Tiny tablets’ major advantage over the 10-inch crowd: They’ll fit in your pocket (especially if you’re the type of person who wears cargo pants). Samsung’s latest foldable, creaseless AMOLED display will let you fold a tablet in half—effectively making bigger tablets pocketable.
Back in 2008, the South Korean company showcased a foldable OLED mobile phone at the FPD conference for display manufacturers. The technology was stunning back then but it suffered from one major flaw — the hinge required for folding produced a crease in the middle of the display.
The electronics manufacturer has removed this imperfection using a combination of silicone rubber, two protective glass panels and a pair of AMOLED displays. The AMOLED displays are mounted seamlessly next to each other on a flat piece of silicone rubber, two glass panels are placed on top of the AMOLED panels, both to protect the displays and let you use them as touchscreens. This rubber sandwich is then mounted in a case and folded in half.
The magic in this equation lies in the silicone rubber which is hyper-elastic and lets you fold it 180 degrees with a hinge less than 1mm. The researchers were able to fold the display over 100,000 times with minimal effect on the optical quality of the AMOLED (just a 6 percent brightness loss at the crease) or the elasticity of the rubber. This system is better than other foldable OLED technologies as it uses components that are readily available and relatively inexpensive. Though I can’t see this technology adding much to smartphones, who wouldn’t want a foldable tablet? [Physorg and Fast Company]