Daily Management Review

Samsung introduces display technology for folding screens


11/08/2018


Samsung announced the Infinity Flex Display technology, which will form the basis of devices that are bent in half.



The company demonstrated the technology on the example of an unnamed smartphone: in the expanded state, the screen diagonal is 7.3 inches, and the interface automatically adjusts to the screen size. Samsung intends to begin mass production of flexible displays in the "coming months."

Google's vice president of development for Android, Dave Burke, announced that Samsung with a flexible screen will be released as early as 2019, notes CNBC. Production of such a smartphone is a rather complicated process just because of the Infinity Flex display. For example, Samsung had to replace the display glass with a new composite polymer, which is capable of being both flexible and rigid. This material was invented by the company specifically for the new device.

Another problem with the Infinity Flex display is that it has to be quite reliable, because it will be folded hundreds of thousands of times throughout the life of the smartphone. However, it should not degrade over time. For this, Samsung has used plastic glue that securely joins all the components together, allowing them to bend and unbend many times.

The Infinity Flex technology, which is installed in the latest prototype of the Samsung smartphone, belongs to one of several types of foldable screens, which, according to media reports, were previously developed in the company and presented to a limited circle of people at the beginning of this year.

Even at an early stage of development, the prototypes of the Infinity Flex display were very thin, and so the screen remains even now. Nevertheless, the prototype of a flexible smartphone shown to the public in the folded state looks quite voluminous. There is a high probability that the thickness of the smartphone will still be reduced by the time of the announcement of the serial device.

Samsung said they worked closely with Google and the Android developer community to create a truly minimal user interface. This is how the One UI shell appeared, displaying all the important information in the lower half of the screen, so that it was convenient for them to use with one hand.

When the smartphone is in an expanded state, the user interface goes into tablet mode, which gives more freedom of action. For example, One UI will allow you to simultaneously open up to three applications at once, to maximize the use of a large folding panel.

Samsung is not the only manufacturer working on a flexible screen smartphone. In early November 2018, California-based company Royale showed its device with a diagonal of 7.8 inches in the opened state. In addition, there are rumors that Huawei and Lenovo are working on smartphones with a flexible screen, while LG plans to launch a smart phone with a flexible OLED display and a 65-inch TV that can be “folded” into a special unit.

source: theverge.com