Samsung allegedly shows a 5.68 foldable display at CES, ready for the mass market
According to industry sources, Samsung has demonstrated the world's first viable foldable display in the Encore hotel in Las Vegas yesterday. That's apparently a different one than the flexible displays on the Galaxy Round or LG G Flex.
It is still made with a plastic substrate, but uses film-like polyimide (PI), which bends much easier. Moreover, Samsung has integrated a metal mesh touch layer in the display itself, and not an indium tin oxide (ITO) film, which deteriorates when bent, especially at the curved area. Thus it has managed to achieve a 5.68" foldable prototype, which doesn't deteriorate the image quality at the bending area, even when folded many times over.
Samsung foldable display patent diagram
Samsung researchers demonstrated how they managed to crack the code of the bending area, so that the both the physical structure of the panel, and the image, don't deteriorate even after thousands of openings. It doesn't become very clear whether the prototype shown was 5.68" in folded state, but we certainly hope so, as that's a diagonal phones like the Note 3 ship with, and they are rather manageable as is. Now a tablet that folds into a 5.7" phone - that would be something to look forward to next year.
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