foldable lcd display brands

They are easy to create and customizable, and foldable lcdds are available in a variety of sizes. Whether you are looking for wholesale foldable lcdds for retailers or customers who want to buy in bulk for a retail price or a retailer, Alibaba.com has a wide variety of foldable lcdds available from various sellers.

This year has seen no shortage of rollable display demos from manufacturers, and now Samsung Display is the latest company to show off new concepts for folding and sliding screens. SamMobile spotted the concepts being showcased as part of a virtual Display Week exhibition (if you forgot to mail out your Happy Display Week cards, there’s still time since it runs through Friday) including a “multi-foldable” mobile display and a large 17-inch folding screen.

The company calls its first concept S-foldable, with a bi-fold design that opens up to a maximum screen size of 7.2 inches. It’s similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 2 except, well, plus one fold. There’s also a sliding mobile display similar to the ill-fated rollable concept LG showed off earlier this year before leaving the smartphone space altogether.

Samsung Display is also showing two concepts for bigger panels, including a 17-inch foldable OLED that’s tablet-sized when folded and can function as a monitor when unfolded. Finally, there’s a more traditional-looking laptop display; it doesn’t fold or flex, but it does include an under-display camera — hopefully it’s better than the last one we used.

Samsung Display is a division of Samsung Electronics, and it produces OLED panels for use by Samsung and other consumer tech manufacturers. So while these concepts may end up in future Samsung products, it’s certainly not guaranteed. The company as a whole hasn’t been shy about embracing foldable technology, getting into the foldable device market early. It may have more company soon; display OEM TCL has shown off its own concepts and says it will bring one to market this year. Until then, we’ll be watching and filling out our foldable concept bingo cards.

Folding screens have become a common sight in recent years, thanks in large part to Samsung’s two lines of foldable phones, the Z Flip and Z Fold. As other manufacturers join in, foldable device prices are quickly going down, promising a new age of personal computing. But how do folding screens actually work?

Whether you’ve always been curious about how folding screens work or have yet to consider it, we’ll give you a crash course in foldable displays and the cool tech that makes them possible.

Simply put, millions of specks of color combine to form the images we see on screen. There are different ways to achieve this, resulting in the various displays you see out there, including LCD, OLED, and, more recently, micro-LED and mini-LED.

Then over the last decade, display manufacturers produced display substrates made of flexible plastic that can bend without breaking. Plastic-based displays made possible the creation of the first phones with curved displays, like the Galaxy Note Edge of 2014.

As technology advanced, display makers figured out ways to increase the amount of flex they could safely build into a screen. Crucially, they also solved the problem of durability, allowing screens to bend thousands of times without breaking. Eventually, this path led us to today’s folding screens, which can fold almost like a sheet of paper.

The flexible substrate is only part of the equation. Scientists and engineers had to solve ridiculously hard problems like manufacturing substrates that are light and flexible but can withstand years of mechanical stress; ensuring that all the bending and folding doesn’t affect image quality over time; creating an equally flexible protective layer for the screen; and making sure that all the other tech that goes into the display still works. When all this was done, other smart people had to devise ways to incorporate the flexible displays into folding phones while maintaining the insanely high standards we expect from our electronics. A very tough job indeed.

Before we look at the individual components of a foldable screen, it’s important to note that all folding screens you see on the market today are of the OLED variety. OLED screens do not have a backlight like LCDs — instead, the pixels themselves emit light when power is applied to them. Because of this, OLEDs can be made about 30% thinner and lighter than LCDs. Coupled with other benefits over LCD, OLED is the first choice for flexible screens, but flexible LCD displays do exist.

To understand how foldable OLED displays function, it’s helpful to visualize the display as a very thin (and probably not very tasty) layer cake. Each layer of this high-tech cake has a specific role. These layers are laminated together in a very thin package that’s fractions of a millimeter thick. Let’s go through them.

Substrate layer — Also called the board, this is the very base of the screen, which supports all the other layers. On a flexible display, the substrate is made of plastic or, less commonly, metal. Most flexible screen devices today use a substrate made of a polymer plastic called polyimide (PI). In addition to being flexible and insulating, polyimide features high mechanical strength and thermal stability.

TFT layer — Applied on top of the flexible substrate, the TFT (thin-film transistor) layer controls power delivery to each pixel. Think of it as a “power grid” that connects all the pixels in the display. On an OLED screen, unlike on LCD, each pixel can be controlled individually, allowing for high contrast rates and lower power consumption.

OLED layer — The light-emitting layer is made up of individual pixels, each of which comprises red, green, and blue subpixels. Each pixel can hit a certain color and luminosity by varying the amount of power its subpixels receive. In turn, pixels combine to form the image we see on the display. The OLED layer is made of several sub-layers, including a cathode, an anode, and a layer of organic light-emitting material sandwiched between them.

Folding screens can be of the in-folding or out-folding variety. On an in-folding display like the Galaxy Z Flip series, the display is hidden inside the device when folded, which helps with durability, but it does tend to create a slight crease on the screen. On an out-folding display (like the Huawei Mate XS 2), the display bends around the outside of the device when folded. That leaves it exposed to scratches, but it provides a crease-free aspect.

Not all flexible display devices fold. We’ve seen devices with rollable displays that roll up and disappear inside the device’s body. Examples include the Oppo X rollable phone or LG’s crazy OLED R rollable TV.

The display is a key aspect of how folding screens work, but it’s not the only one. The hinge may be just as important to the user experience. Manufacturers have poured a lot of resources into ensuring that hinges in their foldable products work smoothly and consistently, have the right amount of “snap,” and provide a smooth surface for the display to sit on.

Another key factor is durability. By definition, foldable screens feature moving parts, which opens up the possibility of water, dust, and other contaminants entering the device. Indeed, we’ve seen issues with debris getting lodged below the screen on some devices, which ruins the user experience and can damage the screen.

Numerous manufacturers have already released or at least teased foldable screen products, including phones, laptops, and even TVs. It’s easy to envision a future where tablets, wearables, gaming consoles, and even home appliances feature screens that bend. Innovation will also come from stretchable, wearable, and even skin-embeddable displays. In the meantime, as more resources are invested in the technology, folding screens will only get better.

3In contrast to the standard flat screen displays used in several electrical gadgets, a flexible display or bendable display is an electronic visual display manufactured by flexible display brands. Several consumer electronics firms have expressed enthusiasm in using this display technologies in e-readers, smart phones, and other electronic goods in recent times. Such screens may be rolled up like a scroll without distorting the image or text. Electronic ink, Gyricon, Organic LCD, and OLED are among the technologies used to create a bendable display.

With the flat panel screen having been extensively used for more than 40 years, many desirable advances in display technology have been made, with the goal of creating lighter, thinner products that are simpler to carry and store. Scientists and engineers think that flexible flat panel display innovation has a large commercial possibility in the future, thanks to recent advancements in flexible display technique.

Flexible displays offered by the flexible display brands are still somewhat costly as contrasted to their rigid equivalents, and visual quality is frequently sacrificed. When the screen is bent at a specific angle, this is extremely evident. However, in comparison to standard displays, flexible screens have a shorter lifespan.

Current models should endure a long time for the majority of users’ demands. However, most flexible display brands still require tackling this issue, particularly given the rising pricing of flexible display devices.

views itself as a supplier of intelligent vertical systems underpinned by premium display technology as an optoelectronics specialist. The company’s vast expertise, innovative skills, and corporate sustainability set it apart and set it out from the competition.

In terms of display as a networking and communication interface, AUO offers a wide range of alternatives in retail, healthcare, transport, and other industries, with the goal of forming eco-systems with partnerships across all sectors and ushering the world into a new smarter lifestyle.

Through its novel panel-centric and vertical integration operation style,unifies the product production supply chain and offers clients with full solutions. Innolux has a clear emphasis on handling technology and elements, as well as superior administration skills, in addition to a solid TFT-LCD basis and manufacturing quality. Innolux develops standards, sets market trends, and offers a comprehensive product portfolio and services to their suppliers’ clients in the data and electronic goods industries. ​

Japan Display Incorporateddevelops, designs, manufactures, and sells displays where a user interface is required to transmit a large amount of data in a short amount of time and to a worldwide market. They design engaging settings that go above and beyond the ordinary, enrich people’s lives, and stir their hearts.

LG Displayis the world’s top inventor of display technologies, comprising TFT-LCD and OLED screens, as well as the worldwide leader in OLED lighting. The firm makes display screens in a variety of dimensions and standards for usage in televisions, laptop computers, desktop workstations, and other purposes, such as tablets and mobile phones. It also manufactures OLED light screens for the automobile and interior decorating industries.

Visionoxis the globe’s renowned provider of sophisticated display systems that are both integrated and interactive. The company’s objective is to lead China’s OLED industry via technical innovation” and its ambition is to “push limits to enrich the experience of eyesight.

FlexEnable’s glass-free organic LCD (OLCD) delivers high-brightness, long lifetime flexible displays that are low cost and scalable to large areas, while also being thin, lightweight and shatterproof.

OLCD is a plastic display technology with full colour and video-rate capability. It enables product companies to create striking designs and realise novel use cases by merging the display into the product design rather than accommodating it by the design.

Unlike flexible OLED displays, which are predominantly adopted in flagship smartphones and smartwatches, OLCD opens up the use of flexible displays to a wider range of mass-market applications. It has several attributes that make it better suited than flexible OLED to applications across large-area consumer electronics, smart home appliances, automotive, notebooks and tablets, and digital signage.

OLCD can be conformed and wrapped around surfaces and cut into non-rectangular shapes during the production process. Holes can be also added to fit around the functional design of the system – for example around knobs and switches.

As with glass-based LCD, the lifetime of OLCD is independent of the display brightness, because it is achieved through transmission of a separate light source (the backlight), rather than emission of its own light. For example OLCD can be made ultra-bright for viewing in daylight conditions without affecting the display lifetime – an important requirement for vehicle surface-integrated displays.

OLCD is the lowest cost flexible display technology – it is three to four times lower cost that flexible OLED today. This is because it makes use of existing display factories and supply chain and deploys a low temperature process that results in low manufacturing costs and high yield.

Unlike other flexible display approaches, OLCD is naturally scalable to large sizes. It can be made as small or as large as the manufacturing equipment used for flat panel displays allows.

The flexibility of OLCD allows an ultra-narrow bezel to be implemented by folding down the borders behind the display. This brings huge value in applications like notebooks and tablets where borderless means bigger displays for the same sized device. The bezel size allowed by OLCD is independent of the display size or resolution. In addition, OLCD can make a notebook up to 100g lighter and 0.5mm thinner.

OLCD is the key to the fabrication of ultra-high contrast dual cell displays with true pixel level dimming, offering OLED-like performance at a fraction of the cost. The extremely thin OLCD substrate brings advantages in cost, viewing angle and module thickness compared to glass displays. At the same time OLCD retains the flexibility required for applications such as surface-integrated automotive displays.

Due to its unique properties, OLCD has the potential to transform how and where displays are used in products. The videos below give a glimpse into this innovative technology.

OLCD brings the benefits of being thin, light, shatterproof and conformable, while offering the same quality and performance as traditional glass LCDs. The mechanical advantages of plastic OLCD over glass LCD are further enhanced by the technology’s excellent optical performance, much of which originates from the extreme thinness of plastic TAC substrates compared to glass.

Foldable OLED displays can be bent by the user. These innovative displays enable new form factors, such as - such as phones that open into tablets, smart bands that open into smartphones and laptops with large displays. In 2019 the first foldable smartphones were launched, and after a rocky start, device markers are now introducing new devices to market as analysts expect increased adoption in the future.

In 2019 Samsung finally introduced the first device, the Galaxy Fold - which had a problematic launch. Since then Samsung followed up with several new foldable phones, for example the Galaxy Z Fold 2 which sports an internal foldable display at 7.6" 1768x2208 HDR10+ 120Hz Dynamic AMOLED and also a larger 6.23" 816x2260 Super AMOLED cover display. Samsung also launched the clamshell-style Galaxy Z Flip.

Several companies offer foldable phones besides Samsung, including Motorola, Huawei and others. Huawei for example launched the Mate X2 in 2021, which features an inside-folding AMOLED display, a 8-inch 90Hz 2480 x 2200 one. There is also an external 6.45-inch 1160 x 2700 90Hz (240Hz touch sampling rate) AMOLED display.

Foldable OLED laptops is another promising market segment. In 2021 Lenovo started shipping the $2,499 foldable ThinkPad X1 Fold laptop, with its 13.3" 2048x1536 foldable OLED display (produced by LG Display). Hopefully more companies will follow suit and we"ll see more such devices on the market soon.

If you want to learn more about the foldable OLED technology, industry and market, check out ourWhy flexible displays and lighting panels are so exciting

Foldable LED Curtain Display Screen, 15mm super slim and light in Weight availble for indoor and outdoor use. Easy for installation allow for quick splicing to get a large LED display.

Foldable LED Curtain,An innovative and ideal LED display solution for stage LED display, suppermarket vertically-hung scroll LED display, outdoor concert etc.

With Mobile LED Curtain, Each set of theLED Curtainis a complete display system, which can build the stage effect you want at any time. The integrated design of mobile LED curtain makes the use and transportation more convenient. The perfect display effect greatly expands our recognition of the LED display screen.

Whether indoor or outdoor LED Display Sign, the viewing distance of P 3.9/P 7.8 makes the picture more realistic. Unit LED display screen size: 300*300 cm; 250*250cm; 192*192cm.IndependentLED Display Signallows more choice of display effect.

The foldable led screen design is a new invention which breaks through the design concept of the traditional led cabinet. Without any tool，you can perform 360 degree folding.

2 SQM and 6 SQM, out-of-box movable LED Poster Display. Foldable LED display screen that  can put-in one airflight box, ideal for temporary advertisement and festivity.

Each LED Poster Box has its own controller system and power system. Many boxes of LED poster can combine together, no frame, and provide an display as seamless as possbile.

We are so dependent on screens and displays these days, even just for looking at content. Most of the things we need to see every day are often displayed on computer monitors, TVs, and our phones. With more content and more data coming into our lives, it’s almost like we can’t have enough screens around us. In the somewhat distant future, every surface might indeed have a display, an interactive display even, but there are still plenty of technological and psychological hurdles before we get there. In the meantime, Samsung is more than happy to fill our world today with screens that can fold, roll, or even slide in order to give us as much display real estate as we need without forcing us to carry large backpacks or briefcases just to fit a 12-inch tablet.

It isn’t time yet for a new foldable phone, but it’s Display Week 2022 in sunny San Jose, California, and Samsung isn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to show off what it has been cooking behind closed doors. Then again, some of these aren’t particularly new to our eyes, given how they’ve been prefigured by patents and even revealed by Samsung a few months ago. And given how these are already on display for the public to see, they’re more likely to arrive in the next few years rather than the next decades.

Foldable phones are no longer alien to us now, but they’re still novel enough to be seen with some suspicion and apprehension. As marvelous as these may be from an engineering point of view, we’ve barely scratched the surface. Earlier this year, Samsung showed off its Flex G and Flex S foldable screens in action, and this week it’s reminding everyone who will listen to what these flexible displays can offer, presuming they actually become products.

The Flex G, for example, can either be a large screen that folds down twice into a more bag-friendly form, or it could be a makeshift laptop, with one-third of the screen as the keyboard and the other two-thirds for the display. The Flex S, on the other hand, can fold in opposite directions, forming a Z or S shape, and it’s easy enough to imagine it as a phone that transforms into a true tablet or vice versa. Both designs have been spotted before, both in patents and in prototypes, but Samsung might be more confident now to move forward and bring these displays to commercial products.

The newest member of its gallery, however, is its “slidable” screens. Technically a combination of a sliding mechanism and a rollable display, this technology allows a device to expand its screen space without drastically changing the form of the device. A phone, for example, can remain a phone while its top slide out to show a bit more content. Given how tall smartphones are these days, that’s not exactly a big leap in form factors.

Similarly, an 8.1-inch tablet that suddenly has its sides slide out to expand to a 12.4-inch screen won’t drastically change the way you use the device. You just have more space for content or possibly more apps side-by-side. This kind of shape-shifting device might be a bit more approachable to consumers compared to foldables since it doesn’t require them to switch between modes or mindsets. Whether these are more robust than folding screens, however, remains to be seen.

Truth be told, only a small fraction of today’s smartphone-using population has embraced foldables. There are a variety of reasons to hold off from those, with durability and price being the strongest deterrents. Until Samsung and other manufacturers have sufficiently addressed those concerns, foldables, rollables, slidables, and other -able displays will remain novelties and luxuries that could eventually die off as fads.

Of course, Samsung hasn’t completely forgotten about common people and has a few of its more normal but more usable innovations also on display, no pun intended. Amusingly, its latest QD-Display technology also stands as a testament to how technology, marketing, and even design go back and forth like a pendulum. The display market swings between LCD and OLED technologies every so often, sometimes with different marketing names and tweaks like MicroLED and Quantum Dots, in an attempt to get buyers’ attention and money. Samsung’s QD-Display TVs and monitors are just about to roll out to the public, so we’ll see soon enough what that buzz is all about.

A flexible display or rollable display is an electronic visual display which is flexible in nature, as opposed to the traditional flat screen displays used in most electronic devices.e-readers, mobile phones and other consumer electronics. Such screens can be rolled up like a scroll without the image or text being distorted.electronic ink, Gyricon, Organic LCD, and OLED.

Electronic paper displays which can be rolled up have been developed by E Ink. At CES 2006, Philips showed a rollable display prototype, with a screen capable of retaining an image for several months without electricity.pixel rollable display based on E Ink’s electrophoretic technology.flexible organic light-emitting diode displays have been demonstrated.electronic paper wristwatch. A rollable display is an important part of the development of the roll-away computer.

With the flat panel display having already been widely used more than 40 years, there have been many desired changes in the display technology, focusing on developing a lighter, thinner product that was easier to carry and store. Through the development of rollable displays in recent years, scientists and engineers agree that flexible flat panel display technology has huge market potential in the future.

Flexible electronic paper (e-paper) based displays were the first flexible displays conceptualized and prototyped. Though this form of flexible displays has a long history and were attempted by many companies, it is only recently that this technology began to see commercial implementations slated for mass production to be used in consumer electronic devices.

The concept of developing a flexible display was first put forth by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Company). In 1974, Nicholas K. Sheridon, a PARC employee, made a major breakthrough in flexible display technology and produced the first flexible e-paper display. Dubbed Gyricon, this new display technology was designed to mimic the properties of paper, but married with the capacity to display dynamic digital images. Sheridon envisioned the advent of paperless offices and sought commercial applications for Gyricon.

In 2005, Arizona State University opened a 250,000 square foot facility dedicated to flexible display research named the ASU Flexible Display Center (FDC). ASU received $43.7 million from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) towards the development of this research facility in February 2004.demonstration later that year.Hewlett Packard demonstrated a prototype flexible e-paper from the Flexible Display Center at the university.

Between 2004–2008, ASU developed its first small-scale flexible displays.U.S. Army funds ASU’s development of the flexible display, the center’s focus is on commercial applications.

This company develops and manufactures monochrome plastic flexible displays in various sizes based on its proprietary organic thin film transistor (OTFT) technology. They have also demonstrated their ability to produce colour displays with this technology, however they are currently not capable of manufacturing them on a large scale.Dresden, Germany, which was the first factory of its kind to be built – dedicated to the high volume manufacture of organic electronics.plastic and do not contain glass. They are also lighter and thinner than glass-based displays and low-power. Applications of this flexible display technology include signage,wristwatches and wearable devices

In 2004, a team led by Prof. Roel Vertegaal at Queen"s University"s Human Media Lab in Canada developed PaperWindows,Organic User Interface. Since full-colour, US Letter-sized displays were not available at the time, PaperWindows deployed a form of active projection mapping of computer windows on real paper documents that worked together as one computer through 3D tracking. At a lecture to the Gyricon and Human-Computer Interaction teams at Xerox PARC on 4 May 2007, Prof. Vertegaal publicly introduced the term Organic User Interface (OUI) as a means of describing the implications of non-flat display technologies on user interfaces of the future: paper computers, flexible form factors for computing devices, but also encompassing rigid display objects of any shape, with wrap-around, skin-like displays. The lecture was published a year later as part of a special issue on Organic User InterfacesCommunications of the ACM. In May 2010, the Human Media Lab partnered with ASU"s Flexible Display Center to produce PaperPhone,MorePhone

Research and development into flexible OLED displays largely began in the late 2000s with the main intentions of implementing this technology in mobile devices. However, this technology has recently made an appearance, to a moderate extent, in consumer television displays as well.

Nokia first conceptualized the application of flexible OLED displays in mobile phone with the Nokia Morph concept mobile phone. Released to the press in February 2008, the Morph concept was project Nokia had co-developed with the University of Cambridge.nanotechnology, it pioneered the concept of utilizing a flexible video display in a consumer electronics device.London, alongside Nokia’s new range of Windows Phone 7 devices.

Sony Electronics expressed interest for research and development towards a flexible display video display since 2005.RIKEN (the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), Sony promised to commercialize this technology in TVs and cellphones sometime around 2010.TFT-driven OLED display.

In January 2013, Samsung exposed its brand new, unnamed product during the company"s keynote address at CES in Las Vegas. Brian Berkeley, the senior vice president of Samsung"s display lab in San Jose, California had announced the development of flexible displays. He said "the technology will let the company"s partners make bendable, rollable, and foldable displays," and he demonstrated how the new phone can be rollable and flexible during his speech.

During Samsung"s CES 2013 keynote presentation, two prototype mobile devices codenamed "Youm" that incorporated the flexible AMOLED display technology were shown to the public.OLED screen giving this phone deeper blacks and a higher overall contrast ratio with better power efficiency than traditional LCD displays.LCD displays. Samsung stated that "Youm" panels will be seen in the market in a short time and production will commence in 2013.

Samsung subsequently released the Galaxy Round, a smartphone with an inward curving screen and body, in October 2013.Galaxy Note Edge released in 2014.Galaxy S series with the release of the Galaxy S6 Edge, a variant of the S6 model with a screen sloped over both sides of the device.foldable smartphone prototype, which was subsequently revealed in February 2019 as the Galaxy Fold.

The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University announced a continued effort in forwarding flexible displays in 2012.Army Research Lab scientists, ASU announced that it has successfully manufactured the world"s largest flexible OLED display using thin-film transistor (TFTs) technology.

In January 2019, Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi showed a foldable smartphone prototype.Xiaomi demoed the device in a video on the Weibo social network. The device features a large foldable display that curves 180 degrees inwards on two sides. The tablet turns into a smartphone, with a screen diagonal of 4,5 inch, adjusting the user interface on the fly.

Flexible displays have many advantages over glass: better durability, lighter weight, thinner as plastic, and can be perfectly curved and used in many devices.glass and rollable display is that the display area of a rollable display can be bigger than the device itself; If a flexible device measuring, for example, 5 inches in diagonal and a roll of 7.5mm, it can be stored in a device smaller than the screen itself and close to 15mm in thickness.

Flexible screens can open the doors to novel and alternative authentication schemes by emphasizing the interaction between the user and the touch screen. In “Bend Passwords: Using Gestures to Authenticate on Flexible Devices,” the authors introduce a new method called Bend Passwords where users perform bending gestures and deform the touch screen to unlock the phone. Their work and research points to Bend Passwords possibly becoming a new way to keep smartphones secure alongside the popularization of flexible displays.

Flexible displays using electronic paper technology commonly use Electrophoretic or Electrowetting technologies. However, each type of flexible electronic paper vary in specification due to different implementation techniques by different companies.

The flexible electronic paper display technology co-developed by Arizona State University and HP employs a manufacturing process developed by HP Labs called Self-Aligned Imprint Lithography (SAIL).

The flexible electronic paper display announced by AUO is unique as it is the only solar powered variant. A separate rechargeable battery is also attached when solar charging is unavailable.

Many of the e-paper based flexible displays are based on OLED technology and its variants. Though this technology is relatively new in comparison with e-paper based flexible displays, implementation of OLED flexible displays saw considerable growth in the last few years.

In May 2011, Human Media Lab at Queen"s University in Canada introduced PaperPhone, the first flexible smartphone, in partnership with the Arizona State University Flexible Display Center.

At CES 2013, Samsung showcased the two handsets which incorporates AMOLED flexible display technology during its keynote presentation, the Youm and an unnamed Windows Phone 8 prototype device.Galaxy Note Edge,Samsung Galaxy S series devices.

LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics both introduced curved OLED televisions with a curved display at CES 2013 hours apart from each other.The Verge noted the subtle curve on 55" Samsung OLED TV allowed it to have a "more panoramic, more immersive viewing experience, and actually improves viewing angles from the side."

Crawford, Gregory P., ed. (2005). Flexible flat panel displays (Reprinted with corrections. ed.). Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons. p. 2. ISBN 978-0470870488.

Thryft, Ann R. (7 June 2012). "All-Plastic Electronics Power Flexible Color Display". Design News. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 24 April 2013.

Lahey, Byron; Girouard, Audrey; Burleson, Winslow and Vertegaal, Roel (May 2011). PaperPhone: Understanding the Use of Bend Gestures in Mobile Devices with Flexible Electronic Paper Displays, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Pages 1303–1312.

Lee, Reuben (10 January 2013). "Samsung shows off flexible display phones at CES keynote". CNET. Archived from the original on 17 February 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.

Sasaoka, Tatsuya; Sekiya, Mitsunobu; Yumoto, Akira; Yamada, Jiro; Hirano, Takashi; Iwase, Yuichi; Yamada, Takao; Ishibashi, Tadashi; Mori, Takao; Asano, Mitsuru; Tamura, Shinichiro; Urabe, Tetsuo (1 January 2001). "24.4L: Late-News Paper: A 13.0-inch AM-OLED Display with Top Emitting Structure and Adaptive Current Mode Programmed Pixel Circuit (TAC)". SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers. 32 (1): 384. doi:10.1889/1.1831876. S2CID 59976823.

Drzaic, P.; Comiskey, B.; Albert, J. D.; Zhang, L.; Loxley, A.; Feeney, R.; Jacobson, J. (1 January 1998). "44.3L: A Printed and Rollable Bistable Electronic Display". SID Symposium Digest of Technical Papers. 29 (1): 1131. doi:10.1889/1.1833686. S2CID 135723096.

Lowensohn, Josh (9 January 2013). "Eyes-on: Samsung"s Youm flexible-display tech at CES 2013". CNET. Archived from the original on 26 November 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.

During the summer it was my pleasure to work with two interns from local universities. As part of their instruction I asked each of them to pick a topic of their choice, and to generate a patent landscape report on the area. For each project the interns were asked to research the technical aspects of their topic, suggest a patent search strategy for identifying documents, reduce their collections to remove family duplicates, cleanup various data fields, categorize the collection into a variety of facets, conduct relevant analytics on the data, and finally generate both a written report and a PowerPoint presentation to summarize their results. I am excited to publish the first of these projects produced by Riley Collins who did his project on Flexible Electronic Displays. So without further ado here"s Riley"s project:

Unlike traditional flat panel displays OLEDs, one of the more popular types of flexible electronic displays are solid-state devices composed of thin films of organic molecules that create light with the application of electricity. OLEDs can provide brighter, crisper displays on electronic devices and use less power than conventional light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or liquid crystal displays (LCDs) used according to HowStuffWorks.com.  Using glass substrates, flexible technology OLED‘s utilizes plastic substrates, which allow the display to bend and twist. Flexible OLED‘s only need one sheet of substrate while LCD‘s require two and a separate backlight. Because of this, OLED‘s are able to be paper thin and lightweight, a perfect candidate for mobile phones and wearable electronics. The challenge for manufacturers currently is allowing the device to be repeatedly deformed while keeping the internals intact. Currently, electronic flexible displays are being used to make curved phones and televisions. This is possible because while the display may be “flexible”, the internal components remain fixed. Figure 1 shows a diagram of the layers in different types of displays. Samsung refers to their flexible OLED display as FAMOLED.

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.

As flexible displays become cheaper to manufacture we will likely see new functions of this technology. While curved devices are the first to hit the market, recent patent filings by top display manufacturers suggest that foldable, bendable, and rollable devices are not that far away. Foldable displays will likely come first to accommodate the growing demand for larger displays and the need for portability. As the wearable device market grows, bendable displays could be used to wraparound an individual’s wrist. Finally, displays that can be rolled up may be used in televisions and eventually a tubular device with a retractable roll out display.

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.

Demand for flexible displays is on the verge of a sharp increase. According to a new IHS report, “Global Flexible Display Technology and Market Forecast” (Figure 2 above). It is estimated that the flexible display market will grow to $1.1 billion in 2015 and will continue to develop at rate of 226% to $42 billion by the end of 2020. Units sold are projected to rise from 3.2 million in 2013 to 792 million in 2020. This means that in 2020, flexible display market will have captured 13% of the total display market. Even though smartphones with flexible displays have not yet achieved their desired potential, it is probable that they will soon capture the market by storm.

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:

OLEDA family reduction was conducted, but all unique US application numbers were retained. Foreign inventions were reduced to one invention per extended family. This list of CPC codes produced 2156 documents. After manually sorting the files, 177 were on E-Paper, and 1218 were Flexible OLED/LCD technologies. Many of the relevant documents included the key words flex*, deform, roll*, curve, bend* or bent, fold*, and a flexible or plastic substrate.

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.

When looking at the patent filings by type, the display component, electronic device, and display panel publications all increased sharply after 2013. Display panel filings surpassed electronic device filings in 2014/2015. Samsung is the clear leader in flexible display panel with 95 publications in 2014/2015 alone. Comparatively, LG and SEL both produced slightly more than 30 in this same time. The story is very similar for the display components except instead of SEL, Nokia trails slightly behind LG. The device patents have increased considerably since 2013 with Samsung going from 11 to 49, LG from 5 to 32, and Apple from 4 to 19. Blackberry has also increased their device patents steadily. The findings suggest that devices are already being specially made utilizing this new display technology. Companies such as Apple and Nokia who have few patents on the flexible display are perhaps exploring future licensing deals if they plan on releasing a device that contains a flexible display.

Samsung, SEL, Creator Technology, and Philips have most of their filings on the display, while LG, Nokia, Apple, Blackberry, Pantech, and Motorola have more patents on a device that uses a flexible display. Some other display-oriented companies include Sony, Sharp, ITRI, Toshiba, Universal Display Corporation, Fujifilm, Kodak, AU Optronics, and Boe Technology. To emphasize how much of a force the top two companies in this landscape are, a chart is included of Samsung and LG combined vs. all other companies. In 2014/2015 the top two combined surpassed all remaining companies in number of publications with 276 vs. 248. This shows the push that the leading display manufacturers are making to protect their intellectual property before this technology is mass-produced.

Charts and graphs associated with these analysis as well as a few other views on the data can be found in a PowerPoint presentation summarizing this research. The presentation can be downloaded by clicking on the following link: Flexible Electonic Displays Patent Analysis.

In January 2013 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Samsung showcased prototypes of their flexible YOUM brand displays. In October of 2013, they released their first product using a flexible display. It appears that Samsung abandoned the YOUM branding because the Galaxy Round now uses a Flexible Super AMOLED display (FAMOLED). The Korean company then released the Galaxy note edge in September 2013. The note edge utilizes the curve to display information on the side of the display. Samsung’s latest installment of a flexible display device was the Galaxy S6 Edge in March 2015. The S6 differentiates itself from the note edge because it has two curved edges. Samsung announced in August of 2015 that they will be investing $3 billion to expand their OLED plant in Vietnam.

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.

Nokia and SEL have released a two 5.9 inch foldable OLED prototypes at SID 2014. One of which folds like a book and the other with a tri-fold design. With Nokia and SEL partnering together, a functional foldable device may be released in the near future. http://news.oled-display.net/nokia-showcase-three-fold-oled-displays/

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. http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/03/wistron-reportedly-closes-polymer-vision/

Boe Technology has recently created a prototype 9.55 inch flexible display that can be rolled into a tube, they have also created a 55 inch UHD flexible AMOLED display, the largest of its kind. Boe Technology also has an ongoing partnership with Universal Display Corporation. http://company.boe.com/portal/en/chuangxinkeji/boechuangxin/wenzhangxiangqing/dynamic/pecbwd264.html

ITRI is using its FlexUpTM technology to create foldable and rollable AMOLED panels. They displayed some of their latest innovations in August, 2015 at Touch Taiwan. https://www.itri.org.tw/eng/Content/NewsLetter/contents.aspx?&SiteID=1&MmmID=617731531241750114&SSize=10&SYear=2015&Keyword=&MSID=654530737004101325

There are still challenges to overcome before truly flexible devices hit the market, as the machinery behind the display is not meant to be bent. While plastic has its advantages, it is not as good as glass when it comes to encapsulating the thin-film-transistor and other components from moisture, oxygen, and other unwanted particles. Phone technology need to become tough enough to handle the stress of daily flexing over an extended period of time. Another barrier of a flexible device is the battery. Batteries are typically rigid in nature and until these batteries can be manipulated to flex, the notion of a bendable phone is unlikely. Similar to the battery, the silicon circuit board and its components are also not malleable. Device manufacturers will have to find cost effective alternatives to these problems before these new gadgets hit the shelves.

Samsung and LG are likely to be the first manufacturers of the next generation of flexible display devices. They have both proven that they have the expertise to create flexible display devices, as evidenced by the S6 edge and G Flex2. Nokia, Apple, and Blackberry are likely the next manufacturers to produce a flexible device based on their elevated number of patents.  However, they will likely have to license the display technology in order to incorporate their devices. There is currently a need for lighter and thinner devices that are extremely portable and durable, a flexible device that can change its form for convenience appears to be the solution. It is simply a matter of time before manufacturers cross these last barriers and release a new wave of flexible devices that will flood the market.

Foldable displays are one of the newest and most innovative smartphone technologies that have gained global fame over the past few years. The technology allows users to experience an extended screen size without losing the portability feature of a smaller phone. These smartphones offer users larger screens that can be folded into a more compact form. The Royole Flexpai, launched in 2018, was the world’s first commercially available foldable smartphone. Later on, other brands like Samsung, Motorola and Huawei have followed suit in developing this form factor into their own models. Here we will discuss how the foldable smartphone display technology works.

Smartphone displays are usually made up of glass, which is mostly inflexible. However, foldable displays are now possible for the Flexible Display technology. Organic Light Emitting Diode or OLED displays are made up of organic materials that emit light when electricity is passed through them. This technology is built around OLED screens as they don’t require backlights to function. So, these displays can be made so thin that they become flexible, forming the base for flexible screens.

Tech giants like Apple and Samsung have been using this technology for a long time, but earlier the technology was only used to give the devices curved edges. Flexible displays can be found in old smartphones like -- iPhone X and the Samsung Galaxy Edge series. This technology has now evolved a lot and has grown from just allowing screens to have curved edges into making screens that can be actually folded.

All first-generation foldable screens were made of plastic polymers as glass is very rigid and it cracks when it is bent. Manufacturers initially used polymers as it is lightweight and flexible, but this material was rejected as it was more vulnerable to scratches and marks, compared to displays made of glass.

Samsung released the Galaxy Z Flip in 2020 and called it “a leap from polymer screens to ultra-thin glass technology”. Although the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has a soft, scratchable plastic layer on top, the main component of the display is glass.

Portability of large displays:Smartphone users can now use their devices to perform tasks that were earlier possible only with computers. It is almost impossible to differentiate what a smartphone is supposed to be used for and what it’s not. This trend is the inspiration behind the introduction of tablets as well as phones with larger screen sizes. The foldable display technology has fuelled this into an even tougher debate. Previously, users had to go for a big device if they wanted a larger display. But with the foldable screen technology, users can now get larger screens without sacrificing the portability of their devices.

Ease of multitasking:Foldable smartphones can take multitasking to a new level as these devices allow users to run three screens simultaneously. The large screen size of these devices also ensures that users don’t need to squint their eyes to see on-screen information. This is something that most users probably need to do while multitasking on a traditional smartphone. It can be a game-changer for consumers who use their smartphones for work as they will be able to run three apps at a go on a tablet-sized screen. For instance, you can attend a live meeting on one app while taking notes on another app at the same time.

Better image quality:Foldable smartphone displays are built around OLED screens which makes their image quality better than most smartphones that are available today. Flexible OLED displays offer higher brightness, better contrast, faster refresh rates and lower power consumption, compared to a device that features an LCD screen of the same size.

Screen Protection: Most foldable phones that are available on the market fold inwards which keeps the screen covered when folded. The casing bears the brunt of any accidental impacts, while the screen stays protected.

Affordability: There are traditional smartphones or tablets that are available with similar features and are less expensive compared to foldable devices. The Samsung Galaxy Fold was launched at a price of around Rs 1,50,000, whereas traditional smartphones with similar specifications are available at prices lower than half of that price.

Regular wear-and-tear: The foldable displays tend to wear away with frequent folding and unfolding of these devices. Moreover, the number of folds a foldable smartphone can withstand before giving in is also not standardised among the major players of the industry. CNET conducted a test to check the number of folds devices can take and found out that the Samsung Galaxy Fold lasted 120,000 rounds of folding before giving up, while the Motorola Razr was able to withstand only 27,000 folds.

Heavier devices: Smartphone users tend to opt for devices that are more portable. When portability is concerned, the thickness and weight of devices should also be considered. Foldable smartphone screens fold over themselves making the device heavier to carry around.

Foldable smartphone displays might be exciting and one of the biggest innovations in smartphone manufacturing, but there are still some doubts about this display technology becoming mainstream. Critics have pointed out its high prices and the tendency to fail after repeated folding as the primary drawbacks.

As we have seen earlier, history has repeatedly proven that technology gets better and cheaper with time. As the technology behind foldable smartphone displays gets better, users can expect the cost of these devices to come down.

Brea, California (September 27, 2022) – ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, introduces the industry-first 135” All-in-One Direct View LED Display Solution Kit with a foldable screen. The foldable design significantly reduces the packaging size by nearly 50%, compared to the previous generation, offering greater convenience for transportation. With pre-assembled systems and a built-in motorized stand, this solution kit is ready for instant use, perfect for events, exhibitions, or any short-term usage.

"In advancing our All-in-One LED Display Solution Kit series, we’ve taken the latest generation to new heights by extending the foldable concept to the extra-large display, adding tremendous convenience for various business uses," said Dean Tsai, General Manager of Projector & LED Display Business Unit at ViewSonic. “With a folding 135” large screen, the new solution kit delivers stunning audiovisuals with greater mobility and lowered shipping cost. It can be widely used in the rental business, hospitality, or other industries. By improving the flexibility of our solution, we hope to assist customers to achieve their business goals.“

The new All-in-One LED Display Solution Kit is optimized for better mobility and convenience in delivery. Thanks to the folding feature, the 135” LED display can easily fit into both traditional freight elevators and large passenger elevators. The packaging size of the movable flight case is also reduced by almost 50% compared to its previous generation, reducing the shipping cost significantly.

The solution kit is pre-assembled with LED modules, cabinets, a system control box, and a motorized floor stand, all fitting into a moveable flight case. Once unboxed, the solution kit can be set up in just 10 minutes, saving time and effort for installation. Moreover, with just a press of the control buttons, the stand height can be adjusted to a maximum range of 65 cm effortlessly, and three heights can be set as preferences for convenient recurring use. With the 360° silent wheels, the display can be moved freely from one place to another.

The 135” Direct View LED Display Solution Kit offers an engaging seamless visual experience. The 1080p Full HD screen, which has 5mm frameless edges, delivers vivid ultra-large visuals without image grids, and its adjustable brightness of up to 600 nits allows the image to be seen clearly at any time.

The All-in-One LED Display Solution Kit is designed with a user-centric perspective in mind, integrating the LED modules, image stitching, power supply, and control systems into one device, offering intuitive installation and operation. It also boasts worry-free maintenance by supporting swappable modules, control systems, and full-front servicing using an electric vacuum suction tool.

For real-time content sharing, the new solution kit comes with Wi-Fi connectivity to cast from mobile devices intuitively. It also supports multi-content display functions - Picture-in-Picture mode can display two different contents on the main screen and in an inset window; Picture-by-Picture mode allows up to four different inputs on one screen simultaneously. These modes bring flexible display applications during demonstrations in exhibitions, video conferences, or online collaborations.