Displays of the Future: FOLED (A Photo Essay)

The future of digital screens is OLED or so it seems.

Displaysearch’s Q2,2009 reports worldwide OLED revenue has set a new record, with $192 million in revenue for Q2’09, a 22% YOY increment and a 32% QOQ increment in OLED shipments. Furthermore, Displaysearch predicts that OLED display market will grow from $.6 billion in 2008 to $6.2 billion in 2015, a 10X multiple in 7 years, at a CAGR of 33%. Mobile phone main displays will be the leading application with revenues of about $3 billion in 2016; OLED TV will be the second largest application, with revenues of about $2 billion in 2016.

The OLED growth is led by High end Mobile Phones/Smartphones, where the OLED/AMOLED screens act as a differentiator and over the course of next 4/5 years, we will also see OLED screens making an impact on Television technology and audiences as well.

However, it is not the OLEDs and AMOLEDs that we are talking about. The technology in focus is the FOLED: Flexible OLED.

Sony debuted its VAIO mini notebook concept in CES 2009 with the Flexi OLEDs. The FOLED is made up of high performance flexible bioplastic and has no restrictions on layout and size.

While there are stories and shots of Apple’s new Tablet all around, the most striking one to me was this next picture. It uses the full lenght FOLED screen that is folded in the middle to convert it into a netbook look alike. Half of the screen could be used as the monitor and the other half would be used a touch key pad.

Other concepts include Samsung’s Bendable 6.5 inch OLED screen.

Samsung had introduced the “Flapping Display” concept in FPD International 2008, which kept flapping like a piece of cloth under a fan. The specs were impressive at 0.05 mm 4″ OLED display, 480*272 pixel screen with a 100,000:1 contrast ratio and luminiscence of 200cd/sq.m.

Sony’s Play Station Portable  2 (PSP 3000) uses a Foldable OLED screen in a neat package in which the screen resides inside the console. This one designed by Tai Chiem is one radically different design on gaming consoles.

The last shots are that of Nokia 888, a concept based upon the idea where form changes in accordance to user’s requirements. Compared to the designs featured earlier, Nokia 888 is a slim rectangular design which has the advantage of being rolled up or shaped into a lot of unconventional features. The concept is exciting. Check out the accompanying video.