Lasers & Sources

Samsung flexible OLED display passes rigorous UL testing

Aug. 8, 2018

The display will find viable markets such as display consoles for autos, mobile military devices, portable games, and tablet PCs.

Gail Overton

Samsung calls its flexible OLED display 'unbreakable'.

Samsung Display (Seoul, Korea) announced earlier today that its organic light-emitting diode (OLED)-based smartphone panel has just been officially verified by UL (Underwriters Laboratories). Samsung Display said that in addition to being used on smartphones, the newly developed OLED display is expected to find viable markets with other electronic products such as display consoles for automobiles, mobile military devices, portable game consoles, and tablet PCs for e-learning.

Samsung Display developed the flexible OLED panel with an unbreakable substrate and an overlay window securely adhered to it. Current-generation flexible display products attach a glass-covered window to their display that often breaks when severely impacted.

"The fortified plastic window is especially suitable for portable electronic devices not only because of its unbreakable characteristics, but also because of its lightweight, transmissivity and hardness, which are all very similar to glass," said Hojung Kim, general manager of the Communication Team, Samsung Display.

According to UL, the unbreakable display developed by Samsung Display passed the rigorous real-time durability test that is based on military standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense. After a drop test administered at 1.2 m above the ground 26 times in succession, and accompanying high (71 degrees Celsius) and low (-32 degrees Celsius) temperature tests, the Samsung unbreakable OLED panel continued to function normally with no damage to its front, sides, or edges.

Even in a subsequent 1.8 m drop test--significantly higher than the U.S. military standard--Samsung Display's panel operated normally with no sign of damage.

SOURCE: Samsung; https://news.samsung.com/us/samsung-displays-unbreakable-panel-certified-underwriters-laboratories/

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.