During
the mid-2000s, a designer named Tamer Nakisci designed concept phones. The
phone was named as Nokia 888 and won Nokia Nenelux design Award. The specialty
of the phone was that it can be worn on wrist as a watch and when flattened it
worked as a mobile phone. Though the phone never took eventual form, today we
are moving towards that reality.
Over
these years, a number of designers displayed their concept phones in electronic
shows and exhibitions. Recently, it appears that days are not too far when
devices with flexible displays will be a reality. Conceptually, these phones
can be worn as a bracelet and can also work as phones.
All
across the world, scientists and researchers are working to improve the form
factor and designs of smartphones with new flexible displays. With the flexible
displays around the corner, the old collection of phones that include flip
phones, slider phones, and swivel phones are losing their existence. With this
technology, mobile phone manufacturing and custom electronic devicemanufacturing in India is changing itself to bring more new and creative form
factors. Gradually, the flexible electronic displays will lead to a future with
full colour, ultra-flexible, foldable, and even stretchable displays
Flexible
displays will bring a huge revolution in the world of smartphones. However, before
knowing that we should know what flexible displays actually are-
Flexible displays:
The
fundamentals behind making a display thin and flexible lie in organic
transistor and an array of these transistors that control different front
planes. These transistors are also known as a backplane. The approach here is
to combine the flexible organic thin film transistor with an organic light
emitting diode (OLED), as both these technologies are best suitable for displays
with tight bend radius.
OLEDs
are mainly solid-state devices that have thin films of organic molecules. This
film creates light with the application of electricity. Unlike conventional
LEDs, OLEDs can provide brighter, crisper displays on electronic devices and
uses less power. In OLEDs, a plastic display is used that allows the display to
bend and twist. As there is just one sheet of substrate, they are paper thin
and light in weight. Such films are perfectly suitable for mobile phones and
wearable electronics. Right now, the use of flexible displays is evident in
curved phones and televisions as this allows the displays to be flexible and
keep the internal components intact.
There are two types of flexible displays
based either on reflectivity or emissivity:
1. Reflective based-E-paper technology
2. Emissive based- Flexible OLED
technology
Both
of these technologies are suitable to make displays as the images and text are
not distorted when the device is bent. Another common factor is that both technologies
do not rely on the backlight. However, the difference is reflective e-paper
technology is better for eyes as real paper as it reflects light and can hold
static image and text for indefinitely period without using electricity. While
the flexible OLEDs emit light when its each individual light-generating pixel
generates light when an electric charge is applied.
History of flexible displays:
Flexible
displays are not a new thing. They have been in development for 40 years now.
The very first attempt to develop flexible displays was in 1947 when engineers
at Xerox PARC developed first electronic paper displays in order to avoid the
paper waste. This newly designed paper was able to bend and distort just like
normal paper and thus was able to replace physical paper. The best part was
that the original display remained intact regardless of how the paper was held
(either flat or bend).
Another
example of flexible display is in the famous Amazon Kindle e-book reader, which
uses electronic paper technology. It has an electronic paper display and some
other components namely battery, processor, Wi-Fi, radio, etc. In this, the display
is flexible but the device is rigid due to the rigidity of other components.
This kind of e-paper cannot be used in phones and tablets as they have a very
low refresh rate, ghosting issues and are difficult to be produced in bulk in
colour.
The Advantage of flexible displays over
their rigid counterparts:
There
are several advantages of flexible displays that will set the future trends of
smartphones. Flexible displays are
highly durable and light in weight. They have thin dimensions with unique
software commands. As mentioned earlier that these displays used a plastic
substrate, they have good ability to flex. As a result, the electronic devices
in which they are used have more flexibility. There will be lesser screen
damage cases that otherwise occur due to brittle nature of other displays. As
these displays can be deformed, there are several other devices user interface
in them to enhance user experience. For example, when the device will be
folded, it will automatically go into sleep mode.
Type of Flexible displays:
Flexible
displays take a low cost in manufacturing and thus, display manufacturers are
experimenting with new ideas and technologies in this field. There are current
displays in the market that we can see in the form of curved televisions. From
the recent patent findings, it becomes evident that flexible displays will be
soon seen in the market. These displays will be available in the form of
bendable, foldable and roll able devices. Firstly, there will be foldable
displays to accommodate larger displays. This will be followed by the bendable
and roll able displays soon.
Need for improvement in flexible displays-
The
biggest challenge in making the flexible display is that while the display can
be made flexible, the machine behind the display is not. If plastic is used in
place of glass, it is not as good as protecting the thin film transistor from
moisture, oxygen, and other outer particles. Thus, to handle the effects of
flexible displays, it is essential that gadget-manufacturing company in India
and other countries must work on the phone technology to make it tough. It is
also important that phone batteries and circuit boards must be manipulated to
be flexible.
Leading manufacturers in the field:
With
the coming up of YOUM and other similar technologies, it is evident that there
are flexible and high-resolution displays available for mobile phones and
tablets. It was in January 2013 that Korean mobile giant, Samsung, released its
prototypes of YOUM displays at Consumer Electronics Show. Following this, the
company also released Galaxy Note Edge with curved edge in Sept 2013, and
Galaxy S6 Edge in 2015 with two curved edges.
Along
with Samsung, LG is also working on its flexible prototypes. The company
released its first curved phone namely G Flex in Jan 2014. Following this, G
Flex 2 was also released. In 2015, the company also released an 18-inch roll
able display prototype at SID and announced the release of its 60-inch version.
Apart from this, the company is also working on its 6th generation flexible
OLED production line in South Korea.
Along
with Samsung and LG, there was another flexible smartphone prototype from
Nokia. The prototype has the ability to morph into different form factors. It
was able to fold like a wristwatch and could be expanded into a tablet.
So
many prototypes from different manufacturers prove that flexible smartphones
are quite near in the future. Soon, there will be a time when we will be using
a single device which will not only functionally like different devices but
physically be converted into different forms.
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