Flexible displays open new windows of opportunity

摘要

Researchers are working to combine polymer and metal-foil substrates with printable TFT backplanes to move flexible displays closer to commercial reality. For years, the "holy grail" of the display industry has been a thin, clear, flexible substrate with barrier properties equal to those of a sheet of glass. Flexible displays offer many potential benefits over other display technologies, including reductions in weight and thickness, improved ruggedness, and nonlinear form factors. These features make flexible displays attractive for a variety of electronic products ranging from cell phones and PDAs to computers, toys, electronic books, and "wearables." The market opportunities for flexible displays are so broad that major electronics, plastics, and printing companies worldwide are investing heavily in the development of polymers, metal foils, and nonthermal manufacturing processes, all geared toward the eventual mass production of flexible liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) and organic-light-emitting-diode (OLED) displays for consumer and military applications. The U.S. Army has even established the Flexible Display Initiative (FDI)—a five-year,