Electronics

Samsung to unveil next-gen flexible and transparent AMOLED displays at CES 2011

Samsung Mobile Display is set to unveil a pair of next-gen AMOLED display prototypes at CES 2011
Samsung Mobile Display is set to unveil a pair of next-gen AMOLED display prototypes at CES 2011

There’s bound to be all manner of display technologies vying for eyeballs at CES 2011 when it kicks off in Las Vegas next week and two prototype AMOLED displays from Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) will definitely be high on our list of things to check out. The first is a 4.5-inch 800 x 480 (WVGA) resolution flexible AMOLED display concept prototype for mobile devices, while the second is the world’s largest transparent AMOLED display prototype for use in PC monitors and TVs.

Flexible AMOLED display prototype

SMD’s 4.5-inch flexible AMOLED display is two millimeters (0.08-in) thick and can be rolled down to a radius of one centimeter (0.39-in). The concept prototype’s 800 x 480 resolution, which Samsung claims is four times that of the previous most flexible AMOLED prototype constructed, comes courtesy of a new plastic substrate that can withstand the 450-500 degree Celsius temperatures required in the manufacturing process. As this overcomes the problem of previous plastic materials melting during the manufacturing process that made commercialization of such devices difficult, Samsung says the concept display on show marks a major step on the road to mass production for the next-gen display, which is aimed at smartphones and tablet PCs.

Transparent AMOLED display prototype

The second prototype display to be unveiled is aimed at larger screen applications such as TVs and PC monitors. The 19-inch transparent AMOLED display prototype sports a qFHD (quad Full High Definition) resolution. This is a non-standard resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels arranged in a 16:9 aspect ratio that gets its name from being four times the resolution of 1080p. The prototype display is the world’s first large transparent AMOLED display prototype and, while the average amount of transparency previously achieved has been below 10 percent, SMD’s display maintains up to 30 percent transparency whether it is turned on or off. Samsung says this will allow the technology to be used for surfing the internet while watching TV or even watching TV on windows – and by that it means the glass kind, including car windows, not the operating system.

As well as the 19-inch prototype, SMD will also be exhibiting a 14-inch qFHD transparent AMOLED display designed for notebooks.

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8 comments
quatermass
Why would anyone want a semi-transparent display? This will seriously reduce the contrast ratio and make it harder to read. We don\'t all live in Film-land...
David Larson
so it would be cool to eventually have a hi tech cel phone that LOOKS and acts like an ancient scroll-- just pull out the display to read and chat then zip it back in to hang up.
Gadgeteer
A transparent display may be useful for head-up displays, but like quatermass wrote, mostly useless for everyday purposes. Take any application on Mac OS X or Windows 7 that supports variable transparency windows and turn down the opaqueness so you can see your desktop or other windows behind it. You\'ll quickly see that it makes things much harder to read.
Peter Dawson
The most compelling form of computing I have seen comes from the hard sci-fi novel BLOOM by Wil McCarthy. Similar to the \"Mission Impossible glasses\", these were a high resolution \'augmented reality\' display which the user could interact with using gestures - \'think kinect\'.
All the technology (including transparent, flexible displays) to create this exists now. I see this as the future of portable computing, since we will eventually want more information displayed visually than a handheld display can ever deliver.
christopher
Guys - the richest consumers on the planet have enormous glass windows overlooking spectacular views by day - which are useless wastelands of black nothing at night-time - when the occupants would normally be watching TV. Sounds like perfect symbiosis to me.
kalqlate
Transparent qFHD... sounds like medical applications are the main target.
José Maertens
Hey don\'t be so negative. Manuftrs known that transparant problem from the beginning. If you don\'t like transparancy you can or may choose white or any other color at the background. Changable by hard or softw. Or stick a white paper on the back if you like. lol There are much more possibility\'s with transparancy than nontransparancy. Be patient, time solved all problems!
Emma Jade
Caprica anyone?