Sony had been working behind the scenes on the flexible screens for quite a long time now and is pretty close now to revolutionize the electronics industry once again as its R&D activities are about to materialize into a very marketable product in the form of real flexible screens. Who knows, its success might help Sony get back its ‘Cool’ tag from Apple.
We have already heard about the flexible screen many a times, but this is the first time actual working video with the real screen has popped up and that too, from the Sony itself. So, it is confirmed that the screens that you may folding/unfolding at will are somewhere around the corner and might bang the market in a year or two.
Always a hub for innovation, Sony might delver it again and it will be a milestone in consumer electronics when such screens find space in the shelves of your nearest store. Watch the video to witness the screen yourself. Note that the video is played smoothly whether the screen is folded or plain.
Many curious minds will be wondering how come it be possible given the rigid structure of circuits, transistors and other electronic stuff. Well, the integration of Organic Thin-Film transistors (OTFTs) and OLEDs in the 20 micrometer thick flexible substrate did it. But the key to success was development of a flexible on-panel gate-driver circuit with OTFTs and soft organic insulators which meant that dependence on the traditional rigid driver integrated circuits (IC) chips ended.
Lets discuss the lengths and breadths of the screen now. The screen stretches 4.1 inches wide and is 80 micrometers think (thin). It provides a resolution of 432 x 240 at 121 pixels per inch (ppi) and grosses up a contrast ratio of 1000:1 with the support for 16.8 million colors. That is really a good performance given what we find today ion the similar market for the screens in smart phone industry.
For the concern of durability, the screen has no effect whatsoever on its performance quality when rolled up and down for as many as 1000 times. It seems that we will finally have something very cool to taste from the technology and with 3d TVs already in stores, it is a beginning of a new era with 3D and flexibility in the screens. What you say?
More info will be available when the company showcases the flexible screen at the upcoming Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium in Seattle on Thursday. Stay tuned for more!
For more on latest innovations in technology, check out announcement of Google TV and Chrome web store by Google.
