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Spotlight

Foldable AMOLED with On-Cell Touch

In order to build up the supply chain of AMOLED of Taiwan and enable the manufacturers to cater to the international market, ITRI developed Foldable AMOLED with On-Cell Touch. According to Janglin Chen, Vice President and General Director of ITRI’s Display Technology Center, the ultra-slimness and flexibility of AMOLED are ideal properties for making wearable devices. ITRI integrates touch control functions with display panels, and plans to apply “the active foldable organic light emitting display modules” for making innovative handheld devices to realize the product concept: “when unfolded it is a tablet, and when folded it is a smart phone”.

ITRI’s flexible AMOLED can be folded 10,000 times over a curve formed with a 7.5 mm radius. The thickness of the module is less than 0.1 mm. The module is developed with the FlexUpTM technology which makes the display module flexible, difficult to break, water and oxygen-resistant, super light and thin. The display module can bring more applications which are beyond our imagination.

ITRI’s Tri-fold AMOLED can be bended inwards and outwards at the same time.

ITRI’s Tri-fold AMOLED can be bended
inwards and outwards at the same time.

The 6-inch foldable smart phone display integrates active organic LED modules and touch control software. When the display is unfolded, a user can select from a video play list to watch a video. Even when the display is folded, the device will keep on playing the video. After the display has been folded 10,000 times, its touch control functions the same way. The device gets rid of the restrictions imposed by traditional display panels. Besides, ITRI developed a Tri-fold AMOLED that can be bent both inwards and outwards at a bending radius of 5 mm. This feature will enable a novel killer application for handheld device, which is a smart phone when folded and a tablet when unfolded.

The innovative product will create new business opportunities for AMOLEDs. According to ITRI’s Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK), world sales of touch control display hit US$31.4 billion in 2013 and will reach US$43.7 billion by 2017. The compound annual growth rate from 2013 through 2017 is expected to reach 12.5%. Over the past few years, the number of touch control display products has been growing tremendously. The use of touch control displays will spread from smart handheld devices to a wide range of terminal devices.