Everyone knows about the rising hype of flexible displays nowadays, and we know that a lot is going on OLED market. Many celebrities in China are stepping forward to make investments to scale up their production. But what is the right need for flexible displays? Will there ever be low-cost flexible segment displays on the market?
What is a flexible display?
In order to learn about flexible displays, first you need to know about its common technology which is OLED technology. However, other technologies are also available including flexible EPD and flexible electrochromic displays. A flexible display is just like ordinary display screens but with a flexible substrate. The substrate can be plastic, paper, flexible glass, or metal glass. Mostly, the flexible displays are thin, almost shatter-proof, and light, and sometimes it is curved, bendable, foldable displays.
Potential Benefits of Flexible Displays:
Flexible displays have the potential to provide an immersive and interactive user experience. The flexible displays will allow you to manipulate the displays in distinctive ways that are not possible with the traditional displays of the devices. Bendable displays will transform the human-machine interface and will alter the perspective of new applications. However, the flexible displays are more energy-efficient as compared to conventional displays. These displays will also require less power to operate, hence there are high chance that they will have a longer battery life for devices. The flexible displays are mostly shatterproof unlike glass-based displays as they are often plastic substrate fabricated.
Why flexible displays?
According to the press release of 2022, the flexible display market exceeds MarketsandMarkets™ by 15 billion USD. However, the market size in 2016 was 2.67 billion USD. Hence, to know where is the flexible display today and its importance now, let’s move forward:
Today, the most valued and biggest application of flexible displays is a smartphone. Moreover, the new functionalities of these flexible devices are debated But from the perspective of style and shape, it has impressive and noticeable features. Nowadays, many smartphone companies such as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, LG, and Oppo offer flexible displays that are wrapped around the edges of the screen. These displays are quite impressive in appearance. From this perspective, many actors have also claimed that these flexible displays are more durable and rugged as compared to traditional ones.
However, some other devices utilizing flexible displays have curved edges such as tablets and wearable technologies such as smartwatches. Flexible displays are used to follow edges, curves, and also in the shape of electronic devices.
However, some applications are arguably more futuristic and have great potential from a user perspective. Flexible OLEDs are very thin and many prototypes have exhibited a small bend radius. Royole, the display actor demonstrated a flexible AMOLED that measures 0.01 mm which is a 1 mm bendable radius in 2014. However, applications have not been seen in the market so far. There are also a few prototypes of VR/AR headsets that have thin and flexible displays.
Challenges to Widespread Adoption:
Along with its numerous features, few challenges have been witnessed in the adoption of flexible displays. One major concern is about the durability of these displays. Many flexible displays are not able to bend for many bending cycles before the degradation. Hence, it may be less appealing to the users who want a technology that works efficiently for a longer period.
However, the issue of high cost is still there except for the printed flexible displays. Still, the technology that is used to develop this technology is quite costly. Hence, the developed product of flexible displays will be charged more costly as compared to the traditional displays in the market. That makes it less accessible to average customers.
The Future of Flexible Display Technology:
Despite all the challenges that we are facing now in flexible display technology, soon it will show us its bright future. As this technology advances with time, it will blow your mind with numerous features in different innovation displays. No matter who you are this technology is worth keeping an eye on it, if you have a little bit of interest in the future of technology. It is certainly true that flexible displays will significantly change the way we interact with our devices now.
As we have discussed above, the main challenge with adopting flexible displays is the high cost, and especially OLED technology is particularly expensive. But, the Ynvisible Printed E-Paper display exceptionally offers a low-cost alternative with the cutting-edge printed electronics process and with organic electrochromic materials. Thus, it is a viable option for product developers to use this to deliver an affordable flexible display.
On the whole, the future of technology seems to be moving forward from rigid, flat displays towards flexible and curved displays. The Ynvisible display offers a more cost-efficient path for developers to incorporate this technology into their products.
