Sony Introduces Roll-Up OLED Display

The futuristic rolled-up computers and displays of several science-fiction films have taken one more step towards reality with Sony’s new flexible OLED display. At only the thickness of a typical human hair (80 micrometers), it can be wrapped around a cylinder the diameter of a pencil. All this, while also producing video of surprising quality.

At 4.1 inches, the display is not ready to replace more traditional large-screen TV LED products. However, its flexibility and reasonable resolution (432 x 240) are the exciting features. From a technology standpoint, the Sony flexible OLED display represents a major advance because of the switch from rigid IC chips in the screen substrate to OTFT (organic thin-film transistors) used as part of a gate-driver circuit.

Other companies, such as Dai Nippon and GE have also been working on flexible OLED displays but targeting different markets. GE has focused its efforts on OLED lighting products, while Dai Nippon has introduced large-screen prototypes that integrate OLED and LED technologies. Sony presented one of the first flexible OLED prototypes as far back as the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Their new ultrathin OLED product is intended for small-screen devices such as mobile phones.

image credit: Sony