Samsung starts production of flexible OLEDs for thin smartphones

Samsung will start mass production of flexible active matrix OLEDs this quarter. The screens enable the development of thinner and lighter smartphones, but the first generation will not yet be flexible due to the use of glass.

Samsung will start mass production of flexible OLED screens this quarter on its 5.5 generation of production lines, writes the Korean site DDaily according to Boy Genius Report. Samsung has shown several times in the past that the flexible OLED screens can take a beating, but the first generation will nevertheless be provided with a rigid glass plate.

The first mobiles with the screens would appear at the end of this year. They will therefore not become flexible, but they can become a lot thinner and lighter: the panels are 0.6 mm thick compared to a thickness of 1.8 mm for the current OLED panels of smartphones.

At the end of 2014, the first smartphones that are flexible would be on the market. Corning recently announced that it has developed flexible glass, called Willow Glass, for bendable displays. Samsung produces the flexible OLEDs under the brand name Youm. It is not known what maximum resolution the flexible thin OLED panels from Samsung can get.