one barrier to consumer adoption could be the higher prices involved because of a more intricate production process.
For their part, smartphone brands and OEMs may also have to contend with the vagaries of an innovative design they’re peddling when it comes to stimulating end-user purchase and replacement. There are many different form factors for foldable displays, designated by terms such as in-folding, out-folding, two-dimensional folding with a G or Z shape, and so on.
The most likely scenario is a big-screen foldable portable device to replace tablet and notebook PCs, while still carrying phone functions. Numerous PC makers are already drafting ideas for a switchable foldable clamshell device, with one piece of the flexible OLED panel enlarging the mechanism performed on the screen, such as a virtual keyboard, long-portrait document viewing and multiple-window website browsing.
Analyst Comment
As we reported on from SID, several companies have developed a key enabling component for flexible display which is a flexible coating film that can resist physical damage. (BR)
