We haven’t seen much in the way of flexible displays since those gimmicky smartphones developed by South Korean consumer electronics giants LG and Samsung first appeared, but that could be about to change.
LG Display is thinking bigger and better, having just announced that it’s come up with a new 18-inch OLED panel that’s so flexible the company describes it as “rollable”, as well as a new 18in transparent OLED panel.
The company reckons that these new display technologies will form the basis of newer devices that can offer flexible and transparent displays with the best possible image quality.
The flexible OLED panel sounds pretty intriguing. LG says it comes with a HD resolution of 1200×810, packing almost one million megapixels. With a curvature radius of 30R, it’s possible to ‘roll’ the panel up into a kind of tube with a radius of just 3cm, all without breaking the actual display or its function in any way. LG’s been able to achieve this by using a high molecular substance-based polyimide film stuck onto the back of its flexible panels, rather than the conventional plastic that’s used in today’s panels. The use of polyimide film helps to keep the panels as thin as possible, therefore improving their flexibility.
According to LG, this means it’ll soon be able to start building ‘rollable TVs’ with 50-inch plus displays, with the first of these products hopefully arriving by 2017. The idea sounds interesting, but whether or not such devices will have any practical use remains to be seen – maybe we can go camping and stuff our rollable OLED televisions into our backpack?
A bit less exciting is LG’s second innovation of the day, which refers to a transparent OLED panel that has three times the transmittance of current LCD displays. The company says this should cut out some of the ‘haze’ generated by circuit devices and film components, resulting in a better picture quality.
“By 2017, we will successfully develop an Ultra HD flexible and transparent OLED panel of more than 60 inches,” claimed In-Byung Kang, Senior Vice President and Head of the R&D Center at LG Display.
LG is the undisputed leader in the fledging OLED TV market, being the only manufacturer at this point in time to launch such products in 2014. Last month, the Seoul-based conglomerate unveiled its 65in and 77in curved 4K OLED TVs in the UK, priced at £6,000 and £20,000 respectively.
Wow! Let’s hope they’re serious about this. I wouldn’t mind a 60″ OLED, even non-flexible and non-transparent.
I suppose it can replace window panes then!
Shouldn’t that be 1 megapixel not 1 million megapixels ?
@mark: You’re right of course, thanks for letting us know. Error corrected.
Warmest regards
Vincent
We are going to build amazing big, transparent, low consuming and bendable OLED TVs by 2007. Oh wait, its already 2014 and its was just a pipe-dream. They have the guts to re-play the same tune!
It seems they obtusely refuse to learn: OLED have no place in mainstream TV, they are simply too expensive to produce in large sizes and on devices that plan to function for more than 2 years. They will stay in smartphones.
@Wye: Well, I think their last actions show they’ve learned the lesson. Those big investments will start to work a bit later, yet they are successfully producing 55″ FHD OLED and 65-77″ UHD OLED panels. The process of OLED becoming mainstream has started, at least LG is committed to this goal.
Why would someone want a transparent TV?
LG gimmicks…