Future Device Form Factors Are Foldable, Rollable: Samsung Display CEO

Samsung Display sees a future in connectivity devices based on foldable, rollable, slidable and stretchable display form factors, said CEO Choi Joo-sun in a prerecorded keynote streamed Tuesday during the virtual Display Week 2021 conference. “Many people have been looking forward to the mobility revolution,” dominated by blurrier lines of product-category demarcation between smartphones, tablets and portable monitors, he said.

Implementing the new form factors requires the development of new materials and backplanes, said Choi. In larger-screen form factors, “minimizing dead space is key,” he said. He unveiled samples of “some of the demo products we are developing,” including a three-way-foldable display that “can be either a smartphone or tablet,” he said. He also showed a large-screen tablet that unfolds to become a widescreen portable desktop monitor. “Imagine the possibilities for devices that these various form factors can realize,” he said.

Samsung Display also is developing “under-panel camera” technology, said Choi. It’s to accommodate smartphone consumers who demand high-quality front-facing cameras that won’t interfere with a “wide and clear front screen,” he said. “It is by no means an easy technology,” said Choi, requiring the development of multiple “technical elements,” plus new “algorithms for driving the display and the camera.” The innovation especially requires development of a “low-resistance transparent electrode material,” he said.

The panel maker successfully began producing AMOLED displays at scale for small-screen form factors in 2007 “for the first time in the world,” said Choi. OLED “truly began with Samsung Display,” said Choi in an implied slap at rival LG Display, which specializes in commercializing OLED panels for large-screen TVs.

OLED is “now recognized as the world’s most premium display,” he said. OLED controlled 24% of the global display market through last year, including 57% of smartphones, Choi said. OLED’s total display share was 9% in 2013, he said. “Consumers now want the same high-quality viewing experience on every device they use, whether it is smartphones, tablets, laptops, monitors or even automotive,” said Choi. “Samsung Display will provide seamless, true-black solutions” ranging between one and 200 inches, “based on self-luminance” technologies, he said.

Materials “play a huge role” in the development of self-luminance displays that operate with no native backlights, said Choi. As OLED becomes more “diversified into IT products and automotive, the importance of power consumption and lifespan is increasing,” he said. “It is necessary to develop a new composition of materials.”